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Growing interest in student research projects in higher education has led to an emphasis on research supervision. We focus in this study on novice supervisors' approaches to research supervision as they explore their practices and experience difficulties supervising medical-students. Teacher noticing was used as a sensitising concept and relations with teacher dilemmas were explored in the research supervision context. To provide in-depth insights into supervisors' practices and pedagogical choices, twelve stimulated recall interviews with supervisors were analysed. The supervisors were involved in individual undergraduate or master degree student research projects at a research-intensive university. Analysis revealed four kinds of dilemmas which may influence research supervision practices, namely questions regarding regulation, student needs, the student-supervisor relationship and supervisors' professional identity. We explain the relationship between novice supervisors' practices and dilemmas in detail. Implications are given to enhance initiatives for professional development of supervisors.

Research should be explicated in undergraduate teaching in a way that stimulates student learning. Previous studies in higher education have shown that student perceptions of research integrated into teaching could promote student learning, but have also indicated that it can be difficult to confront first-year undergraduates with research during courses. In this study, we describe relationships between first-year medical student perceptions of research, learning outcomes and beliefs about the value of research. The Student Perception of Research Integration Questionnaire was filled out by 261 students. Answers were related to student achievement. The findings suggest that student motivation for research is strongly related to merging current research into teaching. Students rather recognised an emphasis on research methodologies than research engagement. Particularly student beliefs about research are related to achievement. It is suggested that to foster positive beliefs about research, teachers should familiarise students with current research and create enthusiasm for research.

Students in secondary education inevitably favour some subjects more than other subjects. This appraisal may affect how motivation relates to performance in these subjects. Whereas autonomous motivation is generally linked to positive school outcomes, the effect of controlled motivation is less clear. This study specifically focused on the associations of controlled motivation with performance in the context of favoured and disfavoured subjects. In the present study, secondary school students (N = 918) identified 2 favoured and 2 disfavoured subjects. Hierarchical linear modelling was performed to investigate the relationship of autonomous and controlled motivation with performance in these subjects. Results showed that autonomous motivation positively related to performance in both types of subjects. The association of controlled motivation with performance was negative in both contexts, and more negative in disfavoured subjects. For teaching practice, this means that teachers should always stimulate autonomous motivation, even for negatively appraised subjects.

This study explores how academics who expanded their teaching-only positions to include research view their (re)constructed academic identity. Participants worked in a higher professional education institution of applied research and teaching, comparable with so-called new universities. The aim is to increase our understanding of variations in academic identity and to be better able to support academics' 'role making' within and across different worlds of practice. Data from semi-structured interviews with 18 academics at a Dutch new university were analysed using a grounded theory approach. This revealed six well-rounded academic identities reflecting participants' personal scholarly objectives: the 'continuous learner', 'disciplinary expert', 'skilled researcher', 'evidence-based teacher', 'guardian of the research work process' and 'liaison officer'. The researcher role served to promote the overall development of participants' identities. The 'disciplinary expert' matured through participation in the academic world and research activities. Participants discovered what 'being' and 'becoming' a researcher in the new university might entail, and contributed to the professions' knowledge base. Participants learned to apply various research-based teaching approaches. As brokers, they linked research projects to practices in meaningful ways. The six identities embodied an emergent power in creating and preserving a complete academic profession. Participants' accounts showed tensions inherent in an extended role portfolio and constraints in 'role making' given inconsistencies between the university's espoused research mission and the one in use. These imply challenges for university managers in aligning policies and practices, and scaffolding academics' attempts to integrate their academic roles in different worlds of practice.

Within the higher education context, peer feedback is frequently applied as an instructional method. Research on the learning mechanisms involved in the peer feedback process has covered aspects of both providing and receiving feedback. However, a direct comparison of the impact that providing and receiving peer feedback has on students' writing performance is still lacking. The current study compared the writing performance of undergraduate students (N = 83) who either provided or received anonymous written peer feedback in the context of an authentic academic writing task. In addition, we investigated whether students' peer feedback perceptions were related to the nature of the peer feedback they received and to writing performance. Results showed that both providing and receiving feedback led to similar improvements of writing performance. The presence of explanatory comments positively related both to how adequate students perceived the peer feedback to be, as well as to students' willingness to improve based upon it. However, no direct relation was found between these peer feedback perceptions and students' writing performance increase.

In the day-to-day workplace teachers direct their own learning, but little is known about what drives their decisions about what they would like to learn. These decisions are assumed to be influenced by teachers' current professional concerns. Also, teachers in different professional life phases have different reasons for engaging in professional learning. In this study, we explored the professional concerns underlying teachers' learning goals in order to understand variation in professional learning over a teacher's career. In this qualitative study, we administered a semi-structured interview and a card sorting task to 15 secondary school teachers to elicit teachers' learning goals and current professional concerns. By conceptually combining teachers' learning goals with professional concerns in concern-goal pairs, we sought to understand the different reasons for teachers' learning. These concern-goal pairs were characterized in three different types of reasons: continuous, growth and improvement, and work-management. The results showed that early career teachers have mainly growth and improvement concerns, whereas mid- and late-career teachers have both continuous and growth and improvement concerns. Work-management concerns differ for early- and late-career teachers. Results are further discussed in terms of professional life phase models and teachers' developmental tasks throughout their career.

There does not appear to be consensus on how to optimally match students during the peer feedback process: with same-ability peers (homogeneously) or different-ability peers (heterogeneously). In fact, there appears to be no empirical evidence that either homogeneous or heterogeneous student matching has any direct effect on writing performance. The current study addressed this issue in the context of an academic writing task. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, 94 undergraduate students were matched in 47 homogeneous or heterogeneous reciprocal dyads, and provided anonymous, formative peer feedback on each other's draft essays. The relations between students' individual ability or dyad composition, feedback quality and writing performance were investigated. Neither individual ability nor dyad composition directly related to writing performance. Also, feedback quality did not depend on students' individual ability or dyad composition, although trends in the data suggest that high-ability reviewers provided more content-related feedback. Finally, peer feedback quality was not related to writing performance, and authors of varying ability levels benefited to a similar extent from peer feedback on different aspects of the text. The results are discussed in relation to their implications for the instructional design of academic writing assignments that incorporate peer feedback.

This paper describes a method of analysing teacher growth in the context of science education. It focuses on the identification of pathways in the development of secondary school teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) by the use of the interconnected model of teachers' professional growth (IMTPG).The teachers (n = 12) participated in a one-year action research project focused on their individual concerns related to teaching science. The use of the IMTPG revealed that teachers use different pathways of learning to develop different aspects of their PCK. For each PCK component, three distinct pathways could be identified, two of which clearly were associated with professional growth. When examining these two pathways in detail, it was found that (1) teachers learned about new instructional strategies and assessment methods mostly through literature reviews and discussions with peers and (2) teachers who analyzed and reflected on student learning as it happened in their classrooms developed understandings that helped them to select and apply instructional strategies to further promote student learning. Both the analytical method as well as the identification of the different developmental pathways help to better understand teacher development in the context of classroom practices.

A recurrent discussion in the field of education is how to build linkages between educational research and school practice. Cross-professional collaboration between researchers and school practitioners can contribute to the interplay between practice-based research and school development. The aim of our study is to obtain a better understanding of how a productive interplay between practice-based research and school development is established in the context of 19 research and development (R&D) projects in secondary education. Data from semi-structured interviews with school practitioners and researchers involved in the projects, observations of project meetings and document analysis were used. A productive interplay, in which practice-based research informed school development, was found in two-thirds of the R&D projects. Important conditions in these projects include closing the feedback loop from research to school practice, and making clear agreements on communication and on division of roles and tasks.

Schools' structural workplace conditions (e.g. learning resources and professional development policies) and cultural workplace conditions (e.g. school leadership, teachers' collaborative culture) have been found to affect the way teachers learn. It is not so much the objective conditions that support or impede professional learning but the way teachers perceive those workplace conditions that influence teachers' learning. Not much is known, however, about how teachers' perceptions relate to the way they direct their own learning. Using a sense-making approach, we explored how four teachers' perceptions of cultural and structural workplace conditions were related with how they direct their own learning. The four cases were selected from a sample of 31 teachers from two secondary schools, and differed in the extent to which the teachers perceived their workplace as enabling or constraining their learning. We found that the content of teachers' learning goals is related to their perception of shared vision and professional dialogue in their schools, and driven by individual classroom-based concerns. Furthermore, teachers' perceptions of cultural workplace conditions and supportive leadership practices seem to be more important influences for teachers' self-directed learning than their perception of structural conditions.

In this study, we explored the relationships between teachers' self-articulated professional learning goals and their teaching experience. Although those relationships seem self-evident, in programmes for teachers' professional development years of teaching experience are hardly taken into account. Sixteen teachers with varying years of experience and subjects were interviewed. The results show different learning goals, related to communication and organisation, curriculum and instruction, innovation, responsibilities, and themselves as professional. Various relationships between learning goals and teaching experience emerged, which clearly reflect the development from early- to mid- and late-career teachers. Issues related to curriculum and instruction appeared to be learning goals for early- and mid-career teachers. This implies that regardless of increasing teaching expertise, curriculum and instruction remain central to teachers' continuous learning. Late-career teachers were interested in learning about extra-curricular tasks and innovations. Models of professional life phases have been used to interpret these results.

This study investigates the knowledge that experienced teachers draw on when fostering students' reflections. Reflective skills are crucial for advancing students' learning. In order to promote students' reflection productively, extensive support and scaffolding from teachers is indispensible. However, teachers are in need of more guidance in this area. To inspire pedagogies for teacher training, this study provides insight into the knowledge that teachers employ when they are engaged with promoting their students to reflect. Video vignette interviews were administered to 36 teachers in secondary vocational education for nursing to elicit their knowledge. Interview transcripts were coded using categories for assessing teachers' curricular, pedagogical and instructional knowledge. To investigate relations between the elements of teachers' knowledge, we performed a lag-sequential analysis that enables statistical testing of observed sequences of categorised events. Four salient relations between elements of teacher knowledge emerged: (1) instructional knowledge as instrumental to construing pedagogical knowledge; (2) instructional knowledge contingent on pedagogical knowledge; (3) instructional knowledge and curricular knowledge related to fostering critical reflection; and (4) instructional knowledge and curricular knowledge related to fostering planning. Implications for teacher training are discussed.

Student performance is related to motivation to learn. As motivation generally declines during lower secondary education, one might expect performance to decline as well during this period. Though, until now, it has been unclear whether this pattern exists. In the present study, we examined student performance during the early years of secondary education from a developmental perspective. Participants were 1,544 Dutch secondary school students across three grades (grades 7 to 9). To investigate student performance trends, we analysed report card grades by using hierarchical linear modelling with two levels (level 1, time point; level 2, student). Potential moderators to be examined were (1) gender, (2) school type and (3) initial level. A linear decline in report card grades from grade 7 to 9 was found for boys and girls, in all school types, and regardless of initial level. Two variables moderated the steepness of the decline: school type and initial level. Gender and school type had a main effect on performance level. The same pattern was observed for the subset of "core subjects"--Dutch, English and mathematics. Motivational and cognitive factors that may explain the performance decline are discussed.

To increase the teacher efficacy of student teachers, they need positive classroom experiences: mastery experiences. These mastery experiences have to be created by the student teachers themselves. Therefore, student teachers need a tool to better understand problematic teaching experiences and help them create positive classroom experiences. Nine student biology teachers used this attribution support tool when reflecting on multiple lessons taught in classes they considered difficult. They scored their lessons and filled in a teacher efficacy questionnaire after each lesson. The results show that teacher efficacy increased and the number of failures during the lessons decreased; on average, the self-awarded marks per teacher per lesson increased, indicating an increase in mastery experiences. Therefore, the attribution tool seems to be a promising tool for student teachers to enhance their teacher efficacy and to support reflection on problematic teaching experiences.

Using a variety of research approaches and instruments, previous research has revealed what university students tend to see as benefits and disadvantages of the integration of research in teaching. In the present study, a questionnaire was developed on the basis of categorizations of the research-teaching nexus in the literature. The aim of the Student Perception of Research Integration Questionnaire (SPRIQ) is to determine the factors that capture the way students perceive research integration in their courses. The questionnaire was administered among 221 students from five different undergraduate courses at a research intensive university in The Netherlands. Data analysis revealed four factors regarding research integration: motivation, reflection, participation, and current research. These factors are correlated with students' rating of the quality of the course and with their beliefs about the importance of research for their learning. Moreover, courses could be distinguished in terms of research intensiveness, from the student perspective, based on the above-mentioned factors. It is concluded that the SPRIQ helps to understand how students perceive research integration in specific courses and is a promising tool to give feedback to teachers and program managers who aim to strengthen links between research, teaching, and student learning.

Curriculum materials serve as a key conceptual tool for science teachers, and better understanding how science teachers use these tools could help to improve both curriculum design and theory related to teacher learning and decision-making. The authors review the literature on teachers and science curriculum materials. The review is organised around three main questions: What do teachers do when using science curriculum materials?, What happens when teachers use science curriculum materials? and Why do teachers make the decisions they do? For each question, the authors first summarise the findings of two key reviews from the mathematics education literature, then situate the findings from science education in juxtaposition with those findings. The review uncovers that relatively little is understood about the mechanism underlying how teachers interact with curriculum materials. To try to address this gap, complementing and extending the field's existing understandings of the teacher-curriculum relationship, the authors make four propositions, grounded in the literature on self-regulation. The propositions reflect a mechanism for teacher curricular decision-making. The self-regulation perspective also helps to develop more targeted support for science teachers aimed at the uptake, adaptation and enactment of curriculum materials in ways that are intended, and that teachers themselves experience as an improvement in their teaching. The authors conclude with a call for research that further explores the ways in which individual science teachers' decision-making is situated within the wider sociocultural context.

Collaboration between practitioners and researchers can increasingly be observed in research and development (R&D) projects in secondary schools. This article presents an analysis of cross-professional collaboration between teachers, school leaders and educational researchers and/or advisers as part of R&D projects in terms of three dimensions: reasons for collaboration, the division of roles and tasks, and the communication structure. Data were collected in interviews with participants from 12 Dutch projects, from documents and from meetings with participants. The results show that the parties involved can have the same reasons for cross-professional collaboration but that the external educational experts may also have additional objectives. Roles and tasks were divided in different ways, depending on who directs and guides the research and development, and whether teachers were involved as teacher researchers in the project. The communication structure appeared to be linked to the division of roles and tasks, but also to the number of participants in the project. The three dimensions proved to be valuable viewpoints to study cross-professional collaboration in R&D projects in Dutch secondary education. Furthermore, we distinguished four types of cross-professional collaboration in R&D projects. These types differ in the extent to which the school or the external party direct and guide the project: (a) School-directed collaboration; (b) School- and researcher-directed collaboration; (c) School- and adviser-directed collaboration; (d) Researcher-directed collaboration. Our findings can support participants to consciously choose a particular type of cross-professional collaboration that fits their purposes and specific situation.

Many innovative teaching approaches lack classroom impact because teachers consider the proposals impractical. Making a teaching approach practical requires instrumentality (procedures), congruence (local fit), and affordable cost (limited time and resources).This paper concerns a study on the development and effects of a participatory design based teacher training trajectory aimed at making guided discovery learning (GDL) practical for student biology teachers. First, we identified practical heuristics for designing GDL lessons by analyzing design protocols made by biology teachers who are experts in GDL. Next we inventoried student responses to their regular lessons and to GDL based lessons. Based on this we prepared a teacher training program for eleven student biology teachers in which they applied the heuristics and stepwise extended their teaching repertoire in the direction of GDL. The participants' design processes and resulting lesson plans were scored on both use of design heuristics and GDL characteristics. The participants were interviewed about their motivational beliefs before and after the program. Results showed that student teachers are able to design GDL lessons and used the heuristics to design GDL lessons. Their motivation for implementing GDL in their classroom had increased substantially. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on our method of participatory design and its applicability.

One main focus of teacher education research concentrates on teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). It has been shown that teachers' PCK correlates with teaching effectiveness as well as with students' achievement gains. Teachers' PCK should be analyzed as one of the main important components to evaluate professional development programs. On this account, it is necessary to develop standardized measures of biology teachers' topic-specific PCK that are labor-efficient. This paper presents a study on the development, evaluation, and validation of a paper-and-pencil test to measure biology teachers' declarative PCK on the topic of blood and the human cardiovascular system. The development of the test was based, among other considerations, on a review of research literature on PCK and an analysis of 50 videotaped biology lessons. The final test instrument was comprised of 15 items distributed across 2 scales. The findings of the main study--with 93 preservice and in-service biology teachers and 12 biologists--confirmed that this measure of biology teachers' declarative PCK was reliable, objective, and valid. In-service biology teachers scored higher on the test than preservice teachers (effect size Cohen's d, 0.65) on one hand and, also, than biologists (Cohen's d, 1.00) on the other hand. Future versions of this test should explore enlarging the scales and measuring procedural aspects of PCK.

This experimental study concerned the effects of repeated students' evaluations of teaching coupled with collaborative consultation on professors' instructional skills. Twenty-five psychology professors from a Dutch university were randomly assigned to either a control group or an experimental group. During their course, students evaluated them four times immediately after a lecture (class meeting in which lecturing was the teaching format) by completing the Instructional Skills Questionnaire (ISQ). Within 2 or 3 days after each rated lecture, the professors in the experimental group were informed of the ISQ-results and received consultation. Each consultation, three in total, resulted in a plan to improve their teaching for the next lectures. Controls received neither their ISQ-results nor consultation during their course. Multilevel regression analyses showed significant differences in ISQ-ratings in the experimental group compared to the control group, specifically on the instructional dimensions Explication, Comprehension and Activation. In addition, the impact of each of the three consultations plus differences between targeted versus non targeted dimensions were analyzed. This study complements recent non-experimental research on a collaborative consultation approach with experimental results in order to provide evidence-based guidelines for faculty development practices.

Understanding the relation between teachers' goal statements and students' experiences about the position of research in undergraduate coursework can give use insight into ways to integrate research and teaching and foster undergraduate research. In this study, we examined to what extent teachers' goal statements agreed with students' experiences of research during undergraduate science coursework. Interviews were held with university science teachers and a questionnaire was presented to their students. The results suggest that teachers' goal statements about the research dispositions of students often tend to disagree with students' experiences, while the emphasis on teachers' own research or explicit participation of students in research activities tends to be in agreement with students' experiences. It is suggested that if students are to appreciate the intangible elements of research, teachers need to emphasise these elements in their communications to their students. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Despite pressing concerns about the need to prepare high-quality teachers and the central role of teacher educators (TEs) in this process, little is known about how TEs teach about teaching specific subject matter, and how they develop their expertise. This empirical study focuses on the specific expertise that science TEs bring into teacher education. Individual interviews and story lines were conducted with 12 experienced science TEs from four different teacher education institutions in Australia and the Netherlands, to gain insight into their aims for teaching about science teaching, and how their expertise has developed on the basis of their professional background and experiences. The findings of this exploratory study reveal similarities among the concerns of these TEs and yet considerable diversity among their approaches. The study aims to contribute to a better understanding of science TEs’ work and the development of a pedagogy of science teacher education. (Contains 1 table.)

A wide variety of studies has been carried out regarding the way academics view the research-teaching nexus, while other studies have focused on the students' experience of research-intensive environments. This study links these two research streams, and describes how 12 staff members in a faculty of humanities integrate research into their teaching, and how their students perceive these learning environments. Data were gathered from both teachers and students. The 12 teachers opted for different ways of integrating disciplinary research into their teaching. The study produced some unexpected benefits, as the attained learning environment yielded more and other outcomes than intended. It was possible to attribute dispositional learning outcomes to students bringing the academic disposition into practice, and discussing their efforts with their teachers, while awareness of research increased as a result of getting a close look at the teacher's own research. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

The committees for the current Dutch context-based innovation in secondary science education employed teachers to design context-based curriculum materials. A study on the learning of science teachers in design teams for context-based curriculum materials is presented in this paper. In a correlation study, teachers with (n = 5 and 840 students) and without (n = 8 and 184 students) context-based curriculum material design experience were compared on context-based competence. Context-based competence comprises context handling, regulation, emphasis, design, and school innovation. Context-based teaching competence was mapped using both qualitative and quantitative research methods in a composite instrument. Due to the differences in design team set-up for different science subjects, teachers with design experience from different science subjects were also compared on their context-based competence. It was found that teachers with design experience showed more context-based competence than their non-designing colleagues. Furthermore, teachers designing for biology showed more context-based competence than their peers from other science subjects. (Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

The research outlined in this paper investigated how student teachers perceived the development of their knowledge and attitudes towards physics through video recorded practical workshops based on experiments and subsequent group discussions. During an 8-week physics course, 40 primary science student teachers worked in groups of 13-14 on practical experiments and problem-solving skills in physics. The student teachers were video recorded in order to follow their activities and discussions during the experiments. In connection with every workshop, the student teachers participated in a seminar conducted by their physics teachers and a primary science teacher; they watched the video recording in order to reflect on their activities and how they communicated their conceptions in their group. After the 8 weeks of coursework a questionnaire including a storyline was used to elicit the student teachers' perceptions of their development of subject matter knowledge from the beginning to the end of the course. Finally, five participants were interviewed after the course. The results provided insight into how aspects such as self-confidence and the meaningfulness of knowledge for primary teaching were perceived as important factors for the primary science student teachers' development of subject matter knowledge as well as a positive attitude towards physics.

In science education in the Netherlands new, context-based, curricula are being developed. As in any innovation, the outcome will largely depend on the teachers who design and implement lessons. Central to the study presented here is the idea that teachers, when designing lessons, use rules-of-thumb: notions of what a lesson should look like if certain classroom outcomes are to be reached. Our study aimed at (1) identifying the rules-of-thumb biology teachers use when designing context-based lessons for their own classroom practice, and (2) assessing how these personal rules-of-thumb relate to formal innovative goals and lesson characteristics. Six biology teachers with varying backgrounds designed and implemented a lesson or series of lessons for their own practice, while thinking aloud. We interviewed the teachers and observed their lessons. Our results suggest that rules-of-thumb, which differed substantially among the teachers, indeed to a great extent guide the decisions teachers make when designing (innovative) lessons. These rules-of-thumb were often strongly associated with intended lesson outcomes. Also, teachers' personal rules-of-thumb were more powerful in determining the lesson design than formal innovative goals and lesson characteristics. The results of this study encourage more research into how rules-of-thumb reflect teachers' practical knowledge, for which suggestions are made. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

The purpose of this paper is to capture the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of university professors about quantum chemistry. More specifically, we aimed to identify and analyze relationships between specific PCK components, using an adapted version of the model of PCK of Magnusson "et al.". A sample of university professors (n = 6) who teach quantum chemistry at undergraduate level was interviewed. Data analysis combined a quantitative and qualitative methodology. Relationships were found between components of the Magnusson model, in particular, between specific orientations to teaching science, and knowledge of instructional strategies. In addition, relationships were found between teachers' knowledge of student learning, and their curriculum. In short, given their view that the learning of quantum chemistry presents many difficulties to students, most teachers combined a didactic view of teaching with an instructional approach focusing on problem solving. Taking the results of the study together, they explain what teachers do to teach quantum chemistry, and why, and therefore, the results help us to portray their PCK. (Contains 1 note, 2 tables, and 3 figures.)