Higher education-based teacher educators’ researcherly disposition: An international perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT By presenting the results of a large-scale international study, this study targets a better empirical understanding of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition or the teacher educators' habit of mind to engage with research to improve their practice and contribute to the knowledge base on teacher education. Data was collected from an international sample of 1158 higher education-based teacher educators in six countries, most of them being European. The first part of the article reports on the development of iTERDS, i.e. the international Teacher Educators’ Researcherly Disposition Scale. This 16-item scale distinguishes three subdimensions: (1) Valuing research (6 items), (2) Being a smart consumer of research (5 items), and (3) Being a producer of research (5 items). Goodness of fit estimates indicate good fit. The second part of the article explores differences in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition by means of cluster analysis. Four different clusters of teacher educators were found: Cluster 1 ‘inactive to research teacher educators’, Cluster 2 ‘well-read teacher educators’, Cluster 3 ‘researching teacher educators’, and Cluster 4 ‘teacher educator-researchers’. Post hoc analyses on these clusters explore relevant background differences between the clusters in terms of qualifications and work context.