Teacher education matters: Finnish teacher educators’ concerns, beliefs, and values

ABSTRACT

The professional development of teacher educators is gaining increasing interest globally. However, not so many studies have been carried out in the Finnish context, which is somewhat surprising considering that the Finnish education system and teacher education has gained so much interest worldwide. This study investigates Finnish teacher educators’ concerns, beliefs and values. The results show that teacher educators experienced a variety of concerns in their work, in the beginning mainly dealing with the position and being a novice, and later they became more concerned with heavy workloads and practical teaching-related matters. The teacher educators studied considered the students’ education to be the most important aspect of their work. The research-based nature of teacher education was also felt to be very important, along with its community aspects, and their own specialization. In general, Finnish teacher educators considered their work to be important.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher educators
• teacher education
• concerns
• beliefs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland [Development Program for Teacher Education].

Notes on contributors

Katriina Maaranen

Katriina Maaranen, PhD., is an Associate Professor of Education and a university lecturer of didactics in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses are teacher education, reflection, personal practical theories, professional development and teachers’ professional work.

Heikki Kynäslahti

Heikki Kynäslahti, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Education and a university lecturer of media education in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. His latest research concerns theoretical framework of media education, young people's conceptions of media skills, students' role in digitalization of education and professional development of teacher educators.

Reijo Byman

Reijo Byman PhD, is an Associate Professor and a university lecturer in Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in quantitative research methodology and student motivation, particularly curiosity and interest. He has written several publications concerning curiosity, interest, and quantitative research methods, especially confirmatory factor analysis.

Riitta Jyrhämä

Riitta Jyrhämä, PhD., is an Associate Professor and a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. She also serves as a Head of the Department of Education. Her main research interest concern teachers’ pedagogical thinking, teaching practice supervision and teacher education.

Sara Sintonen

Sara Sintonen, PhD., is an Associate Professor and works as a university lecturer in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her specializations cover media education, music education, multiliteracy, as well as early childhood education.