"It is Important That the Students See That Reflection Without Theory Does Not Work at All." Epistemological Approaches of University Teachers to the Theory-Practice Problem in Teacher Education

Abstract

How scientific knowledge and practical school skills can be better interlinked with a view to later professional teaching is a central question in teacher education, which currently is being increasingly discussed in the course of the modularisation of teacher training courses and the introduction of university-accompanied practical phases. In this article I reconstruct the perspective of university lecturers on the so-called theory-practice problem on the basis of problem-centred interviews. It turns out that the lecturers make fundamental statements about their beliefs regarding the acquisition of knowledge in teacher education. These epistemological beliefs are based on their observations and perceptions of student learning in practice-oriented teaching-learning settings, and are influenced by the respective disciplinary backgrounds of the university lecturers. Depending on problem attribution and teaching-learning beliefs, the lecturers develop different didactic approaches that start at different (personal, curricular, institutional) levels. With the help of grounded theory methodology, a model of epistemological beliefs of university teachers regarding theory-practice related teacher education could be developed, which can be used to describe conditions, contexts of influence, strategies and consequences of these beliefs.