Teacher educators in the academic university context : the relationship between research-teaching integration, approaches to teaching, self-efficacy beliefs in teaching and burnout

This dissertation explored teacher educators’ research and teaching work in the academic university-based teacher education context. The aims were to clarify how the university-based teacher educators considered their roles as teachers and/or researchers and the nexus between their research and teaching, how they integrated research into teaching, and the approaches to teaching they reported applying. Meanwhile, how their research-teaching integration was correlated to their reported approaches to teaching, i.e., their intentions for teaching and the strategies supporting the intention, was investigated. Furthermore, how teacher self-efficacy beliefs in teaching and burnout (inadequacy in teacher-student interaction, and exhaustion and stress) predicted teacher educators’ reported approaches to teaching were examined to explain the variation of their approaches to teaching. A mixed-methods approach was applied. Accordingly, a questionnaire including 34 quantitative items and one qualitative open-ended question was used. The data were collected from Finland (n = 101) and China (n = 115) and were analysed in three sub-studies. Study I explored Finnish teacher educators’ reported roles as teachers/researchers, the closeness of their research-teaching nexus, the tangible forms in which they integrated research into teaching, the approaches to teaching they reported applying, and the relationship between them. The results revealed that about half of the participants reported their roles of being more as teachers than researchers. About 80% of them considered the nexus between their research and teaching to be tight. Six forms of research-teaching integration were found. The most frequently reported form was teaching content is based on research, followed by teaching methods and course design are based on research, applying inquiry-oriented methods in teaching, acting as researchers in teacher education, encouraging student teachers’ involvement in research work, and a supportive relationship between research and teaching. Furthermore, Finnish teacher educators were identified as having three approaches to teaching: teacher educators with a student-focused approach to teaching; teacher educators with a dissonant approach to teaching; and teacher educators with a vague approach to teaching. However, no relationship was found between the varied approaches to teaching and teacher educators’ reported teacher/researcher role, their research-teaching closeness, or research-teaching integration. Study II examined Chinese teacher educators’ reported approaches to teaching, their roles as teachers/researchers and research-teaching closeness, and the relationship between them. The analyses indicated that the Chinese teacher educators reported differently from their colleagues in Finland regarding the components of the student-focused and teacher-focused approaches to teaching. Chinese teacher educators considered information presentation as one element of the student-focused approach to teaching rather than the teacher-focused approach. Besides this, the analyses showed three approaches to teaching in Chinese teacher education similar to the ones in Finland. Meanwhile, about half of the Chinese teacher educators reported themselves more as teachers than researchers, and that their research and teaching were tightly related. Furthermore, Study II revealed that the teacher educators with a student-focused approach to teaching reported a closer research-teaching nexus than the ones with a less student-focused approach. Study III investigated how teacher self-efficacy beliefs in teaching and burnout predicted approaches to teaching among Chinese teacher educators. It was shown that self-efficacy beliefs in teaching were positively related to the student-focused approach to teaching and explained most of the variance in this approach. Teacher educators’ experiences of inadequacy in interaction with students explained most of the variance in the teacher-focused approach to teaching; meanwhile, it was positively correlated to both the student-focused and teacher-focused approaches to teaching. Teacher educators’ experiences of exhaustion were negatively correlated with their student-focused approach to teaching. No relationship was revealed between teacher stress and approaches to teaching. This dissertation contributes to the literature on research-teaching nexus in academic university-based teacher education by revealing the forms of teacher educators’ research-teaching integration. Furthermore, it adds new knowledge on how we might understand teacher educators’ approaches to teaching within the different cultural contexts. The results indicate that the research-teaching nexus and approaches to teaching are complex phenomena bound to the particular contexts, and the teachers situated in the context. Research and teaching can be seen as interrelated activities in academic teacher education. Different strategies are needed for teacher educators to build an integrated research-teaching nexus according to the varied roles they have reported and the forms of research-teaching integration they have applied. Meanwhile, an improvement of self-efficacy belief in teaching is vital for teacher educators to promote approaches to teaching towards a student-focused way. Taking precautions to prevent teacher educators’ experiences of burnout is necessary, though the interaction between teacher burnout and approaches to teaching is complex. Keywords: teacher educators, research-teaching integration, research-teaching nexus, approaches to teaching, self-efficacy beliefs in teaching, teacher burnout, research-based teaching, academic university-based teacher education, teacher education in Finland and China

Grantor dc:publisher

Helsingin yliopisto

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Cao, Yanling

• educational Sciences

Statement dc:rights

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Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10138/333451

OAI record oai:identifier

https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Ahelda.helsinki.fi%3A10138%2F333451