Summary

Although teacher education has been recognized as a key aspect of educational policy and practice, especially over the past few decades, the research undertaken to inform policy is in many respects inadequate. Drawing on reviews of such research as has been undertaken in Europe, the United States, Australasia as well as other parts of the world, we can identify the key questions for teacher education researchers. These include such topics as the relationship between theory and practice in professional learning, the significance of partnerships between schools and higher education institutions, the relationship between preservice teacher education and ongoing professional learning and the nature of the assessment of beginning teachers.

Three approaches to teacher education research may be defined, and all of them are important in the quest for better understanding of the field. These three approaches are research in teacher education—mainly carried out by teacher education practitioners; research on teacher education—mainly carried out by education policy scholars; and research about teacher education—carried out by scholars in a range of disciplines and seeking to explore the wider social significance of teacher education. An exploration of each of these three approaches reveals that there is a serious dearth of large-scale and/or longitudinal studies that may be seen as genuinely independent and critical. This suggests that there is a large agenda for future teacher education research.