While the teaching profession has traditionally been seen as an individual calling for those with the right qualifications, recent decades have highlighted that a teacher is something you become and is thus shaped by teacher training. In this research project, we are interested in students’ trajectories through teacher training and into professional life, focusing particularly on the new framework for teacher training that comes into force in 2023. As a result of these changes, the university colleges have been given considerable leeway to shape and implement teacher training as they deem appropriate.
Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we will examine questions such as what characterizes the students entering and completing a teacher training programme and what jobs they subsequently get. We will explore student teachers’ development as professionals by analysing the emergence of their self-concepts, ideas about learning and teaching, and professional engagement, as well as how this is linked to the various courses and internships that comprise teacher training and thus varies between different teacher training programmes. We expect the project to contribute knowledge about students enrolled in a teacher training programme, the quality of teacher training, and the subsequent transition to afterward teaching job.
Contact: Rune Müller Kristensen
The project aims to critically analyze and describe pre-service teacher education on three levels: 1) Research-based view of quality teacher education - what can we learn from the research, 2) how pre-service teacher education is carried out in Denmark and 3) how pre-service teacher education is carried out in Poland. Descriptions and comparisons are based on two models: The input/output model developed by David Easton for empirical analyzes of the political system (Easton, 1965) and the framework factor theory, developed by Urban Dahllöf and further developed by Ulf P. Lundgren (Lundgren, 1999). Both models have an eye for complex diversity and for relationships between individual elements in a complex multiplicity.
Easton, D. (1965). A Systems Analysis of Political Life. Wiley.
Lundgren, U.P. (1999). Ramfaktorteori och praktisk utbildningsplanering. Pædagogisk Forskning i Sverige, 4(1), 31-41.
Contact: Jens Rasmussen
This research project addresses the shortage of qualified teachers in teaching positions in Denmark – a problem that projections indicate will become more pronounced in the future. Statistics show that, among those attaining teaching qualifications, some never enter the profession; some continue to teach throughout their working lives; and some spend a shorter or longer period as teachers before deciding to pursue an alternative career path.
The existing research focusing on attrition and retention is predominantly concerned with why teachers leave the profession. Meanwhile, we know little about the reasons why some teachers stay. This research project addresses this knowledge gap.
The project has already resulted in the publication of one literature review "Teachers who stay in the profession" (Plauborg, Wieser, Petersen & Laursen, 2022) and the research group is currently in the process of preparing a second literature review entitled "Why do long-serving teachers stay in the profession? A literature review" (Petersen & Plauborg, forthcoming).
These reviews form the foundation for a large-scale Danish research project, which we expect to initiate in 2023.
Contact: Helle Plauborg
