10. Teacher Education Research

Teacher education is an important field for research, since the quality of teacher education has been regularly questioned by European governments, whilst teacher quality is increasingly seen as crucial to improving educational outcomes and pupil achievement.  

Consequently, teacher education researchers need to work together in order to:

• Identify emerging themes in teacher education research
• Build a distinctive profile for teacher education research in Europe
• Share and critique emerging research findings
• Develop innovative research methodologies within teacher education
• Develop innovative teaching and learning methods within teacher education

The network is concerned with Teacher Education in a wide sense and is not limited to teacher education in Universities. However, research concerned specifically with school-based Continuing Professional Development is more appropriate to Network 1. We are interested in professional development as a wider theme and also in teacher induction and re-qualification research.

Proposals submitted to the network should not be about classroom teaching methods (pedagogy), subject didactics or teacher identities unless there is a specific focus on how these are formed in teacher education. As with other EERA networks, proposals must have European or international aspects and should not simply describe national or local programmes.  Thus, they should draw on a wide range of sources and should include discussion of the international implications of the research. Research questions and discussion should include a critical element and if numerical analyses are involved, these should be more than just descriptive statistics. Research should go beyond replication of previous studies and should advance understandings of teacher education in all its aspects.

Appropriate themes include:

• Challenges of the European dimension in teacher education research
• Research on pedagogical approaches in teacher education
• Research on professional knowledge, identity, beliefs & understanding of teaching & learning in teacher education
• Building a research-based agenda for teacher education
• Research on teacher induction
• Research on the theoretical base for teacher education

Papers and posters relevant to any or all of the above would be appropriate for proposals to network 10.

Symposia should have a clear overall theme, at least three different national contexts and some provision for focused discussion. If a discussant is arranged, it is important for papers to be provided to that person in advance. All sessions should have at least one third of the overall tme devoted to audience questions and discussion.

We welcome workshop sessions where interactivity is encouraged. These should be clearly described as workshops, with details of activities planned and the overall theme set out. They should not involve extensive presentation of prior research findings.