Beliefs of Teacher Educators regarding their Research Engagement

Laura Nicholson, Vini Lander

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Objectives: Teacher educators (TEs) enter the academy after successful careers in schools or colleges but with little or no research experience. For the purposes of the forthcoming universal Research Excellence Framework assessment 2021 and other benefits, TEs should actively engage in research. Research engagement among TEs is low. This research aims to understand the reasons why TEs do/do not engage in research. Design: The theory of planned behaviour was used as a framework and this presentation reports on the elicitation study. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 TEs working in a faculty of education in a university in North-West England. The TEs were asked about their behavioural (advantages and disadvantages), normative (people approving and disapproving, and engaging or not themselves) and control (enabling and difficulty factors) beliefs regarding engaging in research as part of their role. Content analysis was conducted to identify the most accessible beliefs. Results: Although some of the TEs had not formally engaged in any research, their attitudes were generally positive. They reported several barriers to their research engagement, with the most prominent factors being lack of time and knowledge/experience in research. Conclusions: These findings can directly inform strategies for engaging TEs in research in faculties/departments of education. Faculty management can target the accessible beliefs, particularly the control beliefs, in order to increase TEs’ perceptions of control, which in turn should increase their research engagement.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 27 Oct 2017
EventBritish Psychological Society (BPS) Education Section Conference - Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Duration: 27 Oct 201728 Oct 2017

Conference

ConferenceBritish Psychological Society (BPS) Education Section Conference
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityEdinburgh
Period27/10/1728/10/17

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