Teacher educators’ approaches to teaching and connections with their perceptions of the closeness of their research and teaching

• Published in: Teaching and teacher education Vol. 85; pp. 125 - 136
• Main Authors: Cao, Yanling, Postareff, Liisa, Lindblom-Ylänne, Sari, Toom, Auli
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2019
• Subjects: Approaches to teaching; Approaches to teaching inventory (revised version); Chinese teacher education context; Closeness of research and teaching; Teacher educators; Teacher educators; Closeness of research and teaching; Chinese teacher education context; Approaches to teaching inventory (revised version); Approaches to teaching
• ISSN: 0742-051X; 1879-2480
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2019.06.013

This study explores teacher educators’ perceptions of their approaches to teaching and the closeness of their research and teaching. A total of 115 participants completed a questionnaire. The results showed that these teacher educators perceived information transmission as an element of the student-focused approach to teaching. Three clusters were identified which mirrored different kinds of combinations of the teacher- and student-focused approaches to teaching. The results further revealed that these clusters were related to how closely teacher educators considered their teaching and research to be related to each other. •A student-focused approach to teaching is the one most commonly adopted by teacher educators.•Knowledge transmission is an element of the student-focused approach to teaching.•Some teacher educators adopt both student- and teacher-focused approaches to teaching.•Some teacher educators feel confused about their approaches to teaching.•The student-focused teacher educators experience a close research-teaching relationship.