Contemporary schools seek to employ teachers who are curious learners, who can employ practitioner inquiry skills to investigate, inform and grow their own classroom practice, responsive to their circumstances. As a profession, the question we must ask is how do we best prepare and continue to equip teachers with the necessary research skills to…

This paper presents the lived experience of a practitioner researcher working as a teacher educator engaging in action research with primary pre-service teachers (PSTs). Aligning with the work of Cook (2009) ['The Purpose of Mess in Action Research: Building Rigour Though a Messy Turn.' "Educational Action Research" 17 (2): 277-291] this…

Purpose: This paper presents the results of my learning using my expertise in teacher-research mentoring to address the needs of pre-service teachers and the requirements of the action research course in English language teaching. It reflects on the different procedures of my mentoring model, enriched by the dialogic research mentoring strategies…

The purpose of this study was to explore the co-construction of an action research (AR) experience between a teacher educator and pre-service teachers (PSTs). Participants were six PSTs and a teacher educator who supervised their school placement. The teacher educator introduced the PSTs to, and facilitated them through, the AR process while…

This article analyzes the ways in which action research during preservice teacher education influences the development of a critical inquiry stance. By following eight preservice teachers as they conducted action research in their final semester of student teaching, this article demonstrates how action research created the space for preservice…

This interpretative, cross-sectional study analysed the perceptions of students in their last year of their bachelor's in primary school education with regard to educational inquiry. It explored their understanding of what this concept means and its benefits, as well as the procedures, stakeholders and competences involved in research. The data…

This paper describes the development, implementation, and follow up study of a program for undergraduate research in education, student teachers as action researchers (STAR). Students in a new urban education honors program at a large public university were given coursework in action research, developed a research plan in their practicums,…

For three weeks each June, the authors' PDS hosts a summer program called the Academy for Future Teachers (AFT), serving high school students interested in a teaching career. Partners across the PDS convene to support high-school AFT participants, including master teachers (P-12 teachers from local school districts and university faculty) and PDS…

The use of a participatory approach may entail taking risks in certain contexts. It involves discussing socio-political issues that aim to challenge the discourse of those in power representing neoliberal ideology. Critical pedagogy and the participatory approach oppose political and neoliberal power relations in educational settings that…

As art teacher educators, we want our students to be passionate, informed advocates for art education and capable of conducting action research as artist/teacher/researchers. Students are constantly in the process of understanding what it means to teach with and through the arts. In our art education program, we work to exemplify this complex…

In 2013-2015, two faculty-led educational research studies were conducted, aided by five undergraduate preservice teachers/researchers (PSTR). Faculty-researchers designed a qualitative phenomenological-inquiry based methodology to examine the PSTR perceptions regarding their respective research experiences with faculty. Triangulation of the data…

This paper investigates the conceptions of research held by English as a foreign language teachers in Argentina. Quantitative data from 622 participants from an online questionnaire were followed by qualitative data from online interviews with 40 of those participants. Results show that the teachers conceptualised research through conventional…

Our study of pre-service teachers' (PSTs) inquiry projects includes two levels of practitioner-research: on one level, we examine the research questions PSTs pose about their classrooms; and on the second, the study is an action-research investigation of our own practice in teaching PSTs both pedagogical and inquiry practices. We study PSTs'…

This paper describes a two-year action research study of 20 pre-service teachers (referred to in the context of this study as intern teachers) in their final 15-week practicum, during which they engaged in a type of action research known as collaborative inquiry. Over the course of their practicum, these intern teachers were interviewed monthly to…

This collaborative inquiry, as part of action research, is framed within the unique context of two researchers working closely alongside two policy-makers (research collaborators) to explore how teachers could enter more profoundly into a curriculum discourse. Drawing from Reid's concept of curriculum deliberation as located within institutional…