The relationship between pedagogical views and practices among pre-service teacher educators

Abstract

This study examined the link between teacher educators’ views and practices by employing a mixed-methods design. Korthagen’s broad categorization of teachers’ learning as realistic and application of theory approaches are used as a framework for the study. Realistic approach focuses on organizing learning experiences for student teachers to provide opportunities to practice learning to teach and reflect on these opportunities. The application of theory approach focuses on learning theories about teaching and expecting student teachers to apply them during teaching. Questionnaires were used to gather data from 234 teacher educators selected through stratified random sampling. Data were also collected through unstructured interviews with five purposively selected teacher educators. The results showed that, although teacher educators viewed learning to teach as a realistic model, they demonstrated a transmissionist application-of-theory model. Teacher educators’ practices mainly focus on learning facts, concepts, and theories without providing opportunities for student teachers to practice what has been learned. To change teacher educators’ practices, it is essential that professional development activities that help them re-examine their views of learning to teach and their practices of teaching about to teach are organized. Moreover, policy directives need to conceptualize teaching about teaching in relation to the standards of effective teacher education programs at both the institutional (colleges, regional education bureaus, and the ministry of education) and individual levels.

Keywords:

• views of learning to teach
• pedagogical approaches
• teacher education in Ethiopia

Public Interest Statement

Countries all over the world are experiencing a number of instructional reforms in education based on their teacher education. Teacher educators are playing an increasingly important role in the education system by representing the development of demonstrably capacitated teachers. Dealing with such a topic becomes paramount as teachers’ personal views and beliefs about pedagogy are likely to be culture-specific and have a direct bearing on the implementation of their pedagogy. Despite this grand role, there hasn’t been any research done regarding teacher educators’ pedagogy, particularly in the southern regions of Ethiopia. With this background, the study revealed that teacher educators have substantial adherence to conventional application-of-theory techniques for teacher preparation due to their relative views on learning to teach. This is essential because the gained insight into the opinions held and the accompanied practices by the teacher educators informs the basic area of their professional development needs, not to deny future learners a quality education.

1. Introduction

1.1. Views of learning to teach and its relation to practice

Our views or perspectives on learning to teach and also on teaching about teaching have a significant impact on student teachers’ learning. In this regard, Korthagen and Kessels (1999) framed two broad theoretical frameworks that could be applied on to teacher learning. These are the traditional application-of-theory and realistic approaches. On a traditional application-of-theory view, student teachers learn the theory first and then apply it in school environment. In the realistic approach, however, teacher development is conceptualized as an ongoing process of developing one’s own insights into teaching through the interaction between personal reflection and theoretical notions under the guidance of an expert. Aligned with this, educational researchers currently support the notion that teacher learning is active, situated, social, and constructed (Korthagen, 2017). The traditional application-of-theory approach consists of a collection of separated courses in which theory is presented without much connection to practice, while the realistic approach integrates the theory and practice using a model of three levels of gestalt, schema, and theory (Korthagen, 2017). Accordingly, the idea of a gestalt is thought of as a dynamic and ever-evolving entity, including the whole of a teacher’s view of the environments as well as the images, ideas, feelings, needs, values, and behavioral inclinations triggered by the circumstance. Schema is created when an actor create a conscious network of ideas, traits, principles, and other things that are useful for explaining practice while reflecting on a situation and the actions that were taken in it. The level of theory is formed when a coherent framework of knowledge or a logical ordering based on the prior knowledge is constructed (Korthagen, 2010).

According to Korthagen and Kessels (1999), the realistic approach requires a special role on the part of teacher educators, such as creating suitable learning experiences for student teachers, promoting further awareness and reflection among student teachers about experiences, offering theoretical notions from empirical experiences, and training the student teachers to act in a productive manner. Studies contend that student teacher learning does not simply result from teaching them valuable educational theories and does not result from the serial learning of concepts on a scale of growing complexity (Arnseth & Säljö, 2007). Learning emerges from our own actions in relation to those of others. In this regard, Dewey (1998) maintained that the learner was integral to the experience of learning rather than a “spectator” looking on. From Dewey’s conceptions of learning, researchers have evolved the centrality of experience, reflection, and context in learning to teach (Webster-Wright, 2009), which concurs with the realistic approach of learning to teach. Realistic approach conceptualizes teacher learning as active, situated, social, and constructed. This perspective views knowledge as situated and strongly interwoven with experience and emotion. It focuses on creating a profession of teaching in which teachers have the opportunity for continual learning. According to Korthagen et al., learning to teach requires a view of knowledge as a subject to be created rather than as a created subject (Korthagen et al., 2006). In the case of viewing knowledge as a created subject, it leads to the doctrine of viewing telling as teaching and listening as learning. Student teachers should be given opportunities to learn on the basis of their own experiences and the concerns they develop through these experiences.

In contemporary teacher education discourse, the applied science approach has been a dominant approach in the professionalization process, which involves preparing teachers based on dominant theoretical knowledge, followed by microteaching with feedback on their use of the skills (Korthagen, 2016). This approach, which considers teachers as technicians, was replaced by the performance-based or competency-based (CBTE) model. CBTE was also called the “technical-rationality model,” in which concrete, observable behavioral criteria could serve as a basis for the training of novices (Burke & Segall, 2015). Critics argued that a good teacher cannot be described solely in terms of isolated competencies, and its rigidity rendered it insufficient (Struyven et al., 2010). Humanistic-based teacher education (HBTE), also known as teacher identity, is a model of teacher education in which the central role is reserved for personal growth and the dignity of the individual teacher (Rodgers & Scott, 2008). To meet the need to delineate a more detailed process for learning to teach and to set further characteristics for effective teaching, a kind of model that emphasizes reflective teaching, known as the realistic approach, was proposed (Darling-Hammond, 2012). According to this approach, teacher development is conceptualized as an ongoing process of developing one’s own insights into teaching through the interaction between personal reflection and theoretical notions under the guidance of an expert. To connect learning with real-world issues, reflective teaching plays its greatest role in teacher preparation. Reflection is another element of the theme of pedagogical practical works, which is included in the arena of reasoning in pedagogy.

Shulman stated, the knowledge base for teaching includes content (subject) knowledge, pedagogical skills, and pedagogical content knowledge (Michelini & Stefanel, 2011; Shulman L. & Shulman J., 2007), among other categories. While Content knowledge refers to the “what” of teaching or the knowledge of the subject matter of a specific field, pedagogical knowledge refers to the “how” of teaching and is a special reference to those broad principles and strategies of classroom management and organization of the subject matter. Similarly, Pedagogical content knowledge is practical knowledge that represents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics are organized and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners. While a lack of knowledge and skills may limit what teachers can do, having them does not guarantee their wise use (Feiman-Nemser et al., 2014). In other words, teachers must know not only what to teach but also how to teach topics in ways that learners can understand. According to some studies, PCK includes knowledge of general pedagogy, knowledge of the subject matter, knowledge of the students and any potential misconceptions, knowledge of curricula, and knowledge of environmental contexts like technology. These studies criticize Shulman’s PCK conception as compartmentalized and static and suggest additional notions of PCK (Cochran et al., 2014).

Some teacher education programs also incorporate a hybrid set of approaches as different components of the program, with the idea that the most important thing is the surfacing of assumptions and purposes for teacher education in order to build an informed conversation. Pedagogy in teacher education should be holistic, flexible, experiential learning, self-directed, and a kind of learning in which students influence the content, activities, materials, and pace of learning. Consequently, teaching about teaching must make the pedagogical reasoning that underpins high-quality practice clear, explicit, and meaningful to teachers (Korthagen, 2017). In essence, then, the pedagogy of teacher education illustrates the importance of moving beyond technicist views of the practice of teaching and making the tacit dimensions of knowledge of practice explicit and meaningful in learning about teaching. Accordingly, the pedagogy of teacher education requires teacher educators to explicitly “unpack” for student-teachers the pedagogical expertise that allows examination of practice to push beyond the technical while still responding to the need to develop and display appropriate attitudes, knowledge, and skills for teaching itself.

Studies have highlighted a number of specific pedagogical practices in teacher education that enable learning among student-teachers. Among these strategies, which are common in teacher education, are cooperative learning, case studies, videoconferencing (VC), approximation of practice, guided practice, modeling, integrating technology, reflection, seminars, microteaching, and teacher identity (Hattie, 2012).

Generally, teacher educators’ view of pedagogy implies their teaching philosophies, as they see the world through these lenses. Studies stress teacher educators’ beliefs and understandings affect both the theoretical constituents and the teaching behaviors (Dejene et al., 2018). Accordingly, teacher educators with a realistic view are more likely to develop compelling activities and help student teacher learn to teach who have difficulty in the teaching-learning process. These types of teachers tend to support varied, high-level activities and the teaching-learning process. On the other hand, teacher educators with a traditional application-of-theory approach practice ideas that tend to avoid activities they believe will force them and their students (Bas & Sentürk, 2019). In teacher education, as student teachers engage in more than just theoretical learning, it necessitates the teacher educators to ensure the practical engagement of their learners. This in turn needs not only the student teachers’ active engagement in practical experiences but also the teacher educators’ explicit demonstration of methods and skills of teaching. They also need to relate theory to practice, learn from field experiences, and collaborate with and learn from others who are engaged in the learning to teach process, such as mentors, colleague teachers, and teacher educators.

1.2. Statement of the problem

Teaching young people to be critical, creative, and independent thinkers who can participate in societal expectations or norms is the main function of quality education (Biesta, 2015). Quality teaching greatly determines the quality of citizens, societies, and nations. As asserted by studies, the quality of a nation depends upon the quality of its citizens, and the quality of its citizens depends not exclusively, but in a critical measure, upon the quality of their education, which in turn is determined by the quality of their teacher (OECD, 2012). In particular, the contribution of quality education becomes vital at the primary level because life experiences at this stage have enduring effects that are difficult to overcome in later stages of development (Abraha, 2015). By implication, teaching potential teachers at this level needs to ensure the proper view of learning to teach and also practice accordingly.

For over a decade, since pedagogical reforms such as learner-centered pedagogy were introduced in colleges of teacher education in the southern regions of Ethiopia, research still reiterates little change in the actual teachers’ effectiveness. Similarly, pre-service teacher educators’ pedagogical views and their related practices about teaching teachers appear to receive little attention (Aweke et al., 2017; Gemeda & Tynjälä, 2015). On the other hand, the government of Ethiopia has a development vision of becoming a lower middle-income country by the year 2030 (Ministry of Education MOE, 2018). Moreover, there is the Education Sector’s aim that dictates “teaching will be developed as a profession of choice” (ESDP, 2015:35). In this regard, quality-oriented teacher education that prepares expertise capable of contributing to the development goal becomes imperative. Despite the government’s efforts, education in Ethiopia in general and in the southern regions of Ethiopia in particular has been entangled with challenges of not only low quality outcomes but also persistently high rates of dropout and repetition (Dawit, 2008).

Researchers argued that initial teacher preparation needs to emphasize practice rather than tools for practice (Lampert, 2010; Segal, 2011). Therefore, teacher educators have to create an environment so that the student-teachers can practice theory and theorize their practice. Student teachers, in this manner, develop their own knowledge through structured reflection on their experiences and discussions with peers on a one-to-one basis rather than being taught by their teacher educators. Using these experiences as a foundation and scaffolding student teachers to develop their own teaching theory will assist teacher educators in teaching effectively. To provide firsthand experience for student teachers, teacher educators must model and demonstrate the innovative practices that they advocate in their classrooms (Darling-Hammond, 2006). Teacher educators cannot recommend that student teachers do the opposite of what they observed; they have to demonstrate precisely what is right. In the same research, it has been suggested that an important aspect of modeling teaching in teacher education is making the pedagogical reasoning clear, explicit, and understandable for prospective teachers. Furthermore, she posited that student teachers need to see into their teacher educators’ thinking about teaching. This enabled the student teachers to see the ideas and feelings associated with taking risks and learning about teaching in a meaningful way.

Ethiopian teacher education pedagogy are characterized as a conventional, uninspired pedagogy (Aschalew, 2014; ESDP, 2015; Kassa, 2014; Kedir, 2017; MOE, 2010; RTI International & MoE of Ethiopia, 2013; Tesfaye, 2014). The pedagogy of teacher education in Ethiopia is also characterized to be a carbon copy of traditional Ethiopian classroom lesson delivery (lesson review, introduction, presentation and summary of the lesson) which is devoid of pedagogies that model teaching and develop learning to teach skills among student teachers (Mihiretie, 2023). On the other hand, teachers’ views and beliefs about pedagogy have a direct bearing on the implementation of their pedagogy (Leung, 2008). It is because our teaching approaches, strategies, and styles reflect our personal view and beliefs. According to Guskey and Yoon (2009), improvement or positive change in teachers’ practice generally resulted after a significant change in teachers’ attitudes and beliefs. Other studies also advocate that our teaching perspectives and the consequent view of students’ learning have a significant impact on the way we teach and improve students’ learning (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002).This initiated the researchers to quest about teacher educators’ pedagogical views and the related practices, as could be one of the reasons behind this kind of pedagogy. As a result that beliefs are likely to be culture-specific, and studies on teachers’ views and practices on their pedagogy are scarce in the study area of the present research, it necessitates more research on examining the teacher-educators’ views and practices on learning to teach.

1.3. Theoretical framework of the study

In an effort to examine teacher educators’ views and their practice on how to learn to teach, the present study was influenced by the theories of social constructive teaching. Lev Vygotysky’s (1978) works found theories of social constructive teaching. Social constructivism is a theory that centers on the ways in which social factors affect the manner in which groups of people forms understandings and formal knowledge about their world (Philips, 2000). It is also viewed as a theory of learning or meaning making, that individuals create their own new understandings through experiences and reflection on the basis of an interaction between what they already know and believe and ideas and knowledge with which they come in to contact. Moreover, knowledge is a construct created by humans and that learning is a collaborative process between students and teachers (Kim, 2005). Accordingly, learning is not merely the process by which learners assimilate and accommodate new knowledge; rather learning is the process by which learners are integrated in to a knowledge community. Kim also argues, reality cannot be discovered but must be created through human activity. Individuals create meaning (knowledge) through their interactions with each other and with the environment they live in, which are socially and culturally constructed. Learning is a social process and occurs when individuals are engaged in social activities. It does not take place only within an individual, nor is it the passive development of behaviors that are shaped by external forces. Hence, successful learning occurs as a result of learners being able to solve contextual, real-world problems through collaboratively exploring, evaluating, manipulating, and integrating available information from an array of sources, as opposed to passively acquiring information from texts selected by the teacher (Kaya & Akdemir, 2016).

A number of principles underpin these approaches to teacher education as it continuously commute between practice and theory (Korthagen et al., 2006, Orlich et al., 2012; Reeves & Robinson, 2014; Zeichner, 2009). In the postmodern society, teaching is viewed as a situated, reflective, and collaborative activity requiring teachers’ judgment in apprehending events of practice in a user-friendly and facilitated environment (Asgedom, 2005)-attributes of the social constructivist theories of learning. This notion of teaching is far from a technicist one that simply trains teachers to replicate a formula for teaching. It call for the teachers to elicit and identify students’ personal theories, investigate them by questioning and seeking out alternative analyses, compare them to those of peers and the public, and then attempt to reformulate the theory and test it against additional practice. Thus, the practice is a framework for fostering independent and in-depth learning through inquiry, supporting critical thinking, and improving current understanding (Cochran-Smith & Villegas, 2015; Wiener, 2020). When teachers become reflective practitioners, they move beyond a knowledge base of discrete skills to a stage where they integrate and modify skills for specific contexts, eventually reaching a point where the skills are internalized, enabling them to invent new strategies.

Another implication of the social constructivism strategy of teaching is that, since teacher education could be considered problem-oriented adult learning, participants incorporate the experience and self-directed learning relevant to their profession. As a result, it tends to leverage task-oriented processes and stress application. By distinguishing between developmental levels, social constructivism identifies and redirects students’ misconceptions. The first is the level of actual development (the developmental level at which a learner has already arrived and is capable of solving problems on his or her own). The second is the level of potential development (the “zone of proximal development”), which is the level that the learner is capable of reaching under the guidance of teachers (known as “instructional scaffolding”) and gradually withdrawing as learners construct their own ways of understanding the material and become increasingly able to achieve learning outcomes independently (Morgan & Brooks, 2012). Feiman-Nemser, S & others conceptualized teacher development as an ongoing process of developing one’s own insights into teaching through the interaction between personal reflection and theoretical notions under the guidance of an expert (Feiman-Nemser et al., 2014).

Hence the ideas of context, the notion of cognitive dialogue, the zone of proximal development, social interaction, culture, and inner speech (Vygotysky, 1978), continuous assessment, and a focus on activity and practices make social constructivism preferable over the other views in the research on pedagogy in teacher education. Keeping student teachers active, constructive, collaborative, contextual, conversational, and reflective from different conceptual perspectives enables them to be changed from teacher-controlled, prescriptive, and didactic modes to learner-driven, social, collaborative, and participatory approaches that aid fundamental skills and understanding for their future professional development as effective or quality teachers (Weegar & Pacis, 2012). Teacher educators, on the other hand, have roles that allow them to foster students’ creativity by providing activities that enable them to discover theories and perspectives that lead to a deeper understanding of the knowledge. Moreover, because views, and attitudes are subjective rather than objective, the constructivist theory of social reality, which contends that human social activity is based more on people’s ideas, beliefs, values, and perceptions of reality (Cheng & Curtis, 2012), aligns with the topic under investigation.

1.4. Objective of the study

In an effort to rethink pedagogy for effective learning to teach, this study attempted to examine teacher educators’ views and their practice on how to learn to teach with the intention to have an insight into opinions that are held or developed and the likely practices that occur.

Accordingly, this study considered the following research questions:

1. How do teacher educators view learning to teach in colleges of teacher education?

2. What teacher education pedagogies do teacher educators use in their teaching?

3. Is there any statistically significant relationship between teacher educators’ views and their teaching practices?

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Research design

In this study, a convergent parallel mixed-methods design, grounded in a pragmatic paradigm was employed. This design was chosen since it gives broader perspectives and a fuller account of how to investigate teacher educators’ views on how to learn to teach and the related practices (Ary et al., 2010; Creswell, 2012). In addition to their independent advantages, such mixed methods help to expand the scope and breadth of research in a better way by reducing the limitations of single methods and offsetting the weaknesses of either approach alone (synergy). Its intention is also to gain insight into opinions that are held, processes that are going on, effects that are evident, or trends that are developing and determine the relationships that exist between specific events (Ary et al., 2010). The attraction of the design also lays in its importance for generalizing the results of the study within its parameters, since it makes possible to refine or elaborate results about the view and practice of teacher educators’ pedagogy obtained by the data gathered by a relatively large population by the data obtained from the qualitative exploration. As a result, the design was chosen because it provides broader perspectives and a more complete account of the current state of teacher educators’ views and the likely practices of pedagogy in teacher preparation in the colleges of the regions.

2.2. Participants

There are five teacher education colleges in the study area (Southern Regions of Ethiopia) from which three colleges of teacher education were sampled. At the first level of a double-stage cluster sampling, two colleges were selected and one more college was selected by purposive sampling techniques. Purposive sampling was used to select one of the colleges, because of its seniority relative to the other colleges in the regions. Finally, using appropriate procedure, 234 were chosen using stratified random sampling for data collection by questionnaire and five more were included purposefully for interviews.

2.3. Data collection

Questionnaires of both open-ended and closed-ended items, as well as unstructured interviews, were the instruments of the data collection. Open-ended items were used to gather data from respondents’ full freedom to express their opinions. The closed-ended items were prepared based on a Likert scale of five options ranging from “Strongly disagree” (1) to” Strongly agree” (5) for views and from “never” (1) to “very often” (5) for practices. The questionnaire for the views of learning to teach was a two-subscale of 10 items in which 4 items (items 1, 2, 4, and 6) measured traditional views, whereas the remaining 6 items (items 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10) measured constructivist views. Similarly, the teacher educators’ practice of their pedagogy contains 10 items in two subscales, in which the first subscale (items no. 26, 27, 29, and 32) represents the traditional/teacher-centered approach and the second subscale (items no. 23, 24, 25, 28, 30, and 31) is the constructivist/student-centered approach.

To check the reliability of the instruments, Cronbach’s alpha was computed and found to be 0.824 for the whole views set and 0.812 for the whole practice set. Consequently, the scale was quite high enough to judge the instrument as reliable for the study. The sub-scales’ reliabilities were also quite high enough to judge the instrument as reliable, as they were computed at 0.757 for teacher-led and 0.85 for learner-centered items of conception and 0.529 for teacher-led and 0.796 for learner-centered items of practice. Item reliability statistics were also calculated and found to be the lowest at 0.794 and 0.782, respectively for both views and practices, indicating the items was quite reliable. The qualitative data collected through the interviews was used just to support the quantitative data that was collected through questionnaires.

2.4. Data analysis

The data gathered through interviews and the open-ended questions of the questionnaires were analyzed and interpreted independently using a thematic approach. Presumably, it is suitable to analyze data associated with discernible patterns inherent within participants’ experiences, views, conceptions, and intentions as expressed in verbal and written data. For the quantitative analysis, the data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential analysis techniques. A Spearman rho correlation coefficient test was used to investigate whether a significant correlation exists between the views and practices of teacher educators’ or not. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was also used to investigate the difference between the groups.

3. Results

3.1. Demographic status of the participants

The demographic status of the participants implies the quality of the source of data. As a result, as shown in the table below, the majority of the teacher educators (87.2%) in the three selected colleges who participated in the study have a second degree and similarly, the majority of the teacher educators (75.83%) have 5 and above years of service in teaching in colleges, as summarized in Table 1.T

Table 1. Teacher educators’ qualification and experiences by college

	Hawassa	Hossana	Bonga	Total	%
Qualification
Diploma	0	0	1	1	0.43
Degree	16	4	9	29	12.39
Masters	69	67	65	201	85.9
Doctorate	2	0	1	3	1.28
Sub Total	87	71	76	234	100
Experience in Year
1–5	28	44	32	104	44.83
5.1–10	31	9	27	67	28.88
10.1–20	21	16	16	53	22.84
More than 20	6	2	0	8	3.45
Sub Total	86	71	75	232	100

3.2. Results of the study

3.2.1. Teacher educators’ views of learning to teach

The data from the open-ended questions of the questionnaires was analyzed using frequency count to observe the magnitude of each theme. Consequently, the codes relayed to realistic views of learning to teach were rated at 69% and those of the application of theory at 31%, which indicate that realistic views of learning to teach are the most widely viewed conception in the pedagogy of teacher education. Additionally, the survey data of 10 Likert scale items that were split into two sub-scales of realistic approach and traditional application-of-theory perspectives on learning to teach was analyzed descriptively. As a result, the majority of participant teacher educators (60.5%) agreed with the traditional application-of-theory view items, whereas 20% of the participants disagreed and 19.5% were unsure. Similarly, the widely held number of participant teacher educators (63.5%) who attempted the realistic approach items rated “agreed,” while 17.5% of the participants rated “disagree” and 19% rated “undecided”. Comparing these two, the percentage of the respondents who rated “agree” on the realistic items increased slightly by 3% (63.5% − 60.5% = 3%) than the percentage of the respondents who rated “agree” on the items of traditional application-of-theory views.

Furthermore, as displayed on Table 2 below, the survey data of 10 Likert scale items that were split into two sub-scales of realistic approach (RAV) and traditional application-of-theory (ATV) perspectives on learning to teach was analyzed by Wilcoxon signed-rank test to investigate the difference between the two related groups.

Table 2. Teacher educators’ views on learning to teach

Ranks
			N	Mean Rank	Sum of Ranks
RAV - ATV	Negative Ranks		94^a	101.00	9494.00
	Positive Ranks		119^b	111.74	13297.00
	Ties		21^c
	Total		234
a. RAV < ATV
b. RAV > ATV
c. RAV = ATV
Test Statistics^a
		RAV - ATV
Z		−2.113^b
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)		.035
a. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test
b. Based on negative ranks.

Accordingly, the rank statistics provides a comparison of the number of participants in both realistic and traditional application-of-theory perspectives. As a result, from the above table, 94 more participants had application-of-theory views than those with realistic views. However, 119 participants had realistic views, and 21 participants were unsure. Similarly, we see that the total of the ranks for the negative differences is 9494.00 resulting in a mean rank of 101.00 whilst the total of the ranks for the positive differences is 13,297.00 resulting in a mean rank of 111.74. Here the mean of the positive ranks is larger than that for negative ranks suggesting that values for realistic view are generally larger than for application-of-theory. This difference is significant as is illustrated in the test statistics, (Z = −2.113, p = 0.035), and more teacher educators had viewed their pedagogy as realistic perspectives. Thus, the Wilcoxon signed-rank showed that more teacher educators view learning to teach as a realistic view.

The views of teacher educators on learning to teach were also examined by qualitative analysis of data from the interviews and open-ended questions. Accordingly, the responses that illustrate the prevalence of the application of theory in learning to teach was stated by one of the participants (TEr 2) as;

In teacher education, although all approaches have their strengths and shortcomings, it is more advantageous if practical activities are integrated with those of theoretical ones both in classrooms and in catchment schools. This is to say that engaging teacher candidates in practical activities based on the theoretical basis would make the candidate-teachers of better ones. But the courses focus on theoretical learning.

Other participants added that student teachers learn best about the teaching when an appropriate level of theoretical skills and knowledge is imparted. They indicated that student teachers learn best when teacher educators impart an appropriate level of theoretical knowledge before practical learning and assessing accordingly. After learning theories through the teacher educators’ didactic transmission in their college classrooms, student teachers had to practice in the linkage schools, as suggested by one of the interview participant as;

We usually present the theory of content and show how to apply it at the primary school level. In a practicum, we needed to see how they could apply the theoretical content covered in the theoretical lecture. (TEr 5)

This implies that the teacher educators are preparing student teachers with the traditional method of teaching, whose epistemology views knowledge as an objective entity that exists “out there” external to the knower and whose teaching relies on faculty (textbooks and teachers) as the primary source of learning (Boaler, 2015; Hiebert, 2013).

On the other hand, participants mentioned views which are in line with realistic perspective of learning to teach. Accordingly, student teachers learn best when teaching strategies are framed making the lesson authentic and giving them sufficient opportunity to practice. Raising their interest based on concern for equip them with knowledge base of teaching; engaging them in active, explicit and meaningful practical works; creating supportive learning environment were component topics of discussion. They observed also that teacher candidates learn to teach effectively if teaching and assessment strategies are tailored with specific methods that enhance each teacher-candidates’ achievement of both practical methods as well as conceptual understandings about teaching. One of the participants (PHo 1) mentioned that:

Although there isn’t a single best way to teach, pre-service teachers learn best when the lesson is authentic, tied to their prior knowledge and life experience, given enough practice time, assisted in becoming independent teachers, and assessments are switched from exam-focused to performance-focused.

Some other few participant teacher educators, in particular, were able to identify effective teacher education pedagogy by elaborating that student teachers learn to teach from the practice of teaching in college classes and their practices in authentic school environment accompanied with their reflection and constructive feedback on their experiences. Moreover, they complemented that student-teachers in colleges of teacher education can learn to teach relating what they learned in both schools and in college classrooms to what and how they will teach in their future school classrooms. Teacher educators can learn best to teach if the pedagogy is framed in both practice and theory of teaching and in an integrated manner. This notion of the teacher educators’ conceptions of learning to teach infers that they view learning to teach as a realistic perspective whose central idea focus on practice-to-theory integration of knowledge of teaching methods and that of subject matter.

3.2.2. Pedagogical approaches practiced by teacher educators

The survey data of Likert-type questions with 10 items of teacher education pedagogies that were split into realistic and application-of-theory approach was analyzed using percentage. The percentage of the participants on the realistic items (RAP) rated at most “sometimes”, “average”, at least “often” was 45.8%, 24.5% and 29.7% respectively. Meanwhile, to the application-of-theory items (ATP) of the questionnaires, the percentage of the participants rated at least “often”, “average”, and at most “sometimes” are 48.8%, 29.6%, and 21.5% respectively. These show that, the teaching strategies and methods used in teaching about learning to teach by the teacher educators are categorized dominantly under traditional application-of-theory approach. These are lecture, modeling, presentation as well as direct instruction. To be more precise, we calculated a chi-square test by merging the above data into “at most sometimes” (“never” + “sometimes”) and “at least often” (“often” + “very often”). Accordingly, based on the result of χ2 (13.25)>0.0003, at df = 1 and a = 0.05, the difference is significant. Observing the magnitude of the difference (48.8% − 29.7% = 19.1%), the traditional application-of-theory perspectives approach is approximately 19% more advanced than the realistic approach. Therefore, the teacher-educators are predominantly practicing using strategies emanated from their traditional application-of-theory perspectives. Moreover, as shown in the following table [Table 3], the Likert-scale questions based on the above category, was analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

Table 3. Summary of teacher educators’ pedagogical approaches

Ranks
			N	Mean Rank	Sum of Ranks
RAP - ATP		Negative Ranks	151^a	121.93	18412.00
		Positive Ranks	68^b	83.50	5678.00
		Ties	15^c
		Total	234
a. RAP < ATP
b. RAP > ATP
c. RAP = ATP
Test Statistics^a
	RAP – ATP
Z	−6.787^b
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
a. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test
b. Based on positive ranks.

Similarly, from the result above, 151 more participants had traditional application-of-theory pedagogical practices than those with a realistic practice of pedagogy. However, 68 participants had realistic practices, and 15 participants were undecided. Therefore, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that teacher educators’ traditional application-of-theory perspectives practices were statistically significant (Z = −6.787, p = 0.000), and more teacher educators practice their pedagogy in this approach.

In addition, the analysis based on discussions with interview participants as well as the open-ended items of the survey revealed two major themes: realistic and traditional application-of-theory practices. The themes were formed from the four sub-themes as; cooperative learning (group work method), questioning and answering method, micro-teaching, and lecture (traditional) method, grouped under the theme application of theory. Whereas, cooperative learning, guided practices, learning by doing, reflection, independent learning, and so on grouped under the theme realistic, so that student teachers can learn from both their practical experiences and application of theory.

As they reported, teacher educators openly admitted that they abundantly implement conventional, traditional application-of-theory teaching strategies in their classes. As put in the following quote by one of the participants (TEr 2), they tend to apply the methods by which they had learned and taught previously in their teacher education.

The truth is that teacher educators use the traditional lecture approach to teaching from the beginning to the end. It would be better to give chances for both learners and teachers for practical activities. There are challenges to practicing effective teacher education pedagogy.

The other participants (TEr 3 & TEr 5), added;

Teacher educators primarily use lecturing. Some teacher educators use the question-and-answer method of teaching, while others use practical work in laboratory classes. However, most teacher educators employ the traditional method, in which student teachers learn theories and then apply them in their practicum. (TEr 3)

Others expressed their irritation with the state of implementing pedagogical strategies, saying that it is the teacher-centered lecture method as usual, which is commonly known by the adage “Chalk and Talk!”. One of the participants had to express that it would have been better if the pedagogical strategies in the teacher education classes had been theory-practice integrated. Besides, research, scholarship, and experiential learning would result in improving teacher-educators’ pedagogical perspectives and practices (as noted well by the participant, TEr 1 as;

Student centered approach, beyond its immensity for the teacher, is believed good. What side effect it has is that it is time consuming. The time for group formation, and then to discuss and to reflect, the allotted “50 minutes” period will not be enough and therefore, very few teachers, whose subject suits use it.

Here, teacher educators predominantly practice the traditional methods of teaching in their pedagogy. Based on this, student teachers are forced to learn through a traditional application-of-theory practice of teaching in college classrooms and are expected to practice in schools during the practicum phases. This pedagogical characterization has been deeply embedded in teacher education and higher education, with little operationalization or contextualization of a specific discipline. In addition, it has led to the assumption that teacher education should merely focus on those widely propagated approaches such as group work or discussion in teacher education colleges, marginalizing those teacher education pedagogies.

3.2.3. Relationship between teacher educators views and their practices on learning to teach

Based on the above findings about the teacher educators’ views and their practices on learning to teach, teacher educators have a view of realistic pedagogy and they abundantly use the traditional application-of-theory teaching strategies in their pedagogical practices. To investigate more regarding association between teacher educators’ views on learning to teach and their pedagogical practices they employ for their teaching about teaching, a correlation test was computed. The scales for this test were with the items of both views (ATV/RAV) and practices (ATP/RAP) of realistic as well as traditional application-of-theory of views and practice respectively. We used the spearman rho statistics as displayed below [in Table 4], after the test of assumption of normality had checked.

Table 4. Correlations between scales

Spearman’s rho		ATV	RAV
	RAP	.266**	.335**
	ATP	.253**	.112

Note: ** Correlation is significant at the p < 0.001 level (2-tailed)

The above table 4 shows a positive and statistically significant correlation in all scales, with the exception of the correlation between realistic views and application-of-theory practices (r(234) = 0.112, p = 0.087), in which there was a positive relation, though not significant. This is concurrent with the preceding finding of the views and practices of the teacher educators, in which their views found realistic whereas their practices found application of theory. This also agrees with the data from the interview participant stated as that it would have been better if the pedagogical practice in teacher education had been a theory-practice integrated one. The significant positive correlation between the views and the practices indicates that the views of learning to teach were linearly related with the practices. On the other cases, moderate correlations between realistic views and traditional application-of-theory views (r(234) = 0.525, p = 0.00) as well as realistic approach practices and traditional application-of-theory practices (r(234) = 0.53, p = 0.00) show that there is no clear and bold differentiation between the two views and practices among the teacher educators. It indicates that views of learning to teach are strongly related to the practices of the teacher educators.

4. Discussion

4.1. Teacher educators’ views of learning to teach

Based on the analysis above, the teacher educators views on learning to teach was found realistic approachs. Large number of the teacher educators conceptualized learning to teach as a realistic view as a result of the qualitative analysis. Using Wilcoxon signed-rank test it was also investigated the difference between the two related views and found more teacher educators view learning to teach as a realistic view. In this transformative perspective, teaching is viewed as a situated, reflective, and collaborative activity requiring teachers’ judgment in apprehending events of practice in a user-friendly and facilitated environment. And its modes of knowing are primarily based on reflexivity about teaching and learning processes rather than delivering declarative knowledge of teaching (Rowan et al., 2019). In addition, learning about teaching requires a view of knowledge as a subject to be created rather than as a subject already created. According to studies, supporting student teachers to practice rather than imparting them only theoretical professional knowledge is the best way for aspiring teachers to learn (Korthagen et al., 2006). Successful learning among student teachers occurs when they are able to solve contextual, real-world problems through collaborative exploration, evaluation, manipulation, and integration of available information from an array of sources, as opposed to passively acquiring information from texts selected by the teacher (Kaya & Akdemir, 2016; Melrose et al., 2013). This type of teaching in teacher education helps to practice teaching and encourages student teachers to develop their own theory of teaching based on the interaction between what they already know, believe, and experience. In this approach, teacher development is conceptualized as collaborative critical inquiry that enables learners to analyze, interpret, and understand the social realities of their own lives and those of their communities in order to bring about useful, lasting changes (Egne, 2021).

4.2. Pedagogical approaches practiced by teacher educators

Likewise, based on the analysis of the data from the Likert-Scale survey, interviews, and open-ended questions, the majority of the participants practice traditional application-of-theory teaching strategies such as lecture, modeling, and presentation as well as direct instruction in their teacher education pedagogy. The chi-square test result of χ2(13.25) > 0.0003, at df = 1 and a = 0.05, revealed the significant difference, favoring the traditional application-of-theory practices. This also goes with the magnitude difference of the percentages (48.8% − 29.7% = 19.1%), in which the number of the teacher educators with traditional application-of-theory approach is 19.1% more than that of realistic approach. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test also showed that more participants had traditional application-of-theory pedagogical practices than those with a realistic practice of pedagogy and it was statistically significant (Z = −6.787, p = 0.000). As the interviews and open-ended questions participants suggested, in their current teaching, they tend to apply the methods by which they had been taught in their pre-service teacher education. This is consistent with researcher stated that one of the challenges in the professional development and practice of teacher educators is the indication of the problem of the transition from a teacher to a teacher-educator identity and its associated roles (Mekonnen, 2023). He stressed that the role of teacher educators is not to transmit knowledge of teaching practices. It is because, teaching about teaching needs to make the pedagogical reasoning that underpins quality practice clear, explicit, and meaningful for learners, which is fundamentally different from those teachings in general schools in which teachers teach the subject matter only. This helps develop a professional identity among the student teachers (Korthagen, 2017).This finding also similarly goes with the findings of studies that characterized Ethiopian teacher education pedagogy as a conventional, uninspired pedagogy (ESDP, 2015; Kassa, 2014; MOE, 2010; RTI International & MoE of Ethiopia, 2013; Tesfaye, 2014; Aschalew, 2012). This approach has received a lot of criticism for decades as its epistemology of logical positivism propagates knowledge as an objective entity that exists “out there” external to and independent of the knower, and its teaching relies on faculty (textbooks and teachers) as the primary source of learning (Hiebert, 2013).

In this approach, while teacher educators are viewed as the knowing experts, the sages on stage who expound the material, student teachers are supposed to take in and accurately report back the information presented by the teacher educators as the sole information they need to acquire. Because of this, its pedagogy exposes student teachers to established social facts through the one-way delivery of specially created instructional spaces and media. As well, the student teachers are viewed as having a tendency to perceive the information provided by the teacher educators as the only information they need to learn. As a one-way channel, the student teachers’ involvement in such a teaching strategy is limited to listening and occasionally taking notes if necessary.

However, teacher educators’ pedagogy should be conceptualized and practiced from a realistic approach. The approach constitutes a constructivist perspective that considers the integration of both theory and practice of teaching. As put by Starkey, “effective learning” is a kind of learning that considers each student’s learning progress (cognitive development), focuses on students’ active participation, includes agency in the learning process through explicit teaching, meta-cognitive strategies, the provision of formative feedback, self-regulation, and self-reflection (agentic), and takes into account the social, cultural, emotional, and personal development needs of the student teachers (Louise Starkey, 2019). According to studies, “currently, the field of teacher education is undergoing a major shift—a shift away from a predominant focus on specifying the necessary knowledge for teaching toward specifying teaching practices that entail knowledge and doing” (McDonald et al., 2013). Thus, teaching about teaching needs to be viewed as well as practiced, making the pedagogical reasoning that underpins quality practice clear, explicit, and meaningful for learners, which is fundamentally different from those teachings in general schools in which teachers teach the subject matter only. This helps to develop a professional identity among the student teachers (Korthagen, 2016), since prospective teachers tend to model and learn from their teacher educators and school teachers.

Hence, the practices of the teacher educators on their pedagogy indicates their adherence to the traditional teacher education perspective, application-of-theory, rather than making their pedagogy the transformed realistic one. In this perspective, student teachers are required to learn theory through a traditional lecture method of teaching in college classrooms and are expected to transmit it in their practices in schools during the practicum phases. This also implies that the teacher-educators act as technicist, simply training teachers to replicate a formula for teaching and the student-teachers are required to learn theory through a traditional lecture method of teaching in college classrooms and are expected to practice in schools during the practicum sessions. However, as it has received plenty of criticism and debate for decades, the alternative transformed realistic approach needs to get the stage of a building block of pedagogy for the pedagogy of the teacher education. Teaching strategies and methods that characterize the teacher educators’ pedagogy are analyzed as the use of varieties of teaching methods to raise interest, engaging them in active, explicit, and meaningful practical work, concern for student teachers to provide them with a teaching knowledge base, and facilitating a supportive learning environment.

4.3. Relationship between teacher educators views and their practices on learning to teach

In the preceding parts of the present study, it was found that the teacher educators’ views of learning to teach as well as their pedagogical approach were realistic and application of theory, respectively. The result of the spearman rho correlation of the survey data also showed that the correlation between realistic views (teacher educators’ views of learning to teach) and practices of application-of-theory (teacher educators’ pedagogical approach to learning to teach) (r(234) = 0.112, p = 0.087) was weak and positive but not significant. This implies that although they have conceptualized teacher education pedagogy (learning to teach) as a realistic approach, teacher educators’ pedagogical approach was challenged by other factors than their conception of learning to teach. The other result, the positive and significant correlation between the application of theory views of the teacher educators’ and their practices, shows that views of learning to teach are the main contributors to their corresponding practices. Moreover, the correlations vary between 0.112 and 0.335, or 10% to 28% (Morgan, 2004), which points to the fact that at most 28% of the variance in practice can be predicted from the views of the teacher educators on learning to teach. The correlation between realistic views and realistic practices (r(234) = 0.335, p = 0.00), which was found to be more significant than the correlation between application-of-theory views and application-of-theory practices (r(234) = 0.253, p = 0.00), also indicates that the contribution of realistic views was higher than the contribution of application-of-theory views to practice. This agrees with the finding in the present study that teacher educators had a more realistic view than the application of theory in learning to teach. These all indicate that, though the teacher educators’ views contributed to their practices, they adhered to the conventional application-of-theory practices about learning to teach.

5. Conclusion and recommendation

5.1. Conclusion

Teacher educators’ ideas, beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and expertise about the teaching profession are believed to make up their pedagogy. In an effort to do this, this study attempted to examine the relationship between teacher educators’ views and their practice to gain insight into opinions that are held or developed and examine the status of their related practices. For these purposes, the following points are conclusive:

• Teacher educators have realistic views on learning to teach, whereas they employ the transmissionist application of theory pedagogical approaches to learning to teach.

• Among the teaching interventions employed predominantly by the teacher educators were lecture, direct instruction, presentation, micro-teaching, and so on that were categorized under the transmissionist application of theory. On the other hand, cooperative learning, guided practices, learning by doing, reflection, independent learning, and so on were grouped under the theme of realistic approaches, which were found to be practiced minimally.

• The positive, but weak and insignificant correlation found between the views and practices of the teacher educators in their pedagogy indicates the basic areas for intervention. To shift away from a predominant adherence to the traditional application-of-theory practices to the reformed or transformed realistic practices of learning to teach, it requires fostering an effective practice-oriented mindset and training for the teacher educators.

5.2. Recommendation

The nexus of teacher changes in views and practices described in this article presents a variety of opportunities for future research. In the present study, it was found that teacher educators employ the transmissionist application of the theory approach, though they conceptualize it as realistic in their pedagogy of preparing teachers. Accordingly, teaching about teaching is characterized as imparting “an appropriate level of theoretical knowledge” prior to their practical learning in the school environment and assessing the student teachers accordingly. Instead, teacher educators are required to create suitable learning experiences for student teachers, promote further awareness among the student teachers through reflection on their experiences, offer theoretical notions based on their empirical experiences, and train the student teachers to be effective future teachers of the 21st century’s competency-oriented students. Consequently, more realistic practices of teaching about learning to teach, accompanied by experience of successful implementation or practice in colleges of teacher education pedagogy, are required to effect genuine changes in the views as well as in the practices of teacher educators. As discussed previously, change in views as well as in practices occurs as a result of practice-oriented change with multiple strategic interventions, including teacher educators’ professional development.

Specifically,

• Colleges should organize pedagogical training that focuses on practice-oriented transformative realistic views as well as practices of teaching about learning to teach for the teacher-educators to further develop their teaching. The training programs should be tailored practically to guide student teachers’ active learning and processing of knowledge. Through their professional development programs, it should also be focused on moving the teacher-educators from the “technical” understandings and implementation of their pedagogy towards continually evolving, reflexive, experiential, and inspirational teaching.

• The interaction of research, scholarship, and experiential learning that would result in improving teacher-educators’ pedagogical perspectives and practices to inspire teacher educators to their views and practices needs strategic interventions for teacher education pedagogy. Moreover, group work, guided practice, questioning and answering, seminars, and research should be familiarized by the teacher educators as their common teaching strategies. Therefore, policy directives need to be re-conceptualized in relation to standards of effective teaching and teacher preparation at both the institutional (colleges, regional education bureaus, and the ministry of education) and individual levels.

Data sharing statement

The corresponding author will provide the data upon request, which support the findings and conclusion.

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed sufficiently to the study and were in agreement with its findings and conclusions.

Ethics statement

A confidentiality agreement was made between the researchers and the participants about the use of the participant data, which were exclusively utilized for the purposes of this study. Moreover, the work does not require an Ethics Committee Approval, since as evidenced as displayed in Appendix; it is for the purpose of promotion for the corresponding author led by the advisory role of the coauthors.

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank the research supervisors Engudy Ademe and Dawt Mekonnen for their indispensable effort in reading, commenting, and mentoring for the success of the paper. Furthermore, thanks go to the Journal of Cogent Education for opening this opportunity and to the editors as well as the reviewers of the journal for your useful suggestions on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies.

Notes on contributors

Abayneh Ergogo

Abayneh Ergogo earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and his master’s degree in educational research and development at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Since he has been employed by colleges as a teacher educator for more than 20 years, he is interested in conducting research on teacher education issues. At Hossana College of Education, he had also served as interim dean and academic vice dean. He is currently a PhD candidate in curriculum studies at the same university’s department of curriculum and instruction.

Enguday Ademe

Enguday Ademe (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction. She has been working as a teacher educator at Addis Ababa University and has published dozens of scholarly articles in local and international peer-reviewed journals. Dawit Mekonnen (PhD), Associate Professor of Teacher Education and Curriculum, is also working as a teacher educator at Addis Ababa University. Similarly, he has published dozens of scholarly articles in local and international peer-reviewed journals.