Source: Action in Teacher Education, Vol. 33 Issue 3, p. 298-314. (Fall, 2011).
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
This study was aimed to examine the current issues published between January 2006 and December 2009 in three leading journals in teacher education.
What current issues in teacher education are being explored by three well-regarded journals in the last 3 years (from January 2006 to December 2009)?
Sub-questions were:
1. What are dominant research paradigms?
2. How are national and international contexts balanced within the journals?
3. Where is the predominant level of focus (preservice or inservice)?
4. What are the current topics in teacher education?
5. What differences exist between journals?
6. What is missing in our conversations?
A research team consisting of two professors and two doctoral students analyzed and discussed the data, and ensure interrater reliability.
Selecting the Journals
The team selected three journals: the Journal of Teacher Education, Action in Teacher Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies.
These journals were selected because of their high quality and excellent reputation.
The research team reviewed 721 articles from these journals.
The articles included peer-reviewed, empirical, and conceptual pieces.
The findings provide important empirical evidence of the dominant paradigms, the national or international context, the level of focus (preservice or inservice), the design (empirical or conceptual), and current topics in teacher education.
Current issues include teacher-focused issues, instructional models for teacher education, multicultural education, field experiences/school partnerships, and mentoring and induction into the profession.
The current issues are most often characterized as qualitative issues.
Furthermore, these issues are most often associated with preservice teacher education.
It was also found that all of the journals had many articles about individual teacher characteristics, instructional models, multicultural education, field/PDS work, and mentoring and induction.
Yet, each of the three journals focused on different issues.
For example, the highest percentage of articles related to multicultural education was found in Journal of Teacher Education.
The Journal of Teacher Education also was the most policy-oriented journal, with about 50% of the articles were about accountability, assessment, research methodology, policy, and reform within U.S. teacher education.
The articles in Action in Teacher Education were more likely than other journal articles to be about instructional models in preservice teacher education.
Finally, Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies was the only journal to have articles about medical teacher education, language education, and behavior management.
Teaching and Teacher Education was much more likely to publish articles about inservice teacher education and development than the other two journals.
However, several issues were less common.
These topics include the impact and use of technology, teacher reflection, and alternative teacher certification programs. All of these topics seem to be focused on local and individual (or small scale) concerns.
Therefore, the authors recommend that future research should investigate global comparisons of teacher education, economic implications for teacher education, business partnerships and industrial interests in teacher education, systemic and organizational issues related to teacher education.