Editorial

Teachers conducting research is increasingly being discussed in relation to enhancing teacher professionalism. Yet many questions remain, not least what impact is teacher research having on improving practice? What is meant by teacher research is not always clear which adds to the challenge of understanding the contribution that it makes to teaching and learning. For example, papers published in this journal have used different terminology to describe the notion of teachers reflecting on their practice which adds to the difficulty for teachers in making meaning. Terms such as research; action research; practitioner enquiry; evaluative enquiry have all been used in the context of teacher research. Authors have also written about the different ways that teachers engage in enquiry. For example, these have included working with colleagues in a collaborative way through lesson study or through communities for practice. These approaches can be designed to enable teachers to discuss practice with one another by drawing on data sometimes collected by the teachers themselves or by others. The first two articles in this issue concern teacher enquiry and teachers’ engagement with research offering two different perspectives.

Kreijns, Vermeulen, Evers and Meijs in the first article focus on exploring the inquiry habit of mind (Earl and Katz 2002). They argue that notwithstanding the growing body of literature on teacher inquiry there is still a lack of a valid instrument to measures it. In their article, they present their study which developed the Teachers’ Inquiry Habit of Mind Scale. Kreijns et al. suggest that the scale is useful not only for research that investigates teachers’ research attitude and intention to do research, but also as an evaluation tool for the development of an inquiry habit of mind in student teachers, experienced teachers and teacher educators. The second article focuses on exploring ways to disseminate research findings to teachers. Hopwood-Stephens and McMahon suggest that many education researchers disseminate their innovations online as they find in-service teachers hard to reach. They argue that dissemination by event may be a more effective means, but little is known about its relative value in a dissemination strategy, nor potential influence upon research innovation downloads. By demonstrating the value of dissemination events in stimulating downloads of educational research innovations online, the results of their study show the importance of social learning opportunities to a successful bimodal dissemination strategy.

The third and fourth articles focus on curriculum areas that remain central to student learning. Oliveira, Lopes and Spear-Swerling in the third article present a study that examines the contents of 130 courses related to literacy instruction from a national sample of primary teachers’ undergraduate programmes. They discuss the results of their investigation which show that the most critical features of literacy instruction (e.g., phonics, theory of literature) are included in the course contents of most programmes. However, their findings show that other critical features such as reading/writing comprehension skills are under-represented and others apparently missing (assessment and intervention in reading/writing problems). Rather worryingly despite the emphasis placed on literacy for all students, Oliveira et al.’s findings show that the time allocated to literacy instruction in teacher education appears to be limited. In the fourth article, Craig, Evans, Verma, Stokes and Li present a narrative enquiry that examines the influences exerted by former school teachers on undergraduate and graduate students who enrol in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programmes. The students’ narratives form instructive models for other students pursuing STEM degrees and careers. The students’ stories of their experiences capture the far-reaching impact of ‘unsung teachers’ whose long-term influence is underestimated. Craig et al. conclude their article with a synthesis of what they believe can be learned from their findings about the short and long-term impact of teachers on students’ tertiary education and career choices. Formative assessment is another topic that continues to dominate discussions in teacher education and it is of concern to all teachers regardless of their particular curriculum area. Pastore, Manuti and Scardigno in the fifth article explore the perceptions that teachers in Italy have of assessment. They draw from their findings to propose more effective approaches for preparing teachers for assessment practices through teacher education.

The final three articles explore social and emotional issues from different perspectives. In the sixth article, Gustems-Carnicer, Calderón and Calderón-Garrido discuss the important topic of stress in teacher education. Three main findings were identified by the authors from their study. First, many students experienced stress and used avoidance coping strategies. Second, the students who were under less stress and engaged less in cognitive avoidance and more in problem-focused coping were also the students who made more academic achievement. Third, students under more stress performed worse, but with increasing age, stress affected performance less. Gustems-Carnicer et al. emphasise the importance of recognising and addressing the harmful effects of stress on well-being and academic achievement of student teachers in an effort to avoid longer-term problems in their professional and personal life. Kassis, Graf, Keller, Ding and Rohlfs in the seventh article discuss their study which analysed the effects of the social support students receive from family and from fellow-students and the students’ perceived self-efficacy in relation to the basic psychological needs. They developed two scales adapting Mansfield’s qualitative approach on teacher resilience in order to measure the effects of received social support on the satisfaction of basic needs. Their findings showed that perceived self-efficacy was affected directly by received fellow-students’ support as well as having a mediation effect on higher levels of autonomy and competence, whereas received family support leads only to higher levels of autonomy. According to Kassis et al. received fellow-students’ support is directly connected to higher levels of need satisfaction. In the final article Nielsen et al. share the findings of an EU-project entitled Hand in Hand. The project focused on social, emotional and intercultural (SEI) competencies among students and school staff. The authors identify five themes from their research findings: intercultural/transcultural competency is not often referred to as social-emotional learning, though socio-emotional aspects appear to be `in the core´; awareness of agency among school staff is crucial in a SEI-implementation; successful implementation is about more than the activities in the specific programme, it is rather about elements in synergy and professional learning over time; the subtle balance between adaptation and fidelity might best be addressed in an adaptive curriculum emphasising active ingredients; and SEI is a field with many intervention studies, but it is urgent to consider if the psychometric measures are sufficiently sensitive to catch the subtle changes related to SEI-competencies.