In 2021 we began a research project,^[1] looking at the experiences of academics working in initial teacher education (ITE) in England, and the survey and follow-up interviews continue annually, with our latest survey closing at the end of September 2024. The survey covers many aspects of work in ITE, including workload, experiences of Ofsted and accreditation, the future of ITE and career intentions (Wood & Quickfall, 2024). At the 2023 Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference in Leeds, Professor Linda La Velle set us the challenge of finding out how academics in ITE were experiencing research, and particularly their own research activity. We love a challenge, so this year we included this statement; ‘I have enough time to undertake research, knowledge exchange and/or scholarship in 2023/24’, and asked participants to respond using a Likert scale in addition to the opportunity to leave a comment.

Exploring teacher educators’ experience of research

So, what did our participants say about undertaking their own research? In short, over 80 per cent (n=135) disagreed or strongly disagreed that they have enough time to undertake research, knowledge exchange and scholarship.

Figure 1: Teacher educators’ experience of research

Participants explained that workload is a key issue when it comes to undertaking their own research:

‘I don’t have capacity to do any research. My time goes on chalk face survival.

For the majority of the year, to get my own research done, I need to either start from 5am, work into the night, or work at the weekend. So, because that has not always been possible (especially with a young family, but even if I didn’t have the kids, why should I have to do that??), my work gets pushed to the end of the year.’

Alongside workload, attitudes towards academics in ITE, and expectations of them, were also reported as a challenge to some of our participants:

‘This is an absolute joke. Research activities are seen as “extra that you do in your own time”. ITE departments do not facilitate this for you.

Non-ITTECF research is not valued in my department – “trainees” are trained to be able to work in schools rather than engage critically with research from non-ideological perspectives that could broaden their capacity to educate children.’

Some participants commented on the impact this has had on them, raising questions for us about support for academics in ITE:

‘I have had to give up doing my doctorate due to workload. I do complete tasks efficiently and always meet deadlines, but this is only because I have been prepared to work at weekends and early mornings/late evenings. Other areas of my life have suffered as a result of this.’

The visibility of teacher education research in BERA journals

Aside from the impact this is having on a large group of academics in our discipline, there are potentially damaging side-effects for research into ITE, where a significant amount of activity is undertaken by insider researchers. To illustrate the potential impact of this, we undertook a rapid analysis of all four BERA journals (BERJ, BJET, TCJ, RoE), looking at papers published during the period our survey has been running (2021–2024 inclusive), using search terms ‘ITE’, ‘ITT’, ‘initial teacher education’, ‘teacher educator’, ‘student teacher’ and ‘preservice teacher’. We removed papers that were about teacher development more generally, and were left with 34 papers. Of these, 26 papers had at least one author based in a Teacher Education or Education department, suggesting that much of the research on ITE (at least in BERA journals) has been undertaken by ‘insider researchers’, who work within the sector. If those individuals are unable to undertake research due to their workload, low expectations and lack of support, the sector and education research will potentially be poorer as a result – with much larger ramifications for the teachers and learners who ultimately benefit from this insider research.

‘If “insider researchers” are unable to undertake research due to their workload, low expectations and lack of support, the sector and education research will potentially be poorer as a result.’

We are delighted that BERA continues to support the ITE research community, through the work of the Teacher Education and Development SIG and also through the recent 2024 small-grants funding for ITE research. We hope that more opportunities and support can be offered to this group so that they do not feel like the ‘poor relations’ in the sector, and so that high-quality insider research can grow and continue to improve and enrich initial teacher education. In terms of our project, we will continue to include research as a topic in the survey; there are some important questions to explore in terms of factors impacting on ITE academics’ research activity in England, and what would support this group. It would also be fascinating to find out if these experiences are similar in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and what can be learned and collaborated on across the four nations.

This blog post is based on the article ‘Was 2021–2022 an Annus Horribilis for teacher educators? Reflections on a survey of teacher educators’ by Phil Wood and Aimee Quickfall, published by the British Educational Research Journal.

[1] This research has kindly been supported by UCET since 2022/23.

References

Wood, P., & Quickfall, A. (2024). Was 2021–2022 an Annus Horribilis for teacher educators? Reflections on a survey of teacher educators. British Educational Research Journal, 50(5). https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.4017