From development work to research publication: a case of Norwegian teacher educators developing research literacy

Abstract

ABSTRACT The importance of research capacity-building in teacher education is highlighted to enable teachers to be change agents who continually develop their own and the school’s collective practices, which again presupposes that the teacher educators themselves are research literate. However, teacher educators come from different backgrounds and have varying levels of experience with conducting research. They are also often challenged by competing demands from teaching and conducting research. This article examines four teacher educators who conducted developmental projects in their program while simultaneously participating in a series of structured workshops in research methods and academic writing. The article reports on interview data and logs from the participants and investigates how the workshops contributed to their development of research literacy. The findings indicate that the participants required and appreciated the structured scaffolding they were given, and they highlighted the importance of positive group support. The participants also expressed that the workshops contributed not only to building capacity for conducting research for them individually but also for building research capacity within their home institutions. Implications for teacher education are discussed, and the authors argue that targeted and individualized support beyond what is currently the case might be needed.