Abstract

From Best Practice to Next Practice - A shift through research-based teacher education

Michael Schratz & Christian Kraler

Department of Teacher Education and School Research University of Innsbruck



In German speaking countries, various policies and institutional settings have led teacher education from a Meisterlehre concept (master-apprentice with experienced educators passing on their professional wisdom and expertise to the next generation by demonstration) to the Verwissenschaftlichung (academization of teacher education modeling teacher expertise according to scientific knowledge along conventional university delivery). Neither approach has proven appropriate to the high expectations of state of the art teacher education curricula and classroom reality. On the waves of recent reform efforts, catchwords like “standards of professionalism” and “competence orientation” into academia and the discourse of the evidence-based world has infected academic discourse.


The story of the development of teacher education programs at Innsbruck University serves as a showcase to point out the path through the turbulences of changing quality expectations and differing teacher education policies from an institutional perspective. The institutional biography starts from a practice-based training arrangement, moves on to a patchwork of theoretical deliveries and leads to a more comprehensive and coherent research-based professional approach in teacher education. Relevant milestones on this journey show how research interventions have led to a shift from best practice to next practice:

• in-depth interviews into the experience of teacher education students across subject areas, didactics, pedagogy and school practice;
• evidence-based inquiry into personality traits diagnosing “fitness for the job”;
• selection criteria and processes to identify those best suited for the teaching profession;
• ex post facto evaluation approaches examining the outcomes of teacher education programs;
• research approaches exploring the nature of learning to gain understanding of how pupils/students really learn.

The key findings of research on this shift will be presented in the current national context of teacher education in Austria. Moreover, the viability of research methods used will be reflected upon.