Hi Helma. This is a great question, and I look forward to seeing what others think of the issue as well, but I will "dive in the deep end" a bit, and be the first to offer a personal opinion. Hopefully many others will also respond, and you will wind up with a lot of useful information!

I work in a School of Education that is located within a rural Australian university, and we have the same sort of "split" concerning the function and value of research for training teachers as you seem to be suggesting. I feel this is quite an important matter too, and believe that the primary role for this sort of research is that it focuses our attention on what we are doing from a more critical perspective, calling our attention to those aspects of what we do that link theory and practice together. Linking theory & practice is an important issue in teacher training, because if we fail to clarify this relationship sufficiently as people are preparing to enter the profession, there is a danger that different values will be applied to theory than to practice, creating somewhat of an artificial divide between the two.

For myself, the value of research for training teachers is that it raises awareness of various theory/practice connections, allowing these students a more conscious understanding of how their teaching is positioned within a much larger framework. I refer to this as the "intentionality effect", because it provides more intentional control over how, where, when and why we work from theory into practice. This may be a bit similar to having an "academic attitude" in some ways, but it is far more directed and inclusive than merely having a particular attitude. All the best...Tony

Yes. I agree with you Tony. I have just completed my Ph.D in management and am working with Prestige Institute of Management, Gwalior, India and for last five years I was wondering for the answer to this question only. I was also of the opinion that there is practically no connect between research training and student learning but over a period of time I realized that it is research that eventually links the student's learning (theory) and their research orientation (practice) that makes them wise, wiser and wisest in their respective field (domain) as the research they do the more insight they get in that area. An aptitude is instilled with the incubation of research element. This all I can say because I have seen tremendous growth of those students who developed their research skills with the help of their teachers not only during the academic programs but also after their placement. As such nowadays the industry also looks for bright research-oriented candidates who can really make a difference with their acumen and they are also updated. Hence I conclude by saying that trained research teachers are a boon to any academic institution for that they can nurture excellence in future professionals and/or budding managers.....Aashish Mehra.

I also agree. I believe that providing research opportunities helps foster teachers who are more aware of current research on teaching and student learning, which may also help to thwart the research-to-practice gap. In the graduate program I teach at in the U.S., the students complete a research project during their student teaching semester (similar in many ways to a "thesis" project other programs may have). For the project, students need to design an intervention that meets the needs of the students in their classroom. In this way, it also fosters the the idea of data-based decision making. I have only begun to collect some data on this, but I do believe the students are more likely to look to research evidence when designing interventions based on their experience. I also think their interventions as classroom teachers will be better planned and more effective based on the experience (again, this is an assumption- I haven't had a chance to collect any data yet).

In my field (special education), there is also growing awareness of the need to cultivate "practice-based evidence" to support the little we know about about evidence-based practices. Researchers are beginning to look to classroom teachers to help understand the realities of implementing teaching practices considered evidence or research-based. Providing opportunities for students to be a part of the research process and be exposed to research methodologies will help teachers to become an effective part of this movement.

To Tony, Aashish and Loretta,

Thank you very much for giving us your thoughts on this matter. I recognize some of the aspects in data I have collected with teacher educators. They especially mention doing research helps students understand/work with /learn from theory. They also assume that doing research will help student teachers make more informed decisions in the future, question their own assumptions. I would reall like to follow this up also with student teachers themselves... Hoping for more responses and food for thought

My view based upon 22 years as a teacher and 24 as an academic is that research into practice develops critical reflection skills. Classroom teachers work in isolation and are busy with the practicalities of their day to day work. Critical reflection helps teachers, both beginning and experienced to examine their practice and to look for ways to improve. It is not surprising that classroom teachers question the value of research into practice as they have had little experience with this during the career.

I certainly think the idea of researching an issue in education is a very worthwhile - as too often changes to educational practices are made for reasons such as cost, gut feeling, the teacher next door tried it and it seemed to work, my neighbour used to be a teacher and she said... etc. However, I am not sure that we need to necessarily tie it to an academic attitude - as this tends to imply that the act of teaching (without research) is something of a non-academic nature. Encourage research for the practical benefits it brings to both teachers and their students and I think that this should suffice.

Fair enough Kevin, yet the alternative reasons for change that you seem to mention yourself are certainly not engendering an academic attitude. I feel myself that it would be difficult to divorce the practice of research from some sort of attitude, because research does require that a certain mind-set (call it attitude) be involved in the first instance. The intuitive link to this being an "academic" attitude is that we are discussing what is normally referred to as "academic research", specifically in relation to educational training, with underlying queries concerning rigour and relevance. On top of this, the most research intensive universities I have had the privilege to work with or visit (Vanderbilt, Cambridge, Oxford, Melbourne, UCLA and even Griffith) have all had in common that they fostered a palpable culture of research, and this certainly involved particular attitudes on the part of the university staff and students alike.

Hello all, I think this is a very important issue and would like to raise a few ideas that don't yet appear to have been covered. I teach on an Initial Teacher Education course at the University of Wolverhampton for teachers entering Further Education (16-19 & beyond) Colleges. The idea of teacher as researcher is central to our programmes. The key element that informs this is that we think it vital that students have an insight into policy changes and the impact of these. Education in England has for the last thirty or so years been subjected to a welter of reforms and an increasingly centralised involvement on the part of the national government. This has had serious consequences, not least connected to knowledge production itself. Assessment, targets and managerialist cultures which provide data for government and which can also determine funding within the education market are distorting educational values and even beginning to undermine some of the key purposes of education that inform students' entry into the profession. At the heart of this problem is the use of data and the production of certain kinds of knowledge. We believe that students need to develop their insights into the complexities of research, not just to develop their own practice but to understand the potentially damaging political forces that are shaping education at the moment. The connection between teaching and research is one that is championed by Lawrence Stenhouse and Jon Elliott - Stenhouse was writing twenty or so years ago, but he believed that teachers' research around their subject area was necessary if a discursive curriculum was to be realised.

i'm not sure about the 'academic attitude' part of the discussion. Research is important for teachers on courses that are at pre-degree level as well as at Masters. Significantly, the kind of practitioner-based research our courses champion connects practice to policy concerns - to that extent it promotes what Brookfield wouild call 'criticality'.

Student-teacher research interactions could be like a special problem oriented to solve some preliminary aspects of research and both be benefited by their experiences and interactions and also may give a cooperative atmosphere.

It always help both the teachers and students to improve their skills. Side by side certain basic difficulties confronted during conducting research activities can be solved easily which becomes beneficial for future research activities.

It empowers student-teachers to link theory and research with practice and to understand that their classroom is field where research can be done and that they can also research their own practice (action research & self study) and to develop both reflective and reflexive practices. It is also an opportunity to unpack theories they have learned in the courses thay have taken that seem exotic and provides opportunities to see such theories unfold before their eyes in such ways that illuminate and elevate their conceptual understanding. It also inculcate in them that research is not outside their domain of practice and that it is not only reserved for special people most of who are dead. I would recommend books like Joe Kincheloe's book, "Teachers as Researchers" and articles such as or books by Kenneth Tobin, "Teaching at the Elbow of Another" and others. May be these will help the skeptics to understand the need to support such pipeline as students who are given this opportunity end up coming back for their master degree and even PhD. There are many more articles and books on this issues. Just google. Hope this helps a bit.

Dear Helma,

I live and work as a teacher educator in Colombia (South America) and most of us regard teaching and research as two sides of the same coin. Following Stenhouse (1975) and Elliot (1994), we do not believe teaching should be an activity done by teachers and research on teaching a separate activity conducted by outside researchers. For us, the practice of teaching should be regarded as a reflective activity, which dispels the division between teachers and researchers. We also believe research is a means for teacher empowerment because when teachers submit our daily practice to rigorous self-examination, we can better respond to our working environment and to the needs and social agenda of our students. Based on these previous premises, I am of the idea that student teacher research definitely contributes, among other things, to teaching competencies and an academic attitude etc. Above of all, I believe it facilitates the use of retrospection, introspection and participatory observation, which undoubtedly helps clarify guiding theories, specify pedagogical interventions, and transform unsuccessful practices.

Best regards.

I think that a period of adjustment to the workplace (for a year) would be beneficial for teacher training beginner. In this way they becomes accustomed to workplace, colleagues, requirements.

I think doing research is important as it can enhance teacher's sensitivity on the latest issues of the macro-environment. Thus, avoid teachers circulating on their own practices. Having said that the experience in the field is also crucial as it promotes teachers' senstivity on students' needs and contextual issues helping them to engage in the reflective loop. It is in this way that teachers can re-organize their experience and generate new theories.