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Educating student teachers to teach highly diverse groups of pupils has become one of the central tasks of teacher education programmes. Research on inclusive education has pointed to the need for more studies around student teachers' inclusive teaching competence. This study explores the extent to which student teachers' beliefs and self-efficacy related to inclusive teaching practices predict their professional vision of two inclusive classrooms' characteristics being (1) teacher-student interactions (TSI) and (2) differentiated instruction (DI). The data were collected from a sample of 1397 student teachers in Flemish primary teacher education institutions (N = 8). The video and survey data were combined through multiple regression analysis. The findings indicate that student teachers' constructivist beliefs and self-efficacy in inclusive instruction contribute to the development of their professional vision of TSI and DI. The results are discussed with recommendations for teacher education programmes on inclusive teaching practices.

Previous research has pointed at the pivotal role of professional collegial support relationships to keep beginning teachers in the profession. In this study, we build on previous research by using follow-up mixed-method social network data to explore (1) to what extent, in what ways and for which reasons beginning teachers' work-related network (position) changes throughout a school year, and (2) how the network (position) of beginning teachers influences their job attitudes, as important precursors of teacher retention. Five follow-up case-studies of beginning teachers and their school teams were explored. The network data showed that some teachers had a central and stable position in their team, while others were more peripheral and showed considerable changes in their work-related relations. The interviews with the beginning teachers revealed several reasons for the formation, loss and retention of their work-related ties, such as physical proximity, network intentionality and the presence of a staffroom. Finally, the results indicated that the professional support in these work-related ties can play an important role in beginning teachers' job attitudes, or can act as a mitigating factor in case of experienced challenges. In this respect, the structural and cultural conditions needed for teachers to professionally connect require our attention.

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study (carried out between 2011 and 2013) about the adoption and implementation of learning paths within a Learning Management System (LMS). Sixteen secondary school biology teachers of the GO! Network in Flanders (an urbanized region in Belgium) were involved in the study and questioned via semi-structured interviews. Two research questions are addressed: (1) what are the perceived conditions at school and at teacher level affecting the use of learning paths? (2) how are these conditions related to the expected outcomes? Research results show teachers are satisfied with learning paths as an educational tool, but reflect mixed feelings as to the impact on student learning outcomes. Clear barriers are identified at the school and teacher level, thwarting the implementation of learning paths in secondary education. The availability of a reliable and accessible ICT infrastructure, the quality of technical and pedagogical support, teacher professional development and the mastery of teacher Information and Communication Technology competencies, among others, were found to be essential.

It is important to reveal strategies which foster students' reading motivation in order to break through the declining trend in reading motivation throughout children's educational careers. Consequently, the present study advances an underexposed field in reading motivation research by studying and identifying the strategies of teachers excellent in promoting fifth-grade students' volitional or autonomous reading motivation through multiple case study analysis. Data on these excellent teachers were gathered from multiple sources (interviews with teachers, SEN coordinators, and school leaders; classroom observations; teacher and student questionnaires) and analysed. The results point to the teaching dimensions of autonomy support, structure, and involvement--as indicated by self-determination theory--as well as to reading aloud as critical strategies to promote students' autonomous reading motivation in the classroom. A school culture supporting students' and teachers' interest in reading is also an essential part of reading promotion. The theoretical and practical significance of the study is discussed.

In research on teacher induction, scholars have pointed at the pivotal role of collegial support to overcome the challenges inherent to the first years of teaching. In this quantitative study, we extend current work by using a social network perspective to examine characteristics (i.e. network size, frequency and perceived usefulness) of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks. Moreover, we explore the extent to which these characteristics explain key factors affecting teacher retention, namely job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation to teach, and self-efficacy. An online survey was completed by 292 beginning primary school teachers in Flanders (Belgium). Social network data showed that, on average, they receive professional, emotional and social support from six colleagues each week and found this mostly useful. Regression analyses demonstrated that network size and perceived usefulness of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks were positively related to job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation to teach, thus confirming the importance of collegial support in teacher induction. Frequency of support was not significant. Finally, no substantial relationship was found between collegial support and teachers' self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for practice and policy are discussed.

Grounded in the Self-Determination Theory, this study examines the relations between teacher educators' experienced work pressure and opportunities for professional growth, their work related basic needs satisfaction (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness) and their researcherly disposition (i.e. being a smart consumer of research, being able to conduct research, conducting research and valuing research). A large-scale survey study was conducted, involving 944 teacher educators working within teaching-intensive teacher education institutions. The results of SEM-analyses show that teacher educators' opportunities for growth as well as the experienced work pressure are significantly related to the satisfaction of teacher educators' basic psychological needs at work. In turn, positive relations were identified between the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs and teacher educators' researcherly disposition.

This study reports on the design of a video-based instrument to assess student teachers' parent-teacher communication competences (PTCC) in a reliable and valid way. PTCC refer to the competences needed to communicate successfully with parents during conversations such as parent-teacher conferences. Taking into account both conceptual and methodological challenges regarding the measurement of competences, several methodological steps were followed to design a video-based instrument focusing on the assessment of student teachers' perception, interpretation and decision-making skills (PID skills) regarding parent-teacher communication: designing video vignettes presenting realistic job situations regarding parent-teacher communication; developing instructions to elicit student teachers' PID skills; designing a coding scheme to analyse student teachers' responses; and implementing the instrument (n = 269) to test and refine it. This ultimately resulted in an instrument consisting of (1) three video vignettes, (2) a series of open-ended questions eliciting student teachers' PID skills, and (3) three coding schemes to develop a perception score, an interpretation score and a decision-making score for PTCC. The (4) implementation of the instrument confirmed that this innovative video-based tool might be a promising approach to assess student teachers' PTCC. To conclude, the quality and contribution of the measurement instrument and the implications for further research are discussed.

Taking into account the pressing need to understand more about what teacher educators' professional development characterises, this article adopts a mixed method approach to explore Flemish (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) teacher educators' professional development needs and opportunities. Analysis results of a large-scale survey study with 611 teacher educators and analysis of five qualitative focus groups (with 24 teacher educators) are presented. The results confirm the lack of attention for teacher educators' professional development in the Flemish teacher education system. Moreover, the findings indicate a structural need for participation in professional development activities that are linked to teacher educators' own practices, organised as long-term sustainable professional development trajectories, and formally recognised. To conclude, a professional development agenda for research, policy and practices related to teacher educators' professional development is discussed.

In this article we present an embedded case study focused on the learning activities provided for and by us through our involvement in an international forum focused on the professional development of teacher educators. The aim of this research was to gain more insight into the complicated processes of professional learning across national borders. Data included personal narratives about learning and documentary analysis of written accounts of the forums' activities. Following a collaborative self-study approach we utilised an interactive exploration of the data, using coding techniques derived from grounded theory. We conclude that our professional learning can be seen through two inter-related perspectives. The first perspective is the interplay between our own learning and the ways in which we want to support colleagues in their professional development. The second perspective is the reciprocal effect of working in national as well as in transnational contexts. By studying our professional learning processes we developed insights into how a shared communal international forum can be established without losing individual voices and national perspectives. Moreover, through our involvement in an international forum we also continue to develop our own self-understanding as 'educators of teacher educators'.

Nowadays, more and more authors are convinced that ICT (information and communication technology) in early childhood education provides multiple possibilities for young children. The current study, conducted in Flanders, aims to get a clearer picture of ICT use in Flemish preschools. For this purpose, a questionnaire was composed consisting of newly developed and existing scales. Based on the answers of 232 preschool teachers, two types of ICT use are distinguished in early childhood education, "ICT use supporting basic ICT skills and attitudes", and "ICT use supporting contents and individual learning needs". "ICT use supporting basic ICT skills and attitudes" occurs more frequently and is related to the grade of the preschoolers, teachers' self-perceived ICT competences and the number of years of experience with ICT at school. "ICT use supporting contents and individual learning needs" is strongly related to the grade of the preschoolers, teachers' self-perceived ICT competences, ICT professional development and teachers' attitudes towards the possibilities of ICT for teachers in early childhood education. This indicates that professional development is a crucial factor in stimulating ICT use that transcends teaching basic ICT skills and attitudes.

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the need for teacher educators'--or those who teach the teachers--professional development became increasingly recognised in both policy and research literature. In this respect, a growing body of publications highly stress the teacher educators' task of engaging in research and becoming a teacher educator-researcher. This article assumes that teacher educators' professional development can be conceptualised as the development of a "researcherly disposition". A researcherly disposition is defined as the tendency to engage in research, and involves an inclination towards research (affective aspect), an ability to engage in research (cognitive aspect) and a sensitivity for research opportunities (behavioural aspect). Twenty in-depth interviews with teacher educators were conducted and analysed in order to empirically explore the concept and assess differences in teacher educators' researcherly disposition. The findings indicate a typology with three types of teacher educators: "the enquiring teacher educator" (Type 1), "the well-read teacher educator" (Type 2) and "the teacher educator-researcher" (Type 3). Based on the proposed definition of a teacher educator's researcherly disposition, each type's disposition towards research is presented. Finally, implications for further research and for future programmes that focus on teacher educators' professional development are discussed.

Beyond learning how to manage children in a classroom, new teachers also must learn how to manage relationships with the adults in their school. Every new employee must be socialized into membership of their new work organization. In the case of teachers, that's the school and the district. In a study of beginning teachers in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking community of Belgium, the authors followed eight teachers over their first year of teaching, interviewing each of them four times during the year--at the beginning of the school year in September, Christmas holiday, Easter holiday, and at the end of the school year in June to document how the new teachers developed relationships with key actors in their school organization. (Contains 3 tables.)

The purpose of this study is to analyze the content features of educational technology curricula for primary education developed by national governments. A qualitative cross-case document analysis of the national educational technology curriculum of Norway, Flanders and England was conducted. The analysis focuses on the underlying visions, specific aims and instruction related aspects that are integrated in the national educational technology curricula of the three cases under investigation. The results indicate that specific aims mainly focus on the critical use of educational technology; safe and responsible use of educational technology; information retrieval, processing and production; communication by use of educational technology; and use of educational technology for subject learning. It is possible that a discrepancy exists between the concepts of digital literacy and the specific aims that are addressed in educational technology curricula. Moreover, the rationales that underlie educational technology curricula represent a catalytic and social point of view rather than an economic one. The implications of our findings for curriculum developers and researchers are discussed.

Schools are more and more encouraged to write a school-based information and communication technology (ICT) policy plan. In such a plan, a school describes its expectations, goals, content and actions related to the future role of ICT in teaching and learning. Although this is encouraged by researchers and policy makers, the literature on ICT policy plans and ICT policy planning is rather general and underdeveloped. In this study, the content of school-based ICT policy plans and underlying policy processes is explored. Data were gathered in 31 primary schools in Flanders: the schools' ICT policy plan was submitted to a content analysis, and a semi-structured interview was administered to the school leader or the ICT coordinator. Using a framework of ICT leadership practices to guide the analysis (setting direction, developing people and making the organization work), we identified three types of ICT policy plans: (1) an ICT policy plan as a vision blueprint, (2) a technical inventory and (3) a comprehensive ICT policy plan. Although the last type takes into account all ICT leadership practices, we found a variety of different approaches in the processes used to create and execute such plans, such as the support of ICT training activities, data-driven decision-making processes and monitoring activities.

Researchers and policy makers around the world are increasingly acknowledging the importance of developing a school-based ICT policy plan to facilitate the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in education. Despite this interest, not much is known about how schools can develop their local ICT policy capacity and how to establish an ICT policy plan. In order to fill the gap in research on ICT policy planning, a multiple case study analysis with a mixed-method design was carried out with three Flemish primary schools. Primary schools in Flanders are encouraged by the government to develop local ICT policy planning in a context of ICT curriculum reform. Data from multiple sources (e.g. interviews with school leaders and ICT coordinators, focus group interviews with teachers, school policy document analysis, and a teacher questionnaire) were gathered and analyzed. The results indicate that ICT policy planning in schools should be considered as a multifaceted phenomenon grounded in school culture. ICT policy consists of different policy domains: vision development, financial policy, infrastructural policy, continuing professional development policy, and curriculum policy. Each policy domain can be described in terms of policy artifacts (tools, routines, and structures), and differences exist between schools concerning the involvement of teachers in the policy planning process and in the distribution of management tasks. As such, the study illustrates a distributed leadership perspective on ICT school policy planning. The results are of particular importance for school leaders, ICT coordinators and professional development trainers, and illustrates that ICT school policy is as much about developing shared meanings among stakeholders for ICT, and coordinating their relations and interactions in keeping with the school's culture as it is about content related decisions. (Contains 3 tables.)

Teachers play a pivotal role in implementing educational innovations and realising curriculum change. Consequently, their perceptions of innovations and curricula content are of crucial importance. In this study, teachers' perceptions of the new ICT curriculum in Flanders are examined. This curriculum reflects Flemish society's underlying vision of the role of technology and ICT in teaching and learning. The curriculum is compulsory for all primary schools and focuses on the cross-curricular integrated use of ICT. Teachers' perceptions of the curriculum are operationalised using Rogers' innovation diffusion theory, and are specified as innovation attributes. These are defined as the perceived characteristics of the ICT-curriculum. Factors explaining these attributes are investigated. A questionnaire is administered to a representative sample of Flemish teachers (N = 471). Factor analysis and hierarchical regression analysis are conducted. The results indicate that teachers have moderate opinions about the new ICT curriculum and that both teacher and school level conditions explain teachers' perceived characteristics of the new ICT curriculum. "ICT competences of teachers" and the "schools' ICT vision and policy" were found to be the strongest predictors. These results are of particular importance to policy makers and school leaders and shed light on the complex process of ICT curriculum implementation. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

In the search for factors affecting the use of ICT in educational settings, several authors have presented holistic conceptual frameworks. In this study, we argue that while these models are valuable sources for conducting qualitative research, they are less useful for quantitative research since few measurement scales have been created. We present an empirically tested conceptual framework to further examine the complex process of integrating ICT for instructional purposes. This model has been developed from a school improvement perspective and considers the e-capacity of a school as an overarching concept. E-capacity refers to the schools' ability to create and optimise sustainable school level and teacher level conditions to bring about effective ICT change. The conditions identified are based on a literature review in the change and school improvement literature and the ICT integration literature. All conditions have been translated into reliable measurement scales. Questionnaire data were collected from a representative teacher sample (N = 471) in 62 primary school in Belgium (Flanders). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted indicating good goodness of fit estimates and good internal consistency. (Contains 3 tables and 4 figures.)

An important step towards the successful integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools is to facilitate their capacity to develop a school based ICT policy. However, one of the biggest challenges for schools is to gather data that could help shape such policy development. In this context, ICT researchers can be very useful as they can use the data gathered from their research projects to give feedback to schools. In this article, we present an electronic school performance feedback system (e-SPFS) we developed for schools that participated in our survey research. This e-SPFS illustrates how researchers can collaborate with practitioners; and how schools use data to examine their performance, their strengths and their weaknesses in shaping ICT policy decisions and practice. We appeal the ICT research community to carry out more research that is grounded in a school performance feedback cycle. (Contains 1 figure.)

The relation between educational research and practice is a growing point of interest and has produced numerous lively debates. Although many reports and position papers have been published on this topic, little empirical data are available. The aim of this study is to explore the gap between educational research and practice and to assess the views of different key actors. After reviewing the literature, focus group interviews were organised with teachers, school leaders, researchers, and intermediaries. Questionnaire data were obtained from educational research professors in Flanders. Results indicate that the gap between educational research and practice should be approached as a complex and differentiated phenomenon. All participants agreed that more cooperation between researchers and practitioners is necessary. This could be achieved by establishing "professional learning communities" or by promoting a "design-based research" model. (Contains 1 table.)

The present study explores the impact of an experimental reading intervention focusing on explicit reading strategy instruction and cross-age peer tutoring on third and sixth graders' reading strategy awareness, cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy use, and reading comprehension achievement. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used. In total, 39 teachers and 762 elementary school students participated in the study. The experimental intervention was implemented during an entire school year. Standardized tests were used to measure pupils' reading comprehension (Staphorsius & Krom, 1996). Further, students completed 2 questionnaires: the index of reading awareness (Jacobs & Paris, 1987) and the reading strategy use scale (Pereira-Laird & Deane, 1997). Significant intervention effects were found for third graders' overall awareness of reading strategies, their awareness of the importance of regulating the reading process, and sixth graders' awareness of the added value of evaluation of tasks, goals, and personal skills. Further, significant intervention effects were found for both third and sixth graders' overall reading strategy use. For sixth graders a significant impact on metacognitive reading strategy use was found as well. (Contains 7 tables.)

In this essay, we state that establishing technology curricula by national governments causes a shift in the policy actions of educational technology support: from a technical rationale with a main focus on funding and resources to a pedagogical rationale with a main focus on student competencies. We illustrate our point of view by describing the formal educational technology curriculum recently administered by the government in Flanders. This curriculum is written in terms of attainment targets and has clear implications on the nature of educational technology which is no longer dependent on teachers' individual efforts or willingness, but is becoming compulsory at the school level. Furthermore, we present two levers that facilitate the integration process of educational technology in general and the realization of technology curricula in particular. Technology coordinators should act more as curriculum managers and change agents, and schools should jointly establish a technology policy plan.

As a significant step in the consolidation of the importance of technology in education, the Flemish Government recently (September 2007) introduced a formal technology curriculum for schools. This compulsory curriculum replaces already existing but non-binding technology guidelines and is an important action in the Flemish policy of educational technology support. The introduction of a technology curriculum brings educational technology in schools to a turning point: Technology is no longer considered as being dependent on teachers' individual efforts or willingness, but is becoming compulsory at the school level. The Flemish educational technology curriculum is written in terms of attainment targets. These targets are minimum objectives concerning the knowledge, insight, skills, and attitudes the government regards as necessary for and attainable by pupils at different educational levels. The formulation of a compulsory technology curriculum opens new perspectives for Flemish schools when working on putting technology into practice. Schools are challenged to translate the technology curriculum into concrete teaching and learning activities. For this purpose, they can use the online tool PICTOS (Planning for ICT on School) to establish their school-based technology plan. This article discusses the five design principles which, at the same time, act as characteristics of PICTOS. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)