Engaging with research through practitioner enquiry: the perceptions of beginning teachers on a postgraduate initial teacher education programme

Abstract

This study focuses on the perceptions of student-teachers towards their engagement in small-scale research projects undertaken whilst on a one-year postgraduate initial teacher education programme. We present an institutional response to national and international policy agendas regarding the place of research within initial teacher education at master’s level, focusing on the role of practitioner enquiry in facilitating a critical engagement with practice. The paper concludes that practitioner enquiry offers a potentially powerful and illuminating way of exploring emerging professional identity and asserting agency in beginning teachers.

Keywords:

• master’s level
• practitioner enquiry
• initial teacher education

Notes

1. References to ‘M’-level engagement within the authors’ institutional context are framed by policy documentation produced by the Training and Development Agency (2007) in England and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (2008) Framework for Higher Education Qualifications in England. The article makes more generic references to ‘M’-level and ‘M’-ness in acknowledgement of the ongoing debate across Europe, inspired in part by the Bologna process, about the place of research engagement within provision of postgraduate teacher education at master’s level.