AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
3.3 Personal vision
The idea of students – future teachers about themselves as
researchers is formed also by their personal vision. School
innovation is related to the personal objectives of future teachers.
Future teachers who want to teach in a modern way are aware of
the great importance of action research. The activity of future
teachers and the belief that it is possible to teach modern is
important: “I want to teach at primary school, because I'm not
happy with the way education looks. It is the same as twenty
years ago.”
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“There are only a few schools where students work more than a
teacher and come up with new ideas themselves.
I would like to try new methods, something interesting and then
verify it in action research.”
2
The personal vision gets formed by individual activity,
identification with the teacher role, positive attitudes,
enthusiasm, and additional education and self-education.
4 Discussion
The aim of the present study was to explore how students
perceive the research as a part of their future career and every-
day practice. The data suggest some key findings. One of the
most often mentioned problems is the dominance of theory over
practice in methodology courses. Students understand the
theoretical basics of methodology well, but they have difficulties
applying the knowledge. The lack of practical research
experience affects the concept of students – future teachers about
themselves negatively. Without the opportunity to experience the
process of designing and conducting a research with a support
from a teacher or supervisor, they do not feel competent to do
research by themselves. The first contact of students with
research work should be a part of basic courses during the first
years, before the student starts to work on his or her diploma
thesis. Current research (e.g. Price, 2001; Price and Valli, 2005)
on experience of students of action research courses may provide
a useful inspiration. As Kitchen and Stevens (2008) found the
students who engaged in action research during the course
reported that it helped them to understand how to connect theory
to practice and expanded their conceptions of teaching.
Our data of future teachers reflect general attitudes toward
research that teachers have, as being too theoretical, complicated
and not suitable for practitioners (Shkedi, 1998). Students
perceive the language of many research papers as a barrier
preventing them from interest in research. It may be useful to
introduce the students to the qualitative research, which is
narrative, authentic, explores individual experience, and uses
stories and real-world language.
Working on the diploma thesis is a significant experience for
most of the students. The quality of relationship with the
supervisor may have determining impact on the outcome of the
process. Our data provide a picture of a good supervisor – he or
she can speak about the research clearly, shows examples of a
good research, and expresses confidence in the skills and
knowledge of the student. The supervisor and student may work
on a research together and eventually publish together. Student
conferences at universities seem to be a good platform for
gaining experience with presenting and defending results of their
own research. Future teachers may receive useful feedback from
the audience and support the confidence in their abilities.
The teachers who the students meet at the university or training
teachers may represent significant models – the students want to
be like them or the students perceive them as rigid, burned-out
and unwilling to try anything new. Especially training teachers
have the potential to influence the students through their
personality, enthusiasm and competency, promoting climate for
innovative ways of teaching.
4.1 Limitations of the study and suggestions for future
research
There are some limitations that may threaten the validity of our
results. One of them is related to the sampling. We tried to
follow the rule of theoretical saturation of the data, however, we
believe, that different, more heterogeneous sample may yield
different results. Since there is a lack of similar studies in our
country, we suggest the attention of both qualitative and
quantitative researchers should be dedicated to the exploration of
this issue. Understanding the experience with action research and
attitudes toward action research of future teachers and in-
practice teachers may help educators design the courses of
research, methodology, and statistics for university students and
in-practice teachers who take part at various forms of lifelong
education. While the qualitative approach brings deep insight
and understanding of a process and experience of an individual,
quantitative approach may provide useful data on attitudes in
relation to various variables, e.g. the field of study.
5 Conclusion
The main objective of the study was to explore the factors
determining the perspective of students – future teachers of
themselves as researchers and to highlight the key areas they
consider significant in their future role as researchers. Only a
few other studies have examined how students perceive the
preparation to do research during their future careers. Two focus
groups with 29 students were conducted. The main factors
determining the perspective of students are: knowledge and
education at the university, practical experience with research,
and personal vision of students – future teachers. We discussed
the findings in the context of current research and we mentioned
the limitations of the study.
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