In teacher education mentoring pre-service teachers is a critical factor. With background in research around mentoring pre-service teachers in connection to a training school project, this study aims to contribute knowledge about and identify mentors' experiences of mentorship in the setting of a training school. Through focus group interviews and…

The lack of fully trained teachers is a national challenge in Sweden despite numerous attempts by authorities to approach the issue from a long-term perspective. The proportion of fully trained teachers needs to increase by just over 50% by 2035, and the imbalance will continue for many years to come. Many actors such as the media and politicians…

There is a global shortage of music teachers, and this deficit is continually growing. While there is a considerable body of research on the sources of concern, attrition, stress and burnout for practising teachers, studies investigating the perspective of pre-service music teachers instead are comparatively rarer. This gap in the literature is…

This study aims to describe the challenges that faculty faced in the transition to distance education in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. The study presents the results from a nationwide questionnaire, answered by 1,963 individuals, concerning the transition among university faculty in Sweden. The results highlight the…

The present study compares student teachers' career choice motives and their relationship with stress-inducing thoughts across five European countries. A previously established factorial structure for career choice motives embedded within self-determination theory was supported. The factors consist of intrinsic motives, such as interest in…

Student teachers recurrently and spontaneously talk about burnout when considering challenges of teaching. The following paper aims to address burnout from the perspectives of student teachers, as well as how they prepare to deal with the threat of burnout. There is a lack of research from a student teacher's perspective concerning burnout. Focus…

The aim of the present study was to use the narratives of beginning teachers to investigate the emotionally challenging situations they face, with a focus on how their perspectives and definitions of such situations guided their actions and made coping possible. A short term longitudinal qualitative interview study was adopted. Twenty participants…

In 2014, a newly formed group of teachers graduated from Swedish universities. In addition to their qualification as leisure-time pedagogues, their degree includes teaching practical/aesthetical subjects in compulsory school. This group of teachers thus has to relate to dual professional identities and to maintain a balance between the socially…

The present study compares career choice motives of future early childhood educators studying for a tertiary qualification. Suitable analyses of this kind are still missing. Diverging training systems, traditions and professional images in the different countries are related to certain motives. These motives are categorised according to a theory…

This study addresses how the autonomy of teachers in higher education, in relation to education policy and reform, can be understood. By taking a narrative-in-action approach, we studied health profession teachers' activities and reasoning within their ongoing practice during one year. The findings show how the teachers created their own policies…

This study investigates the relationship between the work conditions in higher education work settings, the academic staff's strategies for handling excessive workload and impact on well-being and work-life balance. The results show that there is a risk that staff in academic work places will start using compensatory coping strategies to deal with…

Educational researchers are accustomed to institutional review board (IRB) requirements (e.g., protecting participants) with students often identified as the only "vulnerable population" for IRB purposes. However, as practitioner research has gained more prominence, the vulnerability of teacher-researchers themselves has begun to…

Swedish universities frequently offer campus-based education as well as online courses, a system commonly referred to as dual mode. This paper analyses some challenging pedagogical aspects of a master's programme in engineering developed and delivered simultaneously online and on campus. Course evaluations, questionnaires, and interviews with the…

Web-based distance education has become a "real" teaching alternative which has instigated more research particularly in the past decade. This research has commonly focused on four major perspectives: (1) information-technology; (2) course management systems (including course communication tools); (3) information design; and (4) online…