01.Professional Learning and Development
Research Workshop
STEP: Sustainable Transition for Teacher Education to Profession – Diversity in Educational Research
Eva Bjerkholt1, Knut-Rune Olsen1, Tonje Harbek Brokke1, Gunn Gallavara2, Lars Strande Syrrist4, Magnus Mork3
1University of South-Eastern Norway (USN); 2Union of Education Norway (UEN); 3The Norwegian Association of local and regional authorities (KS); 4Norwegian Teacher Student Union (PS)
Presenting Author: Bjerkholt, Eva;
Olsen, Knut-Rune;
Brokke, Tonje Harbek;
Gallavara, Gunn;
Syrrist, Lars Strande;
Mork, Magnus
This workshop will present and discuss the research and collaborative project STEP funded by the Research Council of Norway. STEP could be discussed as a model for collaborative projects in the educational field. The project period extends over four years from March 2021 to March 2025. The partners in the project are researchers from the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN); the University of Tromsø (UiT) - the Arctic University of Norway, representatives of The Union of Education Norway (UEN), their student organization Norwegian Teacher Student Union (PS) and The Norwegian Association of local and regional authorities (KS).
STEP follows the first generation of student teachers from the five-year master's education for primary school teachers in Norway during the last year of study and the first two years as teachers.
The primary objective is to develop research- and experience-based knowledge on the transition from Master Initial Teacher Education (M-ITE) into the teacher profession. This knowledge will influence the further development, implementation, and institutionalization of the Norwegian national framework for mentoring Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) as a sustainable, coherent induction and mentoring system for individual and collective learning for NQTs.
STEPs overall research questions are:
Work package 1 (WP1): What expectations do students and their future colleagues; school leaders and owners have for the newly qualified teachers' mastery of the challenges they face in school?
WP2 and WP3: What measures can help retain graduates in the profession and be part of a comprehensive strategy for career development and competence enhancement in schools? How is the graduates' professional competence and insight into research valued and used in school?
WP4: How can research-based knowledge contribute to developing the national framework for mentoring newly qualified teachers?
This workshop will highlight both the preliminary findings from a questionnaire to the student teachers in their last year before graduating and the cooperation model between the partners in this research project.
Students’ expectation to becoming teachers
The questionnaire was sent to the first generation of students graduating from the five-year master's program for primary school teachers in Norway in the autumn of 2021. The following research questions were used as a basis for the preparation of the questionnaire:
o What do the students assume will represent their biggest challenges?
o How do they assess their own competence for meeting these challenges?
o What measures do they think may be needed in order to support them in the transition from teacher education to the professional work as a teacher?
o What do they think they can contribute with in collegial collaboration and in the meeting with the students?
The questionnaire was administered digitally and was answered by about 500 of a population of approximately 2000 students. For results: see preliminary findings below.
Partnership
The partners in STEP represent different perspectives in a diverse educational community and contribute to a more complex dialogue and understanding of both local, national, and international context and research. This diversity presents various legitimate interests which may cause tensions but also growth, different perspectives, and possibilities to understand complexity. Legitimate interests and tensions need to be respected and valued as positive factors in collaborative projects. What sort of tensions have we experienced in this project?
The novelty of STEP is the unique collaboration between researchers and stakeholders, the combination of research- and experienced based knowledge and the knowledge of policymaking in Norway and internationally. STEP aims to develop a model for collaboration between researchers and partners/stakeholders on research- and experience-based policymaking and thereby to facilitate dialogues on policymaking both nationally and internationally.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedCultural historical theory (CHAT) is the theoretical base in STEP (Engeström, 1987,2001). We aim for conceptual growth within and across boundaries, with increased possibilities for learning and development related to boundary crossing. Boundary crossing can be understood as an effort to overcome discontinuity between institutions in the development of shared activities, understanding and knowledge (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011). The boundary crossing creates possibliities for new perspectives and boundary crossing.
By means of conceptual tools from CHAT, we investigate the transition from students to newly qualified teachers.
In STEP we combine different approaches for gathering data. Three Research circles (RC) (Persson 2016, Bjerkholt & Stokke 2017, Røise & Bjerkholt 2020) are established. The participants in the RCs represent different partners organizations and networks. Through dialogues in RCs, the project promotes different forms of knowledge (experience-based, research-based knowledge and policymaking). These discussions are recorded, transkribed, coded and categorized (Braun & Clarke, 2014; Creeswell, 2013).
In addition, KS-network for primary schools has recruited nine municipalities and some of their primary schools to participate in the project. Data from the schools in form of self-reports, transcribed dialogues, audio recordings of mentoring and meetings, and transcribed individual and group interviews ( Brinkmann & Kvale 2018) with the different actors. The data will be analyzed.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
STEP aims to develop a model for collaboration between researchers and partners/stakeholders on research- and experience-based policymaking and thereby to facilitate dialogues on policymaking.
In the STEP project we have also experienced tensions and periods of conflicts between some of the stakeholders represented. In line of the international debate of the ongoing dialogue about what it means to ‘do’ educational research in the 21st century it is important to build on commitments to a common goal like we have managed despite the conflicts.
The results from the questionnaire to the student teachers show that most students look forward to the meeting with the school as an organization with anticipation and optimism. At the same time, the answers testify to a high degree of uncertainty regarding whether the education they are about to complete in spring 2022 has adequately prepared them for the tasks that await them. Almost without exception, students are positive about being mentored by an experienced mentor with formal competence in mentoring as the national guidelines for mentoring NQTs entitle them to.
The final year of the education includes a basic introduction to science theory and method. The students will also carry out a minor scientific study as a basis for a master's thesis with a self-chosen topic. The data show that many of the students are unsure about whether the work on the master's thesis will give them a better basis for their future work in school.
ReferencesAkkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects. Review of educational research, 81(2), 132-169.
Attard-Tonna, M., Bjerkholt, E., & Holland, E. (2017). Teacher mentoring and the reflective practitioner approach. International Journal of Mentoring and Couching in Education. Vol 6(3), 210-227. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-04-2017-0032
Bjerkholt, E., & Stokke, H. S. (2017). Et forskende fellesskap-Forskningssirkler på t vers av læringsarenaene i lærerutdanningene. Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift, 101(2), 157-168. Doi: 10.1826/issn.1504-2987-2017-02-05.
Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2018). Doing interviews (Vol. 2). Sage.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101.
Creswell, J.W, (2013), Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design. Choosing among Five Approaches. Sage.
Engestrøm, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work. Toward an activity-theoretical reconceptualization. Institute of Education, University of London.
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultitoy.
Olsen, Knut-Rune et al. (2022) Lærerstudenters forventninger til arbeidet som profesjonelle lærere i skolen, Skriftserien fra Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge, nr. 105 https://openarchive.usn.no/usn-xmlui/handle/11250/3028158
Olsen, K-R., Bjerkholt, E. & Heikkinen, H.L.T. (Eds.)(2020). New teachers in the Nordic Countries – Ecologies of mentoring and induction. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk open access.
Persson, S. (2016). Mötet mellan kunskapsformer: forskningscirkeln och den skolnära forskningen. In E. Anderberg (Ed.), Skolnära forskningsmetoder, pp. 159-174. Studentlitteratur.
Røise, P. & Bjerkholt, E. (2020). Frigjørende deltakelse i en forskningssirkel om faget utdanningsvalg. Forskning og Forandring, 3(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.23865/fof.v3.2160
Shanks, R., Attard Tonna, M., Krøjgaard, F., Paaske, K., Robson, D., & Bjerkholt, E. (2020). A comparative study of mentoring for new teachers. Professional Development in Education. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2020.1744684
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