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ABSTRACT
By presenting the results of a large-scale international study, this study targets a better empirical understanding of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition or the teacher educators' habit of mind to engage with research to improve their practice and contribute to the knowledge base on teacher education. Data was collected from an international sample of 1158 higher education-based teacher educators in six countries, most of them being European. The first part of the article reports on the development of iTERDS, i.e. the international Teacher Educators’ Researcherly Disposition Scale. This 16-item scale distinguishes three subdimensions: (1) Valuing research (6 items), (2) Being a smart consumer of research (5 items), and (3) Being a producer of research (5 items). Goodness of fit estimates indicate good fit. The second part of the article explores differences in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition by means of cluster analysis. Four different clusters of teacher educators were found: Cluster 1 ‘inactive to research teacher educators’, Cluster 2 ‘well-read teacher educators’, Cluster 3 ‘researching teacher educators’, and Cluster 4 ‘teacher educator-researchers’. Post hoc analyses on these clusters explore relevant background differences between the clusters in terms of qualifications and work context.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Hanne Tack
Hanne Tack is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Educational Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. She is the research coordinator of ESTAFETT, a research project on the effects of team teaching on students and teachers. Her research interest further focuses on teacher educators’ professional development in general.
Ainat Guberman
Ainat Guberman is Head of the Research Authority at The MOFET Institute in Tel Aviv, and senior lecturer at David Yellin Academic College of Education, in Jerusalem, Israel. Her main field of interests are teacher educators’ professional development as well as cognitive development in early childhood.
Ann MacPhail
Ann MacPhail is Assistant Dean Research in the Faculty of Education and Health Sciences at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her main areas of interest and expertise are teacher educators’ professional development, curriculum change and development and assessment.
Ruben Vanderlinde
Ruben Vanderlinde is a professor at the Department of Educational Studies at Ghent University, Belgium. His research interests are in the field of educational innovation, teacher training and professionalisation, and the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education.