What Do Student-Teachers Think About The Integration of Research Into Teacher Education Programs?

Abstract

This research reports on some results of the Initiation FONDECYT Project “Presence and importance of integrating research in teaching education and how it is perceived by students and lecturers”. It aims at identifying student-teachers’ perceptions about intent to research, research activities conducted by student-teachers as part of their initial training, and research context. This descriptive ex post facto study explores the perceptions of 634 undergraduate students of teaching programs at the University of La Serena (Chile). A survey was administered to measure student-teachers’ perceptions. The findings show that intent to research has the highest scores, whilst research activities have the lowest ones. Therefore, one of the conclusions is that student-teachers have positive evaluations of the importance of educational research for their training. Another conclusion is that the existence of a positive research culture within universities that supports all the individuals involved is a crucial element to strengthen the link between student-teachers and educational research.