In this paper, we report on a study of the beliefs of chemistry teachers about the teaching and learning of chemistry in upper secondary education in The Netherlands. This study was conducted in the context of the planning of a national revision of the chemistry curriculum towards a context-based approach. Chemistry teachers' beliefs were investigated using a questionnaire that focused on both content-related ideas about the chemistry curriculum and general educational beliefs. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of Dutch chemistry teachers ( n = 966), with a response of 348 ( 36%). On the basis of factor analysis, two distinct and independent belief structures were found: ( 1) a belief that combines the curriculum emphasis Fundamental Chemistry with a subject-matter-oriented educational belief, and ( 2) a belief that combines the curriculum emphasis Chemistry, Technology and Society with a learner-centred educational belief. In a cluster analysis, it was found that most teachers ( about three-quarters of the respondents) combined elements of the two belief structures. However, two relatively small subgroups were identified whose beliefs could be described in terms of one of these two belief structures. Implications for the innovation of the chemistry curriculum are discussed.

This paper investigates the developing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of nine experienced science teachers in their first few years of teaching a new science syllabus in the Dutch secondary education system. We aimed to identify the content and structure of the PCK for a specific topic in the new syllabus, ‘Models of the Solar System and the Universe’, describing the PCK development in terms of relations between four different aspects: knowledge about instructional strategies; knowledge about students’ understanding; knowledge about assessment of students; and knowledge about goals and objectives of the topic in the curriculum. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted in three subsequent academic years. From the analysis of the data, two qualitatively different types of PCK emerged. Type A can be described as oriented towards model content, while Type B can be typified as oriented towards model content, model production, and thinking about the nature of models. The results also indicate that these two types of PCK developed in qualitatively different ways.

This study investigated the knowledge that experienced science teachers have of models and modelling in science in the context of a school curriculum innovation project in which the role and the nature of models and modelling in science are emphasized. The subjects in this study were teachers of biology, chemistry and physics preparing for the curriculum innovation. Two instruments were used: a questionnaire with seven open items on models and modelling, which was completed by 15 teachers, and a questionnaire consisting of 32 items on a Likert-type scale (n = 71). Results indicated that the teachers shared the same general definition of models. However, the teachers' content knowledge of models and modelling proved to be limited and diverse. A group of teachers who displayed more pronounced knowledge appeared to have integrated elements of both a positivist and a social constructivist epistemological orientation in their practical knowledge. Implications for the design of teacher education interventions are discussed.

De redactie heeft een aantal prominenten uitgenodigd om terug te blikken op de ontwikkelingen binnen de pedagogische en onderwijswetenschappen en in het bijzonder op de rol van Pedagogische Studiën daarin gedurende hun academische loopbaan. Hen is gevraagd naar hun ervaringen met Pedagogische Studiën, saillante ontwikkelingen in het vakgebied en hoe die de inhoud en functie van Pedagogische Studiën hebben gekleurd. We hebben hen ook een toekomstvoorspelling laten doen: hoe ziet PS er over honderd jaar uit? In deze bijdrage blikken zes prominenten: Erik De Corte, Nico Verloop, Lieven Verschaffel, Theo Wubbels, Peter van Petegem en Monique Volman, terug op hun loopbaan en de rol van Pedagogische Studiën daarin.

This study was conducted among 269 student teachers at 11 primary teacher training colleges in the Netherlands. To investigate their competence in integrating theory and practice in their reflections on mathematics teaching, a learning environment was designed to evoke theory use in reflections on practice. To be able to systematically describe the use of theory, we distinguished two dimensions, which we called the nature and level of theory use. A Reflection Analysis Instrument was used to univocally code the nature and level of the student teachers' theory use in the reflective notes of their final assessments into 1740 meaningful units. We found that nearly all student teachers used theory. However, they differed markedly in the way they linked theory and practice and with which depth they used theoretical concepts in their reflections. A remarkable finding of the study was the important influence of prior mathematics education on the nature and level of theory use, especially the low results of the third-year student teachers in their level of theory use. The outcome may have consequences for the design of the teacher education curricula and for the intake of first-year student teachers.

Internationally, universities and policy-makers are calling for stronger integration of research into teaching. However, it is unclear how to implement this in practice in different disciplinary areas and contexts. This study contributes to this understanding with a focus on language teaching in the Chinese context. We surveyed 152 university teachers regarding their beliefs about and their perceived actual integration of research in their teaching practice. The teachers highly valued integration of research in teaching in an ideal situation but perceived low integration of research into their actual teaching practice. This gap was smaller for teachers from research-intensive universities and for those who had more research experience and spent more than 25% of their work time on research. Other reasons for this gap included fixed curricula, heavy teaching tasks, lack of student motivation and difficulties reconciling integration of research into teaching with the institutional aim of improving students' language proficiency.

Successful mentoring relationships are essential for novice teachers entering the teaching profession. The success of the mentoring process depends in large part on the diagnostic abilities of the mentor, but there is little research on how mentor teachers view their mentees. In this small-scale study, we explored how 11 mentor teachers describe similarities and differences between their mentee teachers. We found that mentor teachers' descriptions predominantly relate to differences in personal engagement with pupils, identifying as a teacher, perfectionism and self-confidence. Mentors tended to describe these differences in terms of traits and dispositions. We provide suggestions for addressing this issue in mentor preparation and for using findings in mentor training, and we provide a conceptual framework for future studies of mentor teachers' views of their mentees.

The authors voice teachers' perceptions of their interpersonal experiences with students in both positive and problematic relationships. Interview data from 28 teachers were examined by coding utterances on teacher and student interactions. Results indicate that teachers defined the quality of the relationship mostly by the level of communion (friendly vs. hostile), instead of by the level of agency (in control vs. powerless). Analyses of mentioned teacher and student behavior show a friendly interactional pattern for positive relationships and a hostile pattern for problematic ones. In teachers' perceptions, positive and problematic relationships also differed in context where encounters take place and topic of talk. Contrary to interactions in problematic relationships, encounters in positive relationships were mostly situated outside the classroom context and conversations during these encounters covered a wide range of topics. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.

Nonnative-English-speaking teachers who teach English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) can play an important role in the promotion of intercultural competence and often have an advantage over native-English-speaking ESL/EFL teachers because they once were language learners and more aware of the difficulties that students can encounter. Therefore, a better understanding is needed of nonnative ESL/EFL teachers in language-and-culture teaching contexts. Research on how these teachers view themselves in relation to two or more cultural groups, i.e., teachers’ intercultural identities is useful in this respect, but has been scarce. In the present study, we systematically reviewed 21 studies on the intercultural identities of nonnative ESL/EFL teachers. Our study provides insight in key characteristics of these teachers’ intercultural identities, factors in the formation of these teachers’ intercultural identities, inconsistencies in studies to date, and directions for further research.

The number of international Chinese students enrolled in research programmes in Western universities is growing. To provide effective research supervision to these students, it is helpful to understand the similarities and differences in the supervision process between the host country and their home country. We explored which learning outcomes supervisors of master's theses aim for in two cultures, China and the Netherlands, and how they help their students to achieve these learning outcomes. Semi-structured interviews with 10 Chinese and 10 Dutch supervisors revealed, besides a strong resemblance, some clear differences between the two groups. For example, the Chinese supervisors aim to prepare their students for future jobs and use explicit assessment and regulation to monitor student progress, while the Dutch supervisors aim to enhance student well-being and use implicit regulation, emotional support and frequent posing of questions to facilitate student learning. Implications for cross-cultural and international education are provided.

Current mentoring models for teacher preparation and induction emphasize the need to engage novice teachers' learning through collaborative professional learning communities. Mentors in such communities are expected to engage in joint knowledge construction with novices, and to be co-thinkers' who enact a developmental view of mentoring, as well as co-learners' who are willing to engage in mutual learning with their novices. These two aspects are assumed to be associated in mentor thinking. The aim of this questionnaire study was, therefore, to explore the relationship between mentors' mentoring conceptions and their mentoring motives. Participants were 726 secondary education mentor teachers, associated with 13 institutes for teacher preparation in the Netherlands. Results showed that a motivation to mentor for personal learning was more strongly associated with a developmental conception of mentored learning to teach than with an instrumental mentoring conception. The same was found for a motivation to mentor for contributing to the profession, but less pronounced. These findings suggest potential strategies for the selection and preparation of mentor teachers for programs that intend to foster collaborative inquiry approaches for novice teacher support.

Teachers' agency has an effect on their own learning process at the workplace. In this study we explored the extent to which teachers participating in a formative teacher assessment procedure developed a sense of agency. We investigated not only whether teachers participating in a such an assessment procedure experienced agency and thus felt in control of the learning process and able to pursue their learning objectives, but also whether agency was visible, by looking at decision-making in real time: did teachers take an active role in their own assessment, especially regarding the learning objectives to be pursued, during the assessment meetings? We found that teachers experienced a high level of agency while participating in the assessment procedure, but did not consistently show this during the assessment procedure.

The quality of teacher–student relationships is important for teachers' well-being in schools. In this interview study we investigated which cognitions comprise secondary school teachers' self- and student schema in positive and problematic teacher–student relationships. Frequency analyses of these cognitions showed that especially student schema differed in teachers' talk of positive and problematic relationships. When combining cognitions of the self- and student schema, a HOMALS analysis revealed two types of positive and two types of problematic relationships. Differences between novices and experienced teachers were apparent for positive relationships. These findings raise questions about teachers' attributions for the quality of teacher–student relationships.

To determine the content of integrated curricula, clinical concepts and the underlying basic science concepts need to be made explicit. Preconstructed concept maps are recommended for this purpose. They are mainly constructed by experts. However, concept maps constructed by residents are hypothesized to be less complex, to reveal more tacit basic science concepts and these basic science concepts are expected to be used for the organization of the maps. These hypotheses are derived from studies about knowledge development of individuals. However, integrated curricula require a high degree of cooperation between clinicians and basic scientists. This study examined whether there are consistent variations regarding the articulation of integration when groups of experienced clinicians and basic scientists and groups of residents and basic scientists-in-training construct concept maps. Seven groups of three clinicians and basic scientists on experienced level and seven such groups on resident level constructed concept maps illuminating clinical problems. They were guided by instructions that focused them on articulation of integration. The concept maps were analysed by features that described integration. Descriptive statistics showed consistent variations between the two expertise levels. The concept maps of the resident groups exceeded those of the experienced groups in articulated integration. First, they used significantly more links between clinical and basic science concepts. Second, these links connected basic science concepts with a greater variety of clinical concepts than the experienced groups. Third, although residents did not use significantly more basic science concepts, they used them significantly more frequent to organize the clinical concepts. The conclusion was drawn that not all hypotheses could be confirmed and that the resident concept maps were more elaborate than expected. This article discusses the implications for the role that residents and basic scientists-in-training might play in the construction of preconstructed concept maps and the development of integrated curricula.

This study concentrated on the theory–practice problem in mathematics teacher education. We examined 13 student teachers' use of theory when they reflected on teaching practice in a class specifically designed to optimize the chance for theory use. We developed a Reflection Analysis Instrument with which the student teachers' use of theory could be identified univocally and described in a systematic way. We describe a case study that illustrates the nature and level of one student teacher's use of theory and discuss variations in all of the student teachers' reasoning and differences in their depth of theory use.

Background: The explication of relations between clinical and basic sciences can help vertical integration in medical curricula. Concept mapping might be a useful technique for this explication. Little is known about teachers' ability regarding the articulation of integration. We examined therefore which factors affect the learning of groups of clinicians and basic scientists on different expertise levels who learn to articulate the integration of clinical and basic sciences in concept maps.Methods: After a pilot for fine-tuning group size and instructions, seven groups of expert clinicians and basic scientists and seven groups of residents with a similar disciplinary composition constructed concept maps about a clinical problem that fit their specializations. Draft and final concepts maps were compared on elaborateness and articulated integration by means of t-tests. Participants completed a questionnaire on motivation and their evaluation of the instructions. ANOVA's were run to compare experts' and residents' views. Data from video tapes and notes were qualitatively analyzed. Finally, the three data sources were interpreted in coherence by using Pearson's correlations and qualitative interpretation.Results: Residents outshone experts as regards learning to articulate integration as comparison of the draft and final versions showed. Experts were more motivated and positive about the concept mapping procedure and instructions, but this did not correlate with the extent of integration fond in the concept maps. The groups differed as to communication: residents interacted from the start (asking each other for clarification), whereas overall experts only started interaction when they had to make joint decisions.Conclusions: Our results suggest that articulation of integration can be learned, but this learning is not related to participants' motivation or their views on the instructions. Decision making and interaction, however, do relate to the articulation of integration and this suggests that teacher learning programs for designing integrated educational programmes should incorporate co-construction tasks. Expertise level turned out to be decisive for both the level of articulation of integration, the ability to improve the articulated integration and the cooperation pattern.