Case of the Hungarian university

5.1.1 The characteristics of and changes in ITE programme regarding the educational preparation courses

The system of initial teacher education in Hungary has faced some major changes in the past decades. In a short period, the teacher education was reformed two times: first, by introducing the Bologna system, initial teacher education was raised to the master level, meaning that students finishing their disciplinary bachelor studies could enrol into ITE programmes. Their preparation lasted for five semesters, including one semester of practicum.

This divided structure of initial teacher education “was strongly criticized by professionals and teacher educators: after the completion of the master studies, only a few chose the teaching profession, and those who did it were often criticized because of the lack in their disciplinary (deficiencies in preparation for the minor discipline), as well as their pedagogical preparation.

Contradicting this, the academic sphere criticised the increased credit burden for the pedagogical-psychological preparation (Hunyadi, 2010; Pukánszky, 2013). Moreover, some natural science departments blamed the introduction of the Bologna system when their number of students had drastically decreased (Tél, 2010).” (Pesti et al., 2016)

“In 2013 the system of initial teacher education was restored to the undivided system (as it was before the Bologna-type system). Today, in this undivided system students are obliged to choose two major disciplines, their pedagogical and psychological preparation occurs dominantly in the first three years, and the duration of the school-based teaching practice was increased to two semesters (occurring at the very end of the programme). This change has brought new challenges, such as: (1) the rapid, forced introduction of the undivided system was not preceded by the necessary consultation and dialogue between policy makers, teacher educators and professionals; (2) the new structure did not eliminate the gap between the disciplinary and pedagogical courses, therefore collaboration between these departments is not common, even though it would have a positive effect on the implementation of teacher education programmes; (3) it is still difficult to take into account the needs of students with different prior preparation, as well as to support individual learning paths; and finally (4) the placement of school-based teaching practice in teacher education programmes can be considered a major issue – since it is the very last phase of the teacher education programmes, it does not have a professional orientation or introductory nature, and in this manner it does not strengthens the connection between theory and practice.” (Pesti et al., 2016)

“The most controversial elements of the changes are the altered ratios of training programmes, more specifically the decrease of the pedagogical and psychological preparation, the introduction of the aptitude test, and the changing system of practice (Rapos & Kopp, 2015). Regarding these processes, the institutions providing teacher education had autonomy in the development of their training programmes; therefore they had the chance to take into consideration their traditions and local needs in the development process.” (Pesti et al., 2016)

The overview of the findings emerging from the document analysis of the pedagogical-psychological modules’ course description from ITE programmes through a comparative pair of lenses (Appendices 6., 7. and 8.) also has several implications. Although the duration of ITE was increased from 5 semesters to 10-12 semesters, the number of courses in the analysed pedagogical-psychological modules are almost the same. Moreover, in the undivided programme there are less pedagogical and more psychological courses, suggesting that the programme developers turn towards preparing student teachers handling issues emerging from the continually changing social environment (e.g., interculturalism, drop-outs, etc.) (OECD, 2003; McKenzie et al., 2005; ATEE, 2006). However, on the other hand leaving the practicum at the end of the ITE programme, even though it has been increased from 1 to 2 semesters, far

from the pedagogical-psychological preparation that occurs mostly at the beginning of the programme, raises questions on the relationship of theory and practice.

5.1.2 Research in ITE programmes

As student teachers’ learning when in schools can be described as an organized informal learning, and due to the premise that practicum, although it forms a bounded component of initial teacher education programmes is strongly influenced by other components of the programme occurring prior to it, hereby I do not restrict the discussion merely to the practicum, but I include those courses of the pedagogical-psychological modules, too, that lead the way to the practicum. The adaptation of the teaching-research nexus model as introduced in the Literature Review chapter’s Summary section will be used here as scaffolding for the discussion; therefore the findings will be discussed according to the four quadrants (research-led, research-oriented, research-tutored and research-based).

According to Healey and Jenkins (2009), the research-led type of integration of teaching and research puts the teacher in focus, students act as the audience, and the research content is emphasised over the research process and problems. Griffiths (2004) described this quadrant as “students learn about research findings, the curriculum content is dominated by staff research interests, and information transmission is the main teaching mode” (p. 3). Many courses seem to fall into this quadrant since about one-third of the courses are of a lecture type.

University courses shall support student teachers in realising the relevance of educational research by providing learning opportunities where the research findings and the content, even if it is dominated by staff research interest, are related to education and practice. However, as student teachers “just want to survive” the practicum, during their initial teacher education they prefer those courses and lecturers, who manage to present research findings from a practical, useful aspect.

The research-oriented quadrant is still teacher-focused, and students act as the audience, but the research process and problems are emphasised over the research content (Healey & Jenkins, 2009). In this quadrant “students learn about research processes, the curriculum emphasises as much the processes by which knowledge is produced as learning knowledge that has been achieved, and staff try to engender a research ethos through their teaching” (Griffiths, 2004, p. 3). Although numbers show a decrease in research-related content when analysing the course descriptions of the “old” MA and the “new” undivided programmes,

the latter one emphasises the evidence-based approach on the programme level, and there is a suggestion that this shall apply to all courses. However, the lack of identifying ways of implementation of this evidence-based approach on the level of course descriptions implies that is up to the lecturers how they interpret and implement their courses in an evidence-based manner.

It can also be concluded that although there are endeavours to integrate research into teaching, the lack of research methodology courses underpins the strong presence of this quadrant’s characteristics. Student teachers explained that when they are required to do research-related tasks in schools within the framework of some courses, the university lecturers briefly introduce the topic, mostly focusing on data collection methods. This results in an ad-hoc way of preparation for research and is highly likely that student teachers will miss seeing the “big picture”, to develop a comprehensive understanding of research, and to recognise the relevance of educational research. Some student teachers also saw this as an issue of lack in formal preparation and support to do the empirical part of their thesis.

As a consequence of the issues mentioned in the previous paragraph, results show that student teachers reported on conducting small-scale research projects, failing to see their relevance, therefore failing to establish the connection between theory and practice. Moreover, the repertoire of student teachers’ methodological palette seems to be restricted to interviews and questionnaires, and although there are numerous mentions of conducting observations, this method is mostly considered as a preparation for teaching and not as a research method.

Healey and Jenkins (2009) described the research-tutored quadrant as student-focused, where students are active participants, and where research content is emphasised over research process and problems. According to Griffiths (2004), this is the quadrant where “students’

writing and discussing papers or essays is emphasised” (p. 3). Although results have revealed that in the old programme there was one course where student teachers were expected to write about research, and the new programme also indicates that student teachers shall engage in discussions about research, the number of courses indicating these activities is very low.

The research-based quadrant puts the students as active participants in the focus, and the research process and problems are emphasised over research content. This is the quadrant where “students learn as researchers, the curriculum is largely designed around inquiry-based activities, and the division of roles between teacher and student is minimised” (Griffiths, 2004, p. 3). Although student teachers are expected to do some kind of research, the distribution of

courses over the new study programme might not support this. The previously mentioned gap between theory and practice returns: most of the pedagogical-psychological module’s courses are planned way before the practice. On the one hand, this means that what student teachers learn at the university can be tried out in practice at one point, but on the other hand the lack of a research methodology course and the fragmentation of learning about different research methods in different courses may hinder student teachers from getting a comprehensive overview of research.

Having a look at the research-related competences indicated in course descriptions, in general, these competences have gained significance: there are more than twice as many course descriptions that included any of the research-related knowledge, skills and/ or attitude components in the new programme than in the old one. However, bearing in mind that in Hungary programme developers are required to include a number of competence items in their course descriptions as defined in the document of Training and Outcome Requirements, and since other parts of the course descriptions (such as the content, goals, or student activities) are not in align with this, raises the question if these competences are really subject of development within the course, or their presence in the course descriptions remains formal.