Teachers epistemic trajectories from education to work
Joakim Caspersen - Ph.D. Fellow
Advisor:
Professor Jens-Christian Smeby
Project period:
Autumn 2006-2010
The project is funded by Oslo University College.
Summary:
The project examines teacher students’ understanding of what is considered important knowledge in teaching, and the development of this understanding of knowledge during education and the first years of work. The empirical foundation for the project is the database StudData, Database for Studies of Recruitment and Qualification in the Professions, gathered and administered by the Centre for the Study of Professions. Questionnaires have been filled out by students from different professional educations at university colleges all over the country in their first year of studies, in their graduation year, two and a half year after graduation and five years after graduation. This design makes longitudinal and comparative analyses possible.
Four questions are asked, and serve as the starting point for the project:
- What do teacher students consider important for being a proficient teacher?
- How do individual characteristics and the social and professional quality of the studies affect the conception of what it takes to be a proficient teacher?
- How is the proficient teacher conceptualised by the educators of teachers at the university colleges, and how is she/he conceptualised by the co-operative teachers in schools?
- How do the teacher training programs at colleges and the schools (their prospective work-place) prepare the students for the transition from education to work?
In order to answer the third and fourth question teacher educators and co-operative teachers in the schools will be interviewed to obtain information not covered in the StudData-database. In addition data from a new survey called LUdata will be included, where teacher educators and co-operative teachers in schools are interviewed.
The concept ”epistemic trajectories” stems from both a socio-cultural and an individual understanding of learning and knowledge, and is closely connected to the concept of “learning trajectories” in socio-cultural approaches to learning and knowledge. It attempts to combine the individual acquisition of knowledge with learning in communities of practice during education and work, without putting to much weight on one or another.