Teacher education research, policy and practice: finding future research directions

This Special Issue includes papers that highlight aspects of teacher education research, policy and practice in Australia, England, Northern Ireland, the USA, and Wales. In this editorial, we examine the current teacher education policy context, teacher education research and its foci, and methodological developments in the area, and draw on the papers in this issue to suggest future directions for teacher education research.

The teacher education policy context

Teacher quality is in the policy spotlight in many countries largely as a consequence of concerns about the results of international assessments of student achievement and related country comparisons. Discourses about the centrality of the teacher (Larsen, 2010) are very prominent and teaching quality and teacher education quality are seen as key levers to improving a country’s economic development and global competitiveness. Large-scale reform agendas intended to improve teacher education, usually informed by neoliberal policies (Furlong, 2013), are periodically planned but not always fully implemented and evaluated before a new wave of reforms and their underpinning ideologies emerge. New reform ideas are regularly borrowed from other countries seen to be ‘doing well’ in international assessments. Moreover, transnational entities like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are key influencers in policy formation (e.g. OECD, 2005, 2019).

As in the US, ‘holding teacher education accountable’ (Cochran-Smith et al., 2017) has been a key component of many teacher education reforms. The assumption is that tighter accountability will improve teacher education quality, which, in turn, will improve teacher quality. ‘[T]he broad parameters of teacher education policy that can be controlled by institutional, state, or federal policy makers … most likely to have a positive effect’ (Cochran-Smith, 2004, p. 297) are identified and more rigorous accountability mechanisms are framed in relation to these component parts. For example, some policies focus on regulating entry requirements for those coming into teacher education while others focus on developing teaching standards intended to describe what it is new teachers should know and be able to do. Capstone performance assessments are sometimes mandated to determine whether graduates know and can do these things. In addition, programme standards prescribe the content of teacher education, highlighting such things as requirements for partnerships between universities and schools and the qualifications of the teacher educators. More recently, some policies have prescribed types of evidence for judging the effectiveness of teacher education programmes. Many of these, such as employment and retention rates of graduates from teacher education programmes have very little causal or direct link with the teacher education programme, and act as proxies for quality.

However, at the same time as these more prescriptive regulations and tighter accountability mechanisms are being implemented, looming teacher shortages and the ongoing crisis discourse positioning teacher education as a problem (Cochran-Smith, 2004) have elevated a perceived need for alternative and so-called ‘innovative’ pathways into the profession, many of which reduce (or even eliminate) the role of universities in teacher education. As a consequence, policy discourses are dominated by binary debates about whether the preparation of teachers should be in schools or university led. Relatedly, a practice turn (Zeichner, 2012) is evident in the way that teaching is constructed and the assumption that the necessary knowledge and skills for teaching can be largely developed on the job.

Teacher education research

In this policy context, reviews of teacher education research have often concluded that it is underdeveloped, small scale, often undertheorised, fragmentary, and somewhat parochial (e.g. Menter, Hulme, Elliot et al., 2010; Sleeter, 2014). As such, a large section of teacher education research has minimal influence on policy other than being used as a weapon to advance competing views of macro-level policy moves (Darling-Hammond, 2016). Moreover, there are suggestions that teacher education research has been distorted and misused (Zeichner & Conklin, 2016) to manufacture a narrative of failure of teacher education designed to build a logic of deficiency and necessity for interventionist reform policies (Rowe & Skourdoumbis, 2019).

Reviews such as those cited above often urge teacher education researchers to conduct large-scale and longitudinal studies or, at the very least, ensure that the small-scale studies are theoretically linked and build on each other to systematically develop a knowledge base for the field. Many reviews also suggest future research foci. For example, in the US, a comprehensive review by Cochran-Smith et al. (2016) recommended future research on: teacher preparation practice and the learning of teacher candidates beyond the individual course, fieldwork site, and programme; how and under what conditions teacher candidates learn the complex skills of teaching as a reflective practitioner; and the connections between teacher learning and student learning. Moreover, they argued that teacher preparation research must acknowledge and investigate the impact of social, cultural, and institutional factors, particularly the impact of poverty, on teaching, learning, and teacher preparation.

However, in the current policy context, there are at least two key dimensions that need further interrogation in terms of future research. The first is related to the call for evidence of effectiveness of teacher education which is often contained in policy documents and related accountability mechanisms. This would seem to suggest an appropriate focus for future research that might have the possibility of also meeting accountability requirements. However, examination of the relevant literature and analysis of the discourses informing teacher education policy in Australia suggest that much closer examination of how effectiveness is understood and framed is needed by both teacher educators and policymakers before this might be possible (Mayer et al., 2017). Moreover, as Helgetun and Menter (2020) remind us, in the current policy ‘evidence era’, evidence is often constructed ideologically for political purposes. This can mean privileging particular types of research both in topic, method and purpose.

Another dimension requiring more interrogation to inform future research directions is the assumption of a singular and unproblematic connection between teacher education and the quality of graduating teachers. Again, while this does seem to suggest possibilities for future research directions, the multiple ways in which university-based teacher education impacts on the education system needs to be considered so that teacher education is positioned as more than just a source of newly qualified teachers. Ell et al. (2019) draw on complexity theory to suggest a nuanced way to conceptualise the impact of teacher education that acknowledges the integrated nature of the education system and the way in which all stakeholders work together to improve student learning.

Within this debate about future foci for teacher education research, the papers in this Special Issue contribute additional possibilities for investigating: teaching practice and its relationship with learning; teacher professionalism and professional learning; quality and conceptions of good practice; knowledge and pedagogy; and teacher agency.

Methodological developments in teacher education research

A review of teacher education research in the UK in the first decade of the 21st century (Menter et al., 2010) concluded that the largest proportion of published studies (journal articles, n = 446) had used reflective approaches, interviews and other qualitative or mixed-method approaches, or literature reviews. Many of these studies were single-authored and small scale, and many were practice-based (including a small number of publications reporting action research). In contrast, large-scale surveys, longitudinal, (quasi-)experimental and other quantitative designs accounted for less than 10% each of the dataset, with quasi-experimental studies being only 0.7%. Menter et al. (2010) concluded that ‘much teacher education research remains small-scale, qualitative and practice-based’ and that there was ‘relatively little attempt to theorise within this body of work’ (p. 134). They argued that for the future there was a ‘need for greater coordination, programming and resourcing’ not only to sustain this work, but also to augment it with ‘large-scale and/or longitudinal and/or theoretically-informed studies’ (p. 135).

Similarly, in a study of peer-reviewed journal articles (n = 236) in the Australian context, Nuttall et al. (2006) found that ‘most of the research was small-scale, using “captive samples” within single courses or institutions’, often lacking ‘a conceptual basis’ and ‘weakly theorized or atheoretical’ (pp. 324–25). The study noted that a large proportion of articles had ‘reflection’ or ‘reflective practice’ as their main focus, while there was a scarcity of longitudinal, multi-site comparative, and experimental studies, as well as of programme evaluations. They recommended ‘extending and connecting localised topics and methodologies through common platforms and protocols; aggregating in systematic ways the research practices, outcomes and capacities in specialist sub-fields; and attending to the need for one or a small number of largescale projects of national interest’ (p. 331).

In the US, the AERA panel report on teacher education research (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005) also concluded that the field was at a point where sustained efforts were needed to develop ‘theory-driven studies … using many different research designs’, ‘robust outcome measures’ and ‘cross-institutional and multivariate analyses’. These would include ‘multisite’ studies and a balance of ‘large-scale’ and 'in-depth' studies, both quantitative and qualitative (p. 2). The report attributed the relative ‘dearth of larger and longer studies’ to the ‘youth’ of teacher education as a field of research, as well as to the scarcity of funding schemes that would make such research their priority.

European research on teacher education shares many of these features, although conceptual, historical and philosophical inquiry seem to be more prevalent than in Anglophone contexts. In their review of 40 years’ worth of papers published in the European Journal of Teacher Education (n = 917), Livingston and Flores (2017) note an even split between theoretical and reflective papers and empirical papers, with the prevalence of small-scale studies among the latter, which were found to be mostly qualitative. The quantitative and mixed-method studies identified also tended to be small in scale. Across all studies, questionnaires and interviews were found to be the most commonly used methods. The authors recommend that larger studies, mixed-method approaches, comparative studies, systematic reviews and co-produced research (with various stakeholders) should be prioritised as an agenda for further development in teacher education research.

It is possible that the prevalence of qualitative studies, as identified by reviews like the above, may reflect the nature of the questions that need to be asked in relation to teacher education, the practicalities of conducting research in the field, or the complexity and situatedness of the practices being researched. It may be appropriate to continue to sustain a base of small-scale and practice-oriented studies that engage practitioners in the production of research and that nurture the synergies between research, teaching and learning in the field. Still, the funding opportunities for teacher education research, both for large-scale quantitative or mixed studies, and for in-depth qualitative and conceptual research, continue to be limited, which is particularly problematic in a context in which university researchers and school-based professionals have been increasingly expected to meet targets of performance set within tight external accountability regimes.

Some of these features of the international teacher education landscape have persisted over a long time and into the recent years; for example, Crawford and Tan's (2019) study of 1055 empirical research articles published by two leading journals for teacher education research between 2010 and 2016 found a slight upwards trend in the percentages of mixed-method studies over the period studied (and a slight decrease in the prevalence of qualitative-only studies). They are also reflected in other geographical contexts, as illustrated by Mensah et al.’s (2018) finding that qualitative and interpretivist research dominated the 60 articles on pre-service teacher education published in three key education journals in South Africa between 2010 and 2017. In contrast, however, Yücel-Toy (2015) notes a prevalence of quantitative studies in teacher education publications in Turkey. Divergence from some of the trends identified in the reviews noted above may thus be identified, geographically, by looking at further non-Anglophone contexts, and also substantively, by considering sub-fields of teacher education research, such as research on STEM teacher education, or research on teacher education leadership.

This Special Issue explores developments since the publication of such reviews in diverse contexts from around the world. Such developments include the completion of several large-scale and longitudinal studies and international comparisons; methodological developments, for example, in relation to the quality of practice-based research and the ethics of teacher education research, but also in comparative and evaluation research, and in participatory and indigenous research methodologies; as well as theorising teacher education and refining understandings of the relationships between research, practice and policy in teacher education. Policy-oriented and development-oriented research have also moved forward, partly reflecting the ongoing attention to teacher quality in the UN Sustainable Development Goal. The papers in this Special Issue showcase in particular conceptual inquiry, comparative research, large-scale surveys and participatory interventions, evaluation research, and co-production of research and professional change.

Concluding comments

Given our arguments above and our cautions about easily delineating clear future research directions in teacher education, we suggest the papers in this Special Issue provide some interesting possibilities for consideration. We argue for better balance between small-scale and large-scale research, between practice-based and theory-driven research, between in-depth single-case and comparative and multi-site research. In addition, we argue for investment in funding a more diverse portfolio of approaches (as above), and for strengthening methodological work in order to understand the contributions that diverse approaches can make and the relative affordances of different methods for integrating and synthesising research. In connection to this, we suggest reflection on how forms of expertise in the field can grow and rebalance, including indigenous methodologies. Moreover, we argue for engaging with the policy agendas and their foci but stress the need to thoughtfully interrogate assumed shared understandings of policy terms like evidence, effectiveness and impact.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Diane Mayer

Diane Mayer is Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow of Harris Manchester College. Diane’s research and scholarship focuses on teacher education and early career teaching, examining issues associated with the policy and practice of teachers’ work and teacher education.

Alis Oancea

Alis Oancea is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Research Policy at the University of Oxford, Director of Research in the Department of Education and lead of the Research on research programme of the Centre for Global Higher Education.