Digital Thesis - Cui Ping

UNDERSTANDING TEACHER
EDUCATORS' PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Cui Ping
This dissertation was financiallly supported by China Scholarship Council
and facilitated by Eindhoven School of Education (Eindhoven University
of Technology).
The research was carried out in the context of the Dutch Interuniversity
Center for Educational Sciences.
© 2020 Cui Ping
A catalogue record is available from the Eindhoven University of Technology

Library
ISBN: 978-90-386-5050-0
Cover design: Cui Ping, Yanan Liu
Printed by: ProefschriftMaken

Understanding teacher educators’
professional learning
PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische

Universiteit Eindhoven, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr.ir.
F.P.T. Baaijens,
voor een commissie aangewezen door het College voor Promoties,
in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 24 september 2020 om
16:00 uur
door
Cui Ping
geboren te Liaoning, China

Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotoren en de samenstelling van
de promotiecommissie is als volgt:
voorzitter: prof.dr. B.E.U. Pepin
1e promotor: prof.dr. D. Beijaard
copromotor(en): dr. G.L.M. Schellings
leden: prof.dr. J.W.F. van Tartwijk (Universiteit
Utrecht)
prof.dr. R. Vanderlinde (Universiteit Gent)
dr. J. Hu
dr. M. Koopman
adviseur(s): dr.ir. Q.H. Kools (Fontys Lerarenopleiding
Tilburg)
Het onderzoek of ontwerp dat in dit proefschrift wordt beschreven is uitgevoerd

in overeenstemming met de TU/e Gedragscode Wetenschapsbeoefening.
In loving memory of my father 平荣喜
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - General introduction 11

1.1 Focus of the dissertation 13
1.2 Theoretical framework 15
1.2.1 Teacher educators 15
1.2.2 Teacher educators' professional learning 16
1.3 Central aim and research questions 17
1.4 Context of the dissertation 18
1.5 Relevance of the research 19
1.6 Overview of the dissertation 20
Chapter 2 - Teacher educators' professional learning: A literature review 23

2.1 Introduction 26
2.2 Method 28
2.2.1 The literature search 28
2.2.2 Selection of abstracts 28
2.2.3 Analysis of the articles 29
2.3 Results 32
2.3.1 Professional learning content 32
2.3.2 Professional learning activities 41
2.3.3 Reasons for professional learning 48
2.4 Conclusion and discussion 52
Chapter 3 - Teacher educators' professional learning: Perceptions of Dutch and Chinese

teacher educators 57
3.1 Introduction 60
3.2 Theoretical background 62
3.2.1 Content of professional learning 62
3.2.2 Professional learning activities 63
3.3 Research questions 65
3.4 Method 66
3.4.1 Research contexts 66
3.4.2 Participants 67
3.4.3 The questionnaire 70
3.4.4 Data analysis 74
3.5 Results 74
3.5.1 Teacher educators’ perceptions of the professional learning scales 74
3.5.2 Related background variables 75
3.5.3 Similarities and differences in professional learning between Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators 77
3.6 Discussion 78
3.7 Limitation and further research 82
3.8 Implications and conclusion 83
Chapter 4 - A further exploration of the questionnaire results 85

4.1 Introduction 88
4.2 Method 90
4.2.1 Research data 90
4.2.2 Data analysis procedure 90
4.3 Results 90
4.3.1 Highly correlating scales 90
4.3.2 Scales with significant differences between the Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’
scores 92
4.4 Discussion 95
4.5 Implications 99
4.6 Conclusion 99
Chapter 5 - Understanding what, how, and why teacher educators' learn through their
personal examples of learning 101
5.1 Introduction 104
5.2 Theoretical background 104
5.2.1 Content of professional learning 105
5.2.2 Activities of professional learning 106
5.3 Method 108
5.3.1 Participants 108
5.3.2 Data collection 109
5.3.3 Data analysis 110
5.4 Results 112
5.4.1 Content of what teacher educators learn 112
5.4.2 Activities of how teacher educators learn 119
5.4.3 Reasons for why teacher educators learn 123
5.5 Discussion and conclusion 125
5.5.1 Discussion about main findings 125
5.5.2 Implications for professional learning 130
5.5.3 Limitations of the study 130
5.5.4 Conclusion 131
Chapter 6 - Conclusions and discussions 133

6.1 Overview 135
6.2 Main results and conclusion 136
6.2.1 Teacher educators’ professional learning: An overview from the literature 136
6.2.2 Perceptions of Dutch and Chinese teacher educators of their professional learning
138
6.2.3 A further exploration of the questionnaire results 139
6.2.4 A deeper understanding of teacher educators’ personal learning experiences 141
6.2.5 Overall conclusion 142
6.3 Discussion of the main results 143
6.4 Implications for practice 150
6.5 Limitations and future research 152
References 155
Appendices 167
Appendix A Original questionnaire Chapter 3 167
Appendix B Item-item correlation of highly correlating scales 173
Appendix C Significant independent t-test results on the item level for Chinese and Dutch
participants 178
Summary 179
Acknowledgement 185
Curriculum Viate 191
List of publications 193
ESoE dissertation series 195
Chapter 1
General introduction
11
Understanding Teacher Educators' Professional Learning
1.1 Focus of the dissertation

The significance of teacher educators in preparing teachers is
increasingly acknowledged by the educational field (e.g., Cochran-
Smith, 2003; Goodwin & Kosnik, 2013; Smith, 2003). The underlying
reason is rather obvious: the preparation of qualified and competent 1
teachers is the responsibility of teacher education institutes where
teacher educators are the key players. Against this background it
is surprising, from both a policy and research perspective, that the
role of teacher educators has been neglected for a long time. As a
response to this situation, teacher educators and their work have
become an increasing field of research interest. One aspect of this
research interest pertains to teacher educators’ professional learning
during their work. The opportunities for them to learn their work
while working as teacher educators are very important, because there
is hardly any initial preparation program and only limited support
for growing into the profession, for example, through an induction
program (Mayer, Mitchell, Santoro, & White, 2011; Reichenberg,
Avissar, & Sagee, 2015). The increased awareness of the centrality
of teacher educators in the whole education system has underlined
their need to be engaged in professional learning (Hadar & Brody,
2017).
In general, however, teacher educators are not adequately prepared
for the many challenges they face when starting their work as a
teacher educator, such as learning a new pedagogy of teaching adult
learners and developing a new identity as a teacher educator (Murry &
Male, 2005). Consequently, most teacher educators’ learning about
their profession is strongly embedded in their everyday work and
largely depends on their personal endeavors (Swennen, Shagrir,
& Cooper, 2009). Not much is known yet about teacher educators’
learning at their workplace. Before being able to promote teacher
educators' professional learning, it is thus first necessary to better
understand teacher educators’ professional learning. The focus of
this dissertation is on what and how as well as why teacher educators
13
Chapter 1
learn about their profession.

This dissertation particularly focuses on teacher educators who
work in higher education institutes and not on school-based teacher
educators or mentors in schools. Higher education-based and
school-based teacher educators differ considerably from each other,
particularly regarding their qualifications, expectations from the
institutes, and their professional roles (White, Dickerson, & Weston,
2015). Given the large differences between both groups, we limit our
definition of teacher educators in this dissertation to those who work
in higher education institutes (i.e., colleges and universities) and
who are involved in teaching student teachers in pre-service teacher
education programs.
We further focus on the professional learning of teacher educators
in higher education institutes in China and the Netherlands. The
choice for these two specific countries has first of all a practical
reason, namely that the person carrying out the present Ph.D. study
herself is from China. However, there is also another, more thorough
reason for focusing on teacher educators in these two countries.
China claims to have teacher training programs that provide
approximately 11 million teachers for the world largest K-12 education
system (Song, 2008). However, little is known about Chinese teacher
educators as well as their professional learning. There is neither a
professional standard nor an association for teacher educators in
China like in the US and the Netherlands. Many Chinese teacher
educators start their work after finishing their doctoral study in a
university and who are educated as a researcher. As a result, many
beginning teacher educators feel loss of identity, because they lack the
teaching experience with student teachers and require extra efforts
to improve their teaching (Zhao, 2014). The Netherlands is one of the
first countries that have made important steps in providing formal
support for teacher educators’ professional learning, for example,
through an association for teacher educators with its professional
standards for teacher educators and unique registration programs.
Because of these two different national contexts, this dissertation
14
also wishes to gain insight into similarities and differences between

Chinese and Dutch teacher educators’ professional learning and
giving recommendations to support their professional learning in
both countries.
1.2 Theoretical framework 1

1.2.1 Teacher educators
Who are teacher educators? The most common answer to that
question is: a teacher educator is one who teaches student teachers.
Lunenberg, Dengerink, and Korthagen (2014) pointed to the fact that
teacher educators are a heterogeneous group, working in different
institutes of higher education and having different educational
subject backgrounds. Some work in teacher education institutes for
primary or secondary education, others work in teacher education
institutes for specific fields such as arts and technology. There is no
agreement about qualification requirements for becoming a teacher
educator (European Commission, 2013).
In general, there are two routes to entering the teacher educator
profession worldwide. The first route is often called a practitioner
route, a traditional way to become a teacher educator: experienced
school teachers who leave their schools and become a teacher
educator in higher education, a setting that differs considerably from
the schools where they used to work and developed their expertise
(Murray & Male, 2005). Such a transition is often very demanding,
namely they often feel uncertain in their new professional role,
they have to negotiate with their new institutional and cultural
context, and they feel the urgent need of learning a new pedagogy
of teaching adult learners (Davey, 2013). The second route is a more
academic route. These teacher educators often have a Ph.D. degree
in their subject, and they enter the profession in HE just like other
academics do (European Commission, 2013). Many of them do not
have any experiences as a school teacher. They have expertise in
their subject area and are familiar with the academic institutional
15
Chapter 1
and cultural context, but becoming a teacher educator is challenging

for them. Although they may have some experience in working with
adult learners, for example, as a teaching assistant during their Ph.D.
program (Yuan, 2015), it is definitely not sufficient to address the
double layers in teacher educators’ teaching: teaching the subject
knowledge while modelling teaching behavior for student teachers
(Loughran, 2014). This requires them to learn the pedagogy of
teacher education in a context where research, in general, is more
valued than teaching. They need to develop a new professional
identity of a teacher of teachers that seems to be harder for them
than for teacher educators with a teaching background in schools.
Teacher educators generally do not receive sufficient professional
preparation for their work, and they learn how to do teacher
education work after starting their work (Dinkelman, Margolis, &
Sikkenga, 2006; Martinez, 2008; Murray, 2008). In this context, it is
relevant to know what and how teacher educators learn about their
profession, including their reasons for learning at work.
1.2.2 Teacher educators' professional learning

There is a general agreement that the work of teacher educators
requires specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes and that there are
different ways in which they learn to do their work or develop as
professionals in their field (AL-Hinai, 2008). Systematic research on
teacher educators’ professional learning is still lacking compared
with the studies on teachers’ professional learning (Boei et al., 2015;
Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013). In some countries, for example, the
importance of teacher educators’ work is increasingly acknowledged.
The associations for teacher educators in the US and the Netherlands
are examples of national attempts having initiated professional
standards for teacher educators and yearly organizing professional
meetings for them (Koster & Dengerink, 2008). The international
forum for teacher educator development (InFo-TED) is an example
of an attempt to provide a European network for teacher educators
to learn from each other via a virtual learning platform and by
16
face-to-face meetings (Vanassche et al., 2015). Nevertheless, most

teacher educators particularly learn about their profession in their
own way while working. According to Dengerink, Lunenberg, and
Kools (2015), two perspectives can be adopted for the study of the
professional development of teacher educators: the group or the
individual. The first perspective emphasizes the development of the
1
profession and the professional identity that teacher educators share.
The latter focuses on the individual teacher educator who is engaged
in activities with a specific attitude, knowledge, and skills aiming
at his/her professional growth. This dissertation is limited to this
second perspective. It focuses on what individual teacher educators
learn during their work, the learning activities they undertake, and
their reasons for learning at work.
Systematic research on how teacher educators learn their profession,
formally or informally, is necessary before we can discuss how to
support them with their professional learning effectively.
1.3 Central aim and research questions

From the previous sections, it has become clear that teacher
educators’ professional learning is crucial for the quality of preparing
professional (future) teachers. The central aim of this research is to
gain an understanding of teacher educators’ professional learning,
including the content of their learning, their learning activities, and
their reasons for learning. To achieve this research aim, we attempt to
answer the following general research questions:
1. How do Dutch and Chinese teacher educators perceive relevant

aspects of professional learning in their practice?
This general research question is further divided into three sub-
questions.
1.1 What are the Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’
perceptions regarding the learning content, learning
activities, and reasons for their professional learning in
17
Chapter 1
practice?
1.2 How do these perceptions relate to relevant background
variables?
1.3 What similarities and differences exist in Dutch and
Chinese teacher educators’ perceptions of professional
learning?
2. What professional learning aspects in terms of content,
activities, and reasons can be drived from teacher educators'
own examples of learning?
We conducted three consecutive studies to answer these general
research questions starting from a thorough examination of the
literature. The first study was a review study of the literature to
analyze and synthesize research articles on the topic of teacher
educators’ professional learning. For this purpose, 75 articles were
selected and analyzed resulting in an overview of (sub) categories
of what teacher educators learn, the learning activities they
undertake, and their reasons for learning. The second study aimed
at exploring how teacher educators’ professional learning looks like
in practice (Research question 1). For that purpose, we developed a
digital questionnaire based on the results of the review study, that
has been answered by Dutch and Chinese teacher educators (n =
583). The third study aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of
teacher educators’ professional learning by interviewing them about
their personal examples of learning (Research question 2). For that
purpose, we selected eleven teacher educators based on their scores
on the questionnaire of the second study.
1.4 Context of the dissertation

In this dissertation, the focus is on the teacher educators who work
in higher education institutes including universities and colleges.
In order to gain a broad overview of teacher educators’ professional
learning, we did not specify teacher educators’ subject background,
for example, being a subject-specific teacher educator or a teacher
18
educator of general pedagogy. Different types of higher education

institutes that provide teacher education programs for primary and
secondary education were contacted to recruit as many participants
as possible in China and the Netherlands. Given the substantial
differences in teacher education systems between China and the
Netherlands, we briefly describe the types of institutes that provide
1
pre-service teacher education programs in both countries.
In the Netherlands, pre-service teacher education is part of the
higher education system and is offered by two types of institutes:
Research universities and Universities of applied sciences (Snoek,
2011). The two types of universities provide different teacher
education programs with distinct characteristics. Generally, Research
universities offer research oriented teacher education programs for
upper secondary education. Universities of applied sciences offer
practice and vocational oriented teacher education programs for
primary and lower secondary and vocational education.
In China, pre-service teacher education programs are generally
offered by four types of higher education institutes. The first type
includes two kinds of institutes: Normal Universities under the
Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and some
Comprehensive Research Universities. They provide research-
oriented teacher education programs, mainly for educating senior
secondary school teachers. The second type includes provincial
Normal Universities. They emphasize research in their teacher
education programs, and they are mainly educating senior secondary
school teachers in their own provinces. The third type consists of
local Normal Colleges for training junior secondary school teachers.
The fourth type includes Specialized Higher Education Schools and
Vocational Higher Education Schools, mainly for the education of
primary and preschool teachers.
1.5 Relevance of the research

This dissertation has both theoretical and practical relevance. From
19
Chapter 1
a theoretical point of view, the studies in this dissertation add to

our understanding of teacher educators’ professional learning by
showing the relevant aspects of what teacher educators learn, how
they learn, and why they learn their profession at their workplace.
As such, it contributes to the development of theory about teacher
educators’ professional learning. More specifically, understanding
the different aspects of their professional learning must be
considered as a prerequisite for promoting this learning. The insights
of this dissertation are also relevant for future research on teacher
educators’ professional learning.
With regard to the practical relevance of the presented studies,
the findings regarding the learning content and learning activities
of teachers educators’ professional learning may inform teacher
educators about what is generally perceived as relevant to their
work and raise their awareness of their work as a profession. In turn,
being aware and gaining an understanding of what, how, and why
teacher educators learn their work particularly at the workplace by
teacher education institutes may provide targeted support to teacher
1.6 Overview of the dissertation

Figure 1.1 gives an overview of the three studies of this dissertation
and the chapters in which they are described. The first study is
presented in Chapter 2, which gives an overview of what teacher
educators learn, their learning activities, and their reasons for
learning based on a review study of 75 relevant research articles.
The results of this study are presented as (sub) categories of what,
how, and why teacher educators learn. Each category is described
and explained with examples from the reviewed articles.
Chapter 3 and 4 present the second study, which is a questionnaire
study. Chapter 3 describes the development of a digital questionnaire
to investigate teacher educators’ perceptions of the relevance of
the learning aspects that resulted from the review study to their
20
professional learning in practice. This chapter also describes the

relationship between teacher educators’ perceptions of these aspects
and some of their relevant background variables as well as differences
in Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ perceptions of learning.
Based on the same questionnaire data, Chapter 4 reports on a closer
look at the questionnaire results on item level. Correlation analyses
1
and independent t-tests were performed on questionnaire items of
selected scales from the questionnaire in Chapter 3. This resulted
in deeper insight into the relations between certain questionnaire
scales and into the differences between Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators.
Chapter 5 presents the third study, which is an interview study. Based
on the questionnaire results of the second study, eleven teacher
educators were selected for an in-depth interview. The interviewees
were asked for personal examples to illustrate what they learn, how
they learn, and why they learn at work.
Chapter 6 summarizes and discusses the main results of the three
consecutive studies, followed by an explanation of the limitations of
this dissertation, suggestions for future research, and implications
for practice.
Given that three studies were designed in a consecutive way and the
fact that the chapters were written as independent articles, which
have been published in different scientific journals in the field
of teacher education, there is some overlap in the theoretical and
methodological sections of the chapters.
21
22
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 An overview of the three consecutive studies in this dissertation

Chapter 2
Teacher educators' professional learning: A

literature review1,2
1
This chapter has been published as:
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2018). Teacher educators' professional learning: A litera
ture review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 93-104.
2
Parts of this chapter have been published as:
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2019). Learning the Teacher Educator Profession. In:
Peters M. (Eds), Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Singapore: Springer.
23
Abstract
This study reports on a systematic review of what, how, and why

teacher educators learn. For this purpose, seventy-five research
articles were analyzed. Results show that research on teacher
educators’ professional learning appears to be a growing field of
interest but fragmented in focus. Our review indicates: (a) there is
no clear knowledge base essential for teacher educators’ work, (b)
teacher educators undertake different activities from which to learn, 2
and (c) they generally experience the need to learn to do their work
as teacher educators. Our study may contribute to understanding
and supporting teacher educators’ professional learning during their
career.
25
Chapter 2
2.1 Introduction
Teacher educators play a pivotal role in enhancing the quality of
education (Cochran-Smith, 2003; Goodwin & Kosnik, 2013; Liston,
Borko, & Whitcomb, 2008). They directly influence the quality of
(student) teachers and therefore, though more indirectly, the learning
results of young children and teenagers. There is general agreement
that the work of teacher educators requires specific knowledge, skills
and attitudes and that there are different ways in which they learn
to do their work or develop as professionals in their field (AL-Hinai,
2008). However, compared with studies on teachers’ professional
learning, a systematic overview of studies on teacher educators’
professional learning is still lacking (Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013).
This literature review aims to analyze and synthesize the relevant
studies on this topic. Though there is an acknowledgment of learning
by teacher educators, there is much commitment to exploring in
detail how this happens.
For reviewing the literature, we took two considerations into
account. First, the fact is that the work of teacher educators is not yet
a well-developed profession. Most teacher educators have neither a
formal route to become teacher educators nor a supportive induction
program to learn from (Mayer, Mitchell, Santoro, & White, 2011;
Reichenberg, Avissar, & Sagee, 2015). Teacher educators enter the
profession either after having taught in a school setting for several
years or after having obtained a degree in their subject of study in a
university setting. Neither of these two routes is sufficient to address
the challenges teacher educators face when starting their work as
teacher educator, including the development of a new professional
identity (Dinkelman, Margolis, & Sikkenga, 2006; Martinez, 2008;
Murray, 2008). In addition, the knowledge base they can rely on is a
rather fragile one (Goodwin et al., 2013). As a result, many beginning
teacher educators learn to educate student teachers on the job, for
instance, by discussing problems in their teaching with colleagues
and by experimenting with new ideas in their daily teaching practices
26
(Swennen, Shagrir, & Cooper, 2009).

A second consideration is that teacher educators constitute a very
heterogeneous group of professionals, being engaged in different
roles, such as teacher of teachers, researcher, coach, gatekeeper,
broker, and curriculum developer (Lunenberg, Dengerink, &
Korthagen, 2014). It is obvious that not all teacher educators
experience each of these roles or, in case they do, that these different
roles may impose competing demands on them (Hadar & Brody,
2017). From a broad perspective, teacher educators can be defined
as those who actively facilitate the formal learning of student 2
teachers and teachers (European Commission, 2013). This broad
definition includes both higher education and school-based teacher
educators according to their work settings. These two groups of
teacher educators differ considerably from each other, particularly
regarding their qualifications, expectations from the institutes,
and their professional roles (White, Dickerson, & Weston, 2015).
Given the large differences between the two groups, we limit our
definition of teacher educators in this study to those who work in
higher education institutes (i.e., colleges and universities) and who
are involved in teaching student teachers in a pre-service teacher
education program.
According to Dengerink, Lunenberg, and Kools (2015), two
perspectives can be adopted for the study of the professional
development of teacher educators: the group or the individual. The
first perspective emphasizes the development of the profession
and the professional identity that teacher educators share. The
latter focuses on the individual teacher educator who is engaged
in activities with a specific attitude, knowledge, and skills aiming
at his/her professional growth. This study is limited to this second
perspective with a focus on what individual teacher educators learn
during their work, the learning activities they undertake, and their
reasons for learning at work. We hope that the results of this review
study may assist in understanding and supporting teacher educators’
professional learning during their career and provide directions for
27
Chapter 2
further research on this topic.
2.2 Method
2.2.1 The literature search

A literature search was conducted by consulting Web of Science,
ERIC, and SCOPUS using the following search terms: teacher
educator(s) AND professional development and teacher educator(s)
AND professional learning. The search covered research articles
written in English and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
We confined our search to the period 2000–2015, because research
on teacher educators as a distinct population particularly emerged
in the early 2000s (Vanderlinde, Tuytens, De Wever, & Aelterman,
2016; Lunenberg et al., 2014).
2.2.2 Selection of abstracts

The literature search resulted in a total of 1701 abstracts. Three steps
were taken to select relevant articles for our review (see Figure 2.1).
First, the first author used two criteria to select the abstracts: (a) the
focus had to be on teacher educators working in higher education
institutes and (b) the abstract had to pertain to at least one of the
three aspects of professional learning, namely: the content about
which teacher educators learn, the activities through which they
learn, and their reasons for engaging in professional learning.
These criteria resulted in 188 relevant abstracts and 41 abstracts
that required further examination. Second, two other researchers
(co-authors of this study) used the same criteria to submit the 41
abstracts to a renewed selection. They separately read the abstracts
and exchanged their opinions until consensus was reached. This
method resulted in 22 additional abstracts for our review. Third, our
210 (188+22) abstracts were categorized into three groups regarding
the previously mentioned aspects of professional learning (content,
activities, and reason for professional learning) to obtain further
insight into the relevance of the articles for our review and to make
28
decisions about the articles’ further analysis. The abstracts were

divided into three groups: 25 abstracts in the first group (Group1)
covering all three aspects of professional learning, 98 abstracts in
the second group (Group2) covering two aspects, and 87 abstracts in
the third group (Group3) covering only one aspect.
Figure 2.1 The selection process of research articles for review
2.2.3 Analysis of the articles

We took the articles in the first and the second groups (N=123) as the
basis for our analysis because we considered the abstracts in these
two groups the most relevant to our topic. The articles from the thrid
group were only used to trace any new findings in addition to those
29
Chapter 2
of the first and second groups.

A table was designed to collect fragments relevant to the aspects
of professional learning from the articles (see Table 2.1 for some
examples). The first author read the full text of each article, identified
the relevant fragments, and completed Table 2.1.
After analyzing the first half of the articles (N=61), two other
researchers (co-authors) checked on that work by analyzing three
randomly chosen articles and their results independently from each
other. Both researchers fully agreed with each other, and the first
author continued the same procedure for the second half of the
articles (N=62). Of the 123 articles, we finally extracted fragments
from 75 articles and the remaining articles were excluded from our
review. Forty-two articles were excluded because the abstracts of
those articles misled us about their focus. A reading of the complete
text demonstrated no focus on one or more aspects of professional
learning (i.e., content, activities, and reasons for professional
learning). The other six articles were excluded because of pragmatic
reasons: no access to the full-text (N=2), teacher educators were
involved in the training of in-service teachers (N=2), and teacher
educators referred to Ph.D. students as (future) teacher educators
(N=2). The majority of 75 research articles (N = 45) included in
our review study have been written by authors from Anglophone
countries (e.g., the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). The
other 26 research articles were written by authors from European
and Asian countries, South Africa, and South America. Four research
articles were written by authors from more than one country (e.g.,
the UK and Canada).
30
Table 2.1 Examples of content, activities, and reasons summaries
Number Author and Content Activity Reason

year
1 Loughran Teaching about Conducting self- Feeling
(2014) teaching is explaining study of teacher responsible
the principles or education practice to make a
theories behind contribution
teaching practice to the field of
explicitly for student teacher education
teachers
Learning about
teaching is closely
related to the
knowledge and 2
practice of how
student teachers
learn teaching
2 Karagior and Improving Formal learning Feeling

Nicolaidou communication through university responsible
(2013) skills, along with academic degree for updating
changes in behavior programs knowledge in
their field
Becoming more In-service seminars
accepting of Professional
Participation in
criticisms and more curiosity
training programs
reflective as well (maintaining
overseas
interest in the
Impacting on teacher
Conversations with profession)
educators’ teaching
colleagues
methods and
approaches Self-study
Involvement in
research projects
Course evaluations
3 Willemse and Contributing Collaborating None

Boei (2013) to professional in research with
development of colleagues in a
colleagues community of
inquiry
Role modeling for
students how to be
inquiry and reflection
oriented
4 Davey, Ham, Developing a Engaging in None

Gilmore, stronger sense of collaborative self-
Haines, professional identity study
McGrath, as teacher educators
Morrow, and
Robinson
(2011)
31
Chapter 2
We followed three steps to categorize the relevant fragments from

the 75 articles (cf. Table 2.1) into themes about professional learning
(content, activities, and reasons). First, the first author labeled each
fragment. For example, the content fragment about forming an
identity as an English teacher educator was labeled as "professional
identity as a teacher of teachers". Second, all the labels were
combined in frequencies of occurrence for the same label. Third,
the labels were combined into overarching themes. For example,
the label "professional identity as a teacher of teachers" and the
label "professional identity as a researcher" were combined into the
theme "professional identity". Finally, all the labels and themes were
checked by two other researchers (co-authors) who fully agreed with
the work done by the first author (all the themes are described as
categories and all labels as subcategories in the Tables 2.2 to 2.4 in
the results section).
2.3 Results
In this section, we summarize the results in tables and explain these
with examples from the research articles reviewed.
2.3.1 Professional learning content

Table 2.2 shows four main content categories of professional learning,
each consisting of several subcategories.
Pedagogy of teacher education
The subcategory learning about teaching not only relates to learning
the knowledge and skills about how to teach but also about how
student teachers learn to teach. Learning about how to teach
includes curriculum instruction, teaching strategies, the integration
of information and communication technology (ICT) into teaching
practice, etc. For example, Jacobs, Assaf, and Lee (2011) interviewed
15 teacher educators about their needs for teaching students from
different cultures and for whom English was a second language. Their
needs mainly focused on learning teaching strategies and making
32
use of resources that could be directly applied into their teaching

practices. Learning about how student teachers learn to teach, the
second meaning of the subcategory, relates to the knowledge and
skills needed for teaching learners and supporting their learning.
Loughran (2014) stated that such knowledge and skills require
teacher educators to understand and respond to student teachers’
concerns, needs, identities, beliefs, and the practices that develop
or change throughout their teacher education experiences. A three-
year longitudinal study conducted by McKeon and Harrison (2010) is
an example which illustrates the change in ways teacher educators 2
might see student teachers and their learning. This study reported
on five beginning teacher educators who initially saw student teachers
as students at school who taught there and with whom they shared
their expertise in teaching pupils. Gradually they began to see these
student teachers as independent adult learners reflecting on their
teaching practices; they also began to understand what difficulties
and expectations student teachers met in their "learning to teach"
process and to find ways to support them.
The subcategory teaching about teaching emphasizes making
pedagogical reasons or assumptions underlying teacher educators’
own teaching practices explicit and meaningful for themselves and
their student teachers. Many authors in this subcategory highlight
the approaches used by teacher educators in making reasons or
assumptions behind their teaching practices clear to their student
teachers, for example, by role modeling (García, Sánchez, &
Escudero, 2007; Mukeredzi, 2015; Willemse & Boei, 2013). Loughran
and Berry (2005) role modeled how to explain the purposes and
reasons behind their teaching behaviors through co-teaching a
lesson: one taught the lesson, while the other observed and debriefed
the teaching behavior. During the lesson, student teachers saw them
being challenged by the dilemmas and issues involved in teaching
practices and trying to respond to these dilemmas and issues; this
approach helped student teachers in their ability to reflect on similar
processes in their own teaching situations. Another example stems
33
Chapter 2
from Fletcher and Casey (2014), who distinguished three procedures

used by teacher educators in explaining their reasons behind their
teaching behavior to student teachers: teaching about principles
behind a teaching approach, actually teaching and demonstrating
how to teach by using that approach, and explaining the reasons
for making pedagogical decisions to use an approach. Allard and
Gallant (2012) and Grierson et al. (2012) described tensions that
teacher educators met in explaining the implicit pedagogical reasons
underlying their teaching to student teachers, such as wanting to tell
student teachers about the "what"and "why" of their teaching on the
one hand and wanting to give them ample time to think deeply about
teaching on the other.
The subcategory mentoring and supervision pertains to providing
support by teacher educators to student teachers during their
internships and related tasks or assignments, including their
supervision of student teachers doing small-scale research. For
example, Montecinos et al. (2002) depicted the mentor’s tasks in
a pre-service teacher education program as consisting of: revising
and correcting student teachers’ lesson plans, observing and giving
feedback on those lessons, conducting weekly or bi-weekly meetings
with student teachers, and maintaining contact with school
mentors. In a study conducted by Willemse and Boei (2013) two
kinds of capacities were specified which teacher educators need for
supervising student teachers doing research tasks: the capability of
teacher educators doing the research themselves and recognizing
the problems which student teachers meet in their research tasks
and providing supervision. It is argued that the latter is not possible
without the former, i.e., possessing research knowledge and skills.
Research and reflection
The subcategory research deals with research knowledge and
the capacity to conduct research. Research knowledge includes
the theoretical research knowledge as well as methodological
knowledge regarding methods and techniques for the collection
34
and analysis of data. For example, Kosnik et al. (2015) interviewed

28 teacher educators about the kind of knowledge they needed; it
appeared that they highly valued research knowledge as essential
for their work, since they became largely engaged in research-related
activities ranging from conducting research and reading research-
related articles to applying research knowledge into their own
teaching activities. The capacity of conducting research includes
the formulation of a theoretical framework, the development of
a research design, the selection of research methods, and the
publication and presentation of research results (e.g., Castle, 2013; 2
Griffiths, Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2010; Harrison & Mckeon, 2010).
In a study conducted by Roberts and Weston (2014), for instance,
teacher educators joined a series of research skill-based workshops
to learn how to make a research plan, how to select research topics,
and how to write a literature review and an abstract.
35
36
Table 2.2 Professional learning content
Categorya Subcategoryb A brief description of the subcategory Study

Chapter 2
Pedagogy Learning This subcategory embraces two meanings. The Auld, Ridgway, & Williams, 2013; Brody & Hadar, 2011, 2015; Capobianco,
of teacher about first relates to knowledge and skills necessary 2007; Castle, 2013; Chitpin, 2011; Coronel, Carrasco, Fernández, & González,
education teaching (19) for teaching (e.g., curriculum knowledge and 2003; Fowler, Stanley, Murray, Jones, & McNamara, 2013; Hadar & Brody,
(46) teaching strategies). The second relates to the 2010; Jacobs, Assaf, & Lee, 2011; Kabakci, Odabasi, & Kilicer, 2010; Karagiorgi
beliefs, experiences, and concerns of student & Nicolaidou, 2013; Kosnik et al., 2015; Loughran, 2014; MacPhail,
teachers that affect their understanding of 2011; McKeon & Harrison, 2010; Peeraer & Van Petegem, 2012; Prater &
learning and teaching. Devereaux, 2009; Schuck, Aubusson, Kearney, & Burden, 2013
Teaching Explaining the underlying reasons or Allard & Gallant, 2012; Capobianco, 2007; Cheng, Tang, & Cheng, 2014;
about assumptions of teaching behavior to student Chitpin, 2011; Fletcher & Casey, 2014; García, Sánchez, & Escudero, 2007;
teaching (22) teachers. Grierson et al., 2012; Hadar & Brody, 2012; Loughran, 2014; Loughran &
Berry, 2005; Lovin et al., 2012; MacPhail, 2011; Monroe, 2013; Mukeredzi,
2015; Petrarca & Bullock, 2014; Mansur & Friling, 2013; Sharplin, 2011; Han
et al., 2014; Teclehaimanot & Lamb, 2005; Timmerman, 2003; White, 2011;
Willemse & Boei, 2013
Mentoring Observing student teacher practices and Jónsdóttir, Gísladóttir, & Guðjónsdóttir, 2015; Koster, Dengerink, Korthagen,
and providing feedback (or presenting instruction) to & Lunenberg, 2008; Montecinos et al., 2002; Ramirez, Allison-roan,
supervision support student teacher teaching, assignments, Peterson, & Elliott-Johns, 2012; Willemse & Boei, 2013
(5) and research tasks.
Research Research (10) Teacher educators’ valuing research knowledge Castle, 2013; Griffiths, Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2010; Harrison & McKeon,
and and skills to strengthen their practices or 2010; Jones, Stanley, McNamara, & Murray, 2011; Kosnik et al., 2015;
reflection contribute to their professional knowledge. Margolin, 2011; McGregor, Hooker, Wise, & Devlin, 2010; Roberts & Weston,
(22) 2014; Shteiman, Gidron, Eilon, & Katz, 2010; Tanner & Davies, 2009
Reflection (12) This subcategory has two meanings. The first is Dye et al., 2010; Edwards-Groves, 2013; Harfitt & Tavares, 2004; Karagiorgi
about teacher educators’ self-reflection on their & Nicolaidou, 2013; Koster, Dengerink, Korthagen, & Lunenberg, 2008;
practices and their awareness to reflect. The Mukeredzi, 2015; Poyas & Smith, 2007; Ramirez, Allison-roan, Peterson, &
second is about their support of student teachers Elliott-Johns, 2012; Selkrig & Keamy, 2015; Shagrir, 2010; Tanner & Davies,
to reflect. 2009; Viczko & Wright, 2010
Table 2.2 (Continued)
Professional Teacher Perceiving the teacher educator as a professional Davey et al., 2011; Dinkelman, 2011; Gallagher, Grif, Parker, Kitchen, &
identity (20) educator who educates or cultivates future teachers. Figg, 2011; Harrison & McKeon, 2010; Lunenberg, Korthagen, & Zwart,
identity (12) 2011; McDonough & Brandenburg, 2012; Reichenberg, Avissar, & Sagee,
2015; Mansur & Friling, 2013; Shagrir, 2010; Sharplin, 2011; Vozzo, 2011;
Williams & Ritter, 2010
Researcher Perceiving the teacher educator (also) as a Braund, 2015; Griffiths, Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2010; Lunenberg,
identity (8) researcher, as an essential role in teacher Zwart, & Korthagen, 2010; McGregor, Hooker, Wise, & Devlin, 2010;
educators’ work. Murray, 2010; Parr & Bulfin, 2015; Roberts & Weston, 2014; White, Roberts,
Rees, & Read, 2014
Knowledge Different kinds Included are three types of knowledge: Castle, 2013; Cheng et al., 2014; Draper et al., 2011; Jacobs, Assaf, & Lee,
base (15) of knowledge content or subject knowledge of what to teach, 2011; Kosnik et al., 2015; Parr & Bulfin, 2015; Superfine & Li, 2014
needed to knowledge of how to teach specific subjects
prepare student to student teachers (Pedagogical Content
teachers for Knowledge/PCK), and knowledge of curriculum
their future (e.g., the goal or organization of modules).
profession (7)
The profession The professional context (i.e., working Barak et al., 2010; Coronel, Carrasco, Fernández, & González, 2003;
in teacher environment and culture) of teacher educators. Gallagher, Griffin, Parker, Kitchen, & Figg, 2011; Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou,
education (8) 2013; Patrizio, Ballock, & McNary, 2011; Pienaar & Lombard, 2010;
Reichenberg, Avissar, & Sagee, 2015; Viczko & Wright, 2010
Note: a&bNumbers in parentheses represent the frequencies of the summaries for each category and subcategory respectively.
37
2
Chapter 2
The subcategory reflection pertains to teacher educators’ reflective

analysis of their own teaching practices and their awareness to
do so as well as to support their student teachers. For example,
regarding reflection by teacher educators themselves, Selkrig and
Keamy (2015) studied reflection as a collaborative learning process
with a focus on colleagues being engaged in group conversations
to examine their teaching practices in relation to the achievements
of their students. In the study by Ramirez, Allison-roan, Peterson,
and Elliott-Johns (2012), reflection was understood as a reviewing
process of one’s teaching experiences, for example, to examine the
beliefs, assumptions, and learning outcomes in order to understand
and improve one’s teaching practice. The awareness to reflect appears
important for bringing about change in one’s attitude towards his/her
practice. For example, Karagiorgi et al. (2013) described how one of the
teacher educators who participated in a professional learning program
became more open to feedback on his/her teaching practices from
colleagues and, through that, became more reflective about his/her
teaching practices as well. Supporting student teachers to reflect on
their practices, the other part of this subcategory, is generally seen as
an important task of teacher educators. For example, in a self-study
conducted by Harfitt and Tavares (2004), they as teacher educators
not only became more reflective regarding their own practices but
also intentionally re-structured their lessons to create more spaces
for student teachers to reflect on the challenges and difficulties they
faced. In another self-study, Mukeredzi (2015) organized collaborative
reflective discussion meetings with student teachers in the evening
hours during a four-week internship. During those meetings, he/
she asked reflective questions about their experiences, followed by
discussions about the answers to these questions, and writing about
this by the student teachers in their reflective journals.
Professional identity
The subcategory teacher educator identity refers to the professional
role as a teacher of teachers educating or cultivating future teachers.
For example, in a study conducted by Williams and Ritter (2010)
38
the identity development of a teacher educator showed a clear

professional role change. They reported on teacher educators who
started to see themselves as expert teachers with rich secondary
school experiences and to be accustomed to providing answers
to students. They gradually abandoned this professional role and
developed the new role as a teacher of teachers, who posed problems
and challenged student teachers to consider and find solutions
themselves. Somewhat in contrast, Sharplin (2011) stated that
sustaining and incorporating both professional roles as a teacher
of teachers and a teacher in school was valuable for linking theory and 2
practice in a teacher educator’s own teaching. Few authors proposed
that the professional role as a mentor should also be incorporated
into the role of teacher educator. For instance, McDonough and
Brandenburg (2012) stated in their study that the professional role
as a mentor might include the coordination and management of
student teachers’ internships in schools, the support of student
teachers during their internships, and the assessment of student
teachers’ portfolios at the end of their internships.
The subcategory research identity refers to the development of the
professional role as a researcher, who develops awareness of or
becomes engaged in conducting research. For example, McGregor,
Hooker, Wise, and Devlin (2010) stated that the development of
the professional role as "teacher educator-researcher" implies the
development of an inquiring mind, thoughtfully questioning and
reflecting on teaching practices. An example that it is not easy to
develop a researcher identity as teacher educators is given by Griffiths et
al. (2010), who described that teacher educators perceived the work in
teacher education and doing research as separated.
Knowledge base
The subcategory different kinds of knowledge needed to prepare
student teachers for their future profession refers to the content
knowledge of what to teach, how to teach a specific subject to
student teachers, and the knowledge of curriculum (e.g., the goal
39
Chapter 2
or organization of the modules). The subject knowledge and

pedagogical content knowledge are usually treated and discussed
together in the reviewed articles, and therefore we also illustrate
them together. Superfine and Li (2014), for example, indicated that
a mathematics teacher educator for an elementary teacher preparation
program needs to know the mathematical content knowledge and
mathematical pedagogical content knowledge. The mathematical
content knowledge pertains to the knowledge a mathematics teacher
must have, such as how to compute percentages and multiply multi-
digit numbers. The mathematical pedagogical content knowledge
refers to the mathematical knowledge specific to teaching, such as
evaluating students’ conjectures and anticipating unusual solution
methods. This latter knowledge more closely resembles what teachers
have to know and do with students in the classroom (see also Draper
et al., 2011; Jacobs et al., 2011; Parr & Bulfin, 2015). Although only two
research articles in the review that refer to curriculum knowledge
of teacher educators may not be a strong case to illustrate what
this knowledge entails, it generally involves knowledge about the
teacher education program and curriculum materials used within
the program. Both articles reported on teacher educators being
engaged in the design and modification of modules of a teacher
education program in order to adjust to student teachers’ learning
needs (Castle, 2013; Cheng, Tang, & Cheng, 2014).
The subcategory profession in teacher education refers to
understandin the characteristics and culture of the profession or the
specific context of teacher education. For example, Patrizio, Ballock,
and McNary (2011) described five beginning teacher educators who
paid close attention to and took some time for becoming familiar
with the culture in higher education institutes and the manner
in which to interact with student teachers and colleagues during
their induction phase. The communication and collaboration with
colleagues seems an important characteristic of the teacher education
profession. Coronel, Carrasco, Fernández, and González (2003), for
instance, distinguished three basic features in quality collaborative
40
relationships among teacher educators: a sense of cooperation and

partnerships, a climate of mutual help and confidence, and the
recognition of valuing the different opinions among the group
members. Within the collaboration, the group conversations, both
verbal and non-verbal, were valued as beneficial to their decision
making, exchanging of knowledge, and the understanding of
critical inquiry.
2.3.2 Professional learning activities

Table 2.3 consists of four main categories regarding the learning 2
activities that teacher educators undertake.
Learning through academic engagement
The subcategory learning through doing research includes two types
of research: practitioner research focusing on the improvement
of practice and academic research focusing on the development
of theoretical knowledge. Murray (2010) proposed some criteria
for well-framed practitioner research for teacher educators: being
relevant to their practices, based on previous research findings, well-
designed, theoretically informed, and capable of generating new
understandings of their practices or the general professional field.
Doing a self-study appears to be an important type of practitioner
research for teacher educators, which enables them to reflect on and
scrutinize their own practices or assumptions about learning and
teaching, aiming at improving their teaching practices. For example,
Han and her colleagues (2014) came together to explore a question
that evoked from their practices, namely: what does it mean to be
a culturally responsive teacher educator in higher education? In
their collaborative self-study, they developed interview questions,
interviewed each other individually, and collaboratively analyzed the
interview transcripts, meeting notes, and other documents in order
to understand the concept of cultural responsiveness and to enact
it in their practices. Academic research, another type of research,
refers to teacher educators being engaged in a research project with
41
Chapter 2
the aim to develop theoretical knowledge. In a study conducted

by Tanner and Davies (2009), for example, early-career teacher
educators joined a research project of experienced researchers and,
by working with them, receiving formal research training. In order
to develop their educational research capacities, they explored the
research focus, wrote research proposals, designed investigations,
collected and analyzed data, and wrote a research paper. Moreover,
in a study conducted by Griffiths et al. (2010), teacher educators
conducted a Ph.D. research project with formal supervisory support
and highly valued this.
The subcategory engaging in academic activities refers to reading
and writing articles and attending academic conferences. Koster,
Dengerink, Korthagen, and Lunenberg (2008), categorized reading
literature and writing academic articles as learning from others
without interaction, because of the lack of interpersonal dialogues.
Teacher educators also value attending conferences to exchange
ideas or discuss questions with peers and experts (e.g., Castle, 2013;
Kosnik et al., 2015).
42
Table 2.3 Professional learning activity
Learning Learning through doing Conducting academic research focusing on Allard & Gallant, 2012; Auld, Ridgway, & Williams, 2013;
through research (30) the contribution to theoretical knowledge, or Barak et al., 2010; Braund, 2015; Castle, 2013; Davey et al., 2011;
academic conducting practitioner research focusing on the Draper et al., 2011; Fletcher & Casey, 2014; Gallagher, Griffin,
engagement improvement of own practices. Parker, Kitchen, & Figg, 2011; Grierson et al., 2012; Karagiorgi
(33) & Nicolaidou, 2013; Kosnik et al., 2015; Loughran, 2014; Lovin
et al., 2012; McDonough & Brandenburg, 2012; Monroe, 2013;
Montecinos et al., 2002; Mukeredzi, 2015; Murray, 2010; Patrizio,
Ballock, & McNary, 2011; Petrarca & Bullock, 2014; Pienaar &
Lombard, 2010; Ramirez, Allison-roan, Peterson, & Elliott-
Johns, 2012; Mansur & Friling, 2013; Han et al., 2014; Tanner &
Davies, 2009; Timmerman, 2003; Viczko & Wright, 2010; Vozzo,
2011; Williams & Ritter, 2010
Engaging in academic Reading/writing research articles and attending Castle, 2013; Kosnik et al., 2015; Koster, Dengerink, Korthagen, &
activities (3) conferences. Lunenberg, 2008
Learning Getting input from Discussing or exchanging ideas about the Chitpin, 2011; Dinkelman, 2011; Edwards-Groves, 2013; Griffiths,
through significant others (15) relevant aspects of their work with relevant Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2010; Kabakci, Odabasi, & Kilicer,
collaborative significant others (colleagues, student teachers, 2010; Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013; Kosnik et al., 2015; Koster,
activity (32) mentors, and teachers at school). Dengerink, Korthagen, & Lunenberg, 2008; MacPhail, 2011;
McKeon & Harrison, 2010; Prater & Devereaux, 2009; Poyas &
Smith, 2007; Selkrig & Keamy, 2015; Sharplin, 2011; White, 2011
Learning community (17) Groups of teacher educators coming together to Baecher & Kung, 2014; Brody & Hadar, 2011, 2015; Castle, 2013;
(systematically) share professional interests and Coronel, Carrasco, Fernández, & González, 2003; Dinkelman,
learn from each other. 2011; Dye et al., 2010; Hadar & Brody, 2010, 2012; Jacobs, Assaf,
& Lee, 2011; Jónsdóttir, Gísladóttir, & Guðjónsdóttir, 2015;
Kosnik et al., 2015; Margolin, 2011; Poyas & Smith, 2007; Schuck,
Aubusson, Kearney, & Burden, 2013; White, Roberts, Rees, &
43
Read, 2014; Willemse & Boei, 2013
Note: a&b Numbers in parentheses represent the frequencies of the summaries for each category and subcategory respectively.
2
44
Chapter 2
Learning through Attending research- Participating in professional development Fowler, Stanley, Murray, Jones, & McNamara, 2013; Griffiths,
attending related professional programs focusing on academic or Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2010; Lunenberg, Korthagen, &
professional development programs practitioner research (e.g., a program about Zwart, 2011; Lunenberg, Zwart, & Korthagen, 2010; McGregor,
development (9) self-study or a program about academic Hooker, Wise, & Devlin, 2010; Parr & Bulfin, 2015; Roberts &
programs (16) writing). Weston, 2014; Shteiman, Gidron, Eilon, & Katz, 2010; White,
Roberts, Rees, & Read, 2014
Attending educational Participating in professional development Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013; McKeon & Harrison, 2010;
professional programs focusing on relevant aspects of the Peeraer & Van Petegem, 2012; Reichenberg, Avissar, & Sagee,
development programs profession of teacher educator (e.g., a teacher 2015; Shagrir, 2010; Superfine & Li, 2014; Teclehaimanot & Lamb,
(7) educator induction program or a faculty 2005
development workshop).
Learning through Collaborative reflection Sharing personal reflections with student Capobianco, 2007; Castle, 2013; Harfitt & Tavares, 2004; García,
reflective activity (6) teachers (e.g., reading aloud reflections Sánchez, & Escudero, 2007; Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013;
(9) to student teachers), or interacting with Loughran & Berry, 2005
colleagues to reflect together on a critical
incident.
Individual reflection (3) Personally reflecting on lessons/events. Koster, Dengerink, Korthagen, & Lunenberg, 2008; Kosnik et al.,
2015;White, 2011
Learning through collaborative activity

The subcategory getting input from significant others refers to
exchanging or discussing opinions about practice with different
categories of relevant people in their working environment. The
articles reviewed particularly report on four of these categories. The
first category of relevant significant others for teacher educators
are their immediate colleagues from the workplace. For example,
Selkrig et al. (2015) reported on teacher educators who highlighted
the role of trusted colleagues as their critical friends whom they had
invited to become engaged in and comment on their work. These 2
trusted colleagues tried to understand the context and the intended
outcomes of that work, asked provocative questions, and examined
the data presented by taking another perspective. The second
category of relevant significant others for teacher educators are
their student teachers. Kosnik et al. (2015), for example, described
that many novice teacher educators rely heavily on student teachers’
feedback to consider the effectiveness of their teaching, while mid-
and late-career teacher educators rely much more on the observation
of student teachers’ growth. Similarly, MacPhail (2011) described her
appreciation for the comments from her student teachers, which both
verified her strengths as well as made her aware of areas that required
her attention. The third category of relevant significant others
are mentors, usually experienced teacher educators who support
their beginning colleagues. For example, in a study conducted by
Chitpin (2010), a teacher educator and a mentor worked together to
design a new online course. During the mentoring process, they met
each other one hour per week to discuss the course requirements,
the choices of materials to read, assignments, principles of online
teaching, etc. The fourth and final category of relevant significant
others for teacher educators are teachers in schools. As an English
teacher educator, for example, Sharplin (2011) regularly returned to
the secondary English classroom, observed teachers in the school,
and talked with them with the aim to stay familiar with the interests
and concerns of teachers in school.
45
Chapter 2
The subcategory learning community refers to a group of teacher

educators who share the common interest to learn with each other
to realize a common goal. For example, Hadar and Brody’s (2010)
reported in their study on eight teacher educators who joined a one-
year professional development community to learn and implement
thinking education into their practices, which involved three
phases. In this learning community, teacher educators first explored
the theories and materials used in current thinking education,
including the possible ways of implementation into their lessons,
with the support of experts. In the second phase, they applied what
they learned in the previous phase in their lessons (e.g., different
thinking routes and patterns) and documented these experiments
for the group discussion in the last phase. In this third phase, the
teacher educators collaboratively reflected on their experiments and
jointly investigated thinking education and its implementation into
practice in-depth.
Learning through attending professional development
programs
The subcategory attending research-related professional development
programs refers to the structured activities aimed at supporting
teacher educators’ research expertise. For example, Lunenberg,
Korthagen, and Zwart (2011) organized a small-scale project in training
teacher educators to study their own practices. In that project, eight
monthly group meetings were organized, consisting of four parts:
guided reflection, information about research phases, discussing and
working on the individual self-study, and paying attention to being
part of a self-study community. White, Roberts, Rees, and Read
(2014), here referred to as another example, investigated a support
program to facilitate teacher educators’ development of academic
writing skills. The writing support program consisted of one-to-
one coaching, regular writing workshops, informal seminars where
colleagues presented their ongoing research and development work,
and the opportunity of sharing research and development activities
by a newsletter.
46
The subcategory attending educational professional development

programs refers to planned activities aimed at supporting specific
aspects of the teacher educator’s profession. This particularly relates
to induction programs for beginning teacher educators. Shagrir
(2010), for example, described a one-year induction program for novice
teacher educators one day a week, supported by a program coordinator
having experience with teaching how to teach and a professional
academic adviser. In the induction program, lectures and workshops
were organized to give beginning teacher educators opportunities to
connect theory and practice, to discuss questions in their teaching 2
practices, and to share problems and difficulties they experienced
in their work. Following faculty development workshop is also an
important activity for teacher educators. For instance, Teclehaimanot
and Lamb (2005) described a faculty development workshop aimed
at assisting teacher educators to integrate technology into their
courses. The structures of the workshops consisted of introducing
the topics about using technology into teaching and learning, giving
examples of effective approaches of using technology in teaching
and learning, and providing opportunities for teacher educators to
practice and experiment with technology using a variety of examples
across subject areas.
Learning from reflective activity
The subcategory collaborative reflection means reflection taking
place together with others, either after having undertaken a planned
activity or by sharing a personal reflection with others. For example,
García et al. (2007) described that several mathematics teacher
educators followed a sequence of activities to reflect on their past
teaching events in order to link theory and practice. First, they
reflected on classroom events to notice the critical incidents and
discussed these in the group. Second, they critically analyzed these
incidents and used theory to explain them, which resulted in some
new insights. Third and finally, they tried to validate these new
insights in practice. Another example is from Capobianco’s (2007)
study who kept a research notebook about her reflection on the
47
Chapter 2
newly designed elementary science methods course. She also read

aloud her reflection to student teachers at class to encourage them
to reflect on their learning and to raise their awareness of the need
to reflect.
The subcategory individual reflection refers to personal reflection
on one’s past teaching practice or events. For example, White (2011)
reflected on her teaching practice by successively reflecting on the
theory implicit in her teaching, reflecting on the teaching process to
see whether the implicit theory was clear for her student teachers,
and reflecting on the comments or feedback from student teachers.
Koster et al. (2008) also described an example of an individual
reflection activity as part of a project on the "professional quality
of teacher educators" initiated by the Dutch Association of Teacher
Educators. All the participants were successively asked to make a
video of their lessons, to reflect on it, and to formulate a professional
development plan based on this reflection.
2.3.3 Reasons for professional learning

Table 2.4 contains three main categories of reasons for teacher
External requirement
The subcategory changes in teacher education policy/program refers
to the changes "from outside" that urges teacher educators to update
or deepen their professional knowledge and skills. For example,
Jónsdóttir, Gísladóttir, and Guðjónsdóttir’s (2015) investigated the
expansion of teacher education program from a three-year bachelor
to a five-year master program and the changes that brought with it
for student teachers and teacher educators. Student teachers had to
require the knowledge of main research methods in the educational
field, demonstrate the competencies of using theoretical and
methodological knowledge into their research task, and complete
a master thesis. The change of the teacher education program in
this example directly led to new requirements for student teachers,
48
and indirectly to new demands for teacher educators who should

be capable of doing research and supervising student teachers
doing their research task. Parr et al. (2015) reported on the change
for teacher educators due to the new policy of using standards in
teacher education and, through that, to account for what they do,
including demonstration of their professional learning throughout
the career. Similarly, Timmerman (2003) reported about a reform
in a mathematics teacher preparation course informing faculty how
teachers should develop their mathematical knowledge in order to
teach well. As a response, mathematics teacher educators engaged in 2
reflection and critically analyzed their teaching practices to improve
the mathematics teacher preparation course.
The subcategory assessment of institutes in higher education pertains
to the increasing expectations and evaluations of research aspects
for university teachers (including teacher educators). Harrison et al.
(2010), for instance, described that teacher educators have to engage
in teaching but also in various forms of research activities as this
was expected by their own institutes. Similarly, Roberts et al. (2014)
pointed in their study to institutional expectations to regularly
publish in peer-reviewed journals which required teacher educators
to continuously conduct research and yield research output.
49
Table 2.4 Reasons for professional learning
50
Chapter 2
External Changes in teacher New requirement or demands in teacher education Brody & Hadar, 2015; Cheng, Tang, & Cheng, 2014; Griffiths,
requirement education policy/ policy or program that urge teacher educators to Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2010; Jónsdóttir, Gísladóttir, &
(12) program (9) update or deepen their knowledge and skills. Guðjónsdóttir, 2015; Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013; Parr & Bulfin,
2015; Han et al., 2014; Tanner & Davies, 2009; Timmerman, 2003
Assessment of Evaluation of the institutes in higher education Griffiths, Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2010; Harrison & McKeon,
institutes in higher regarding research aspects (e.g., the number and 2010; Roberts & Weston, 2014
education (3) quality of research publications) urge teacher
educators to conduct research and publish in
scientific journals.
Personal Personal interest Desiring to learn or to improve relevant aspects of Capobianco, 2007; Castle, 2013; Jones, Stanley, McNamara, &
ambition (29) (13) their work, which may vary from very general (e.g., Murray, 2011; Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013; Kosnik et al., 2015;
contributing to the field of teacher education) to very Lovin et al., 2012; Lunenberg, Zwart, & Korthagen, 2010; Monroe,
person-related or individual (e.g., solving issues in 2013; Peeraer & Van Petegem, 2012; Petrarca & Bullock, 2014;
one’s own teaching practice). Roberts & Weston, 2014; Shteiman, Gidron, Eilon, & Katz, 2010;
White, Roberts, Rees, & Read, 2014
Personal Feeling responsible or the need to learn new Brody & Hadar, 2011; Chitpin, 2011; Hadar & Brody, 2010, 2012;
responsibility (16) knowledge about student teachers’ learning or to Jacobs, Assaf, & Lee, 2011; MacPhail, 2011; Montecinos et al., 2002;
improve weak parts of their own teaching practices. Pienaar & Lombard, 2010; Prater & Devereaux, 2009; Mansur
& Friling, 2013; Schuck, Aubusson, Kearney, & Burden, 2013;
Sharplin, 2011; Tanner & Davies, 2009; Teclehaimanot & Lamb,
2005;
Professional Meeting new expectations or challenges at work, Fletcher & Casey, 2014; Reichenberg, Avissar, & Sagee, 2015;
role transition after the transition from school teacher to teacher Shagrir, 2010; Viczko & Wright, 2010; Williams & Ritter, 2010
(5) educator in higher education.
Personal ambition
The subcategory professional interest refers to teacher educators’
personal desire to learn or improve relevant aspects of their work.
For example, Shteiman, Gidron, Eilon, and Katz (2010) analyzed the
motives of 18 teacher educators to write a book within their field.
They had different reasons for this, but the most prominent one was
the desire to externalize their professional knowledge of practice
as experienced teacher educators and make it available for their
colleagues in the field of teacher education. Another example is the
study by Peeraer and Van Petegem (2012) who found that teacher 2
educators with a strong interest in learning ICT applied ICT into
their lessons more frequently and in more diverse ways than other
teacher educators who were in the same training program.
The subcategory personal responsibility refers to teacher educators
feeling the responsibility or the need to learn new professional
knowledge and skills in order to better support their student teachers’
learning. For example, Schuck, Aubusson, Kearney, and Burden
(2013) reported on teacher educators who felt the responsibility to
understand the characteristics of new emerging technologies which
were supposed to lead to better learning results by their student
teachers, so that they could discuss how to appropriately use and
implement these technologies in their lessons. Teacher educators may
also feel the need to learn based on feedback from student teachers.
For example, in their study, Pienaar and Lombard (2010) recognized
the gaps between their teaching intentions and student teachers’
perceptions from module evaluations. These gaps encouraged them
to reflect and critically analyze the reasons of the mismatch and,
subsequently, to modify modules. Another example is given in
Sharplin’s (2010) study, who noticed in the implicit feedback from
her student teachers her unfamiliarity with the current situation
of classroom teaching in secondary schools. She reflected on her
capacity as a pre-service English curriculum teacher educator and
decided to go back to secondary schools to observe and discuss
teaching issues in schools with student teachers and the English
51
Chapter 2
teachers.
Professional role transition
No subcategory was found in this reason category. The main
category professional role transition refers to the new expectations
and challenges which teacher educators meet after their transition
from a teacher in school to a teacher educator in a higher education
institute. These new expectations and challenges motivate them
to develop a new professional identity, to learn new pedagogy, and
to become familiar with the new working environment or culture.
For example, the self-study conducted by Williams et al. (2010)
reported on two teacher educators who experienced significant
challenges during their first year in a higher education institute
after having taught as teachers in schools for several years. They
had to make professional connections with other teacher educators
and to develop new professional relationships with student teachers.
Another example is given by Reichenberg et al. (2015) who stated
that most teacher educators, either coming from schools or an
academic setting, entered the profession of teacher educator without
any proper training and therefore they usually needed long periods
of time to develop their new professional identity.
2.4 Conclusion and discussion

The findings of our literature review covering 15 years (2000-2015)
show that teacher educators’ professional learning has become an
independent research field. As is shown by the tables, it appears
to be a growing field of interest, because the research articles have
been published more frequently in recent years. Our literature
review provides an overview of the content of professional learning,
the learning activities teacher educators undertake, and reasons for
professional learning. However, our review study does not imply
that such an overview, especially for the content of professional
learning, is a checklist necessary for all teacher educators to meet.
Not every teacher educator should be knowledgeable about all the
52
content areas that have been categorized. Neither do we claim that

the most studied topics are also the most important ones or that the
less studied topics are not. The three main categories of our review
study (content, activities, and reasons for professional learning)
sometimes appear to overlap; however, they differ in emphasis. For
example, the main category "reflection" appears in both the content
and activities categories of professional learning but with a different
focus (See Tables 2.2 and 2.3).
Regarding the content topics of professional learning, a relatively
large number of topics are listed under the category "pedagogy of 2
teacher education", which is about supporting student teachers as
they learn how to teach students in school. Teacher educators learn
to do the same but in terms of how to teach student teachers. This
topic demands a "pedagogy of teacher education" on another level,
often referred to as second-order pedagogy, to be distinguished from
the first-order pedagogy that is a characteristic of teachers’ work with
students in schools (Murray & Male, 2005). Similar counts for the
topic ‘teaching about teaching’, which means explicitly explaining
the underlying reasons of teacher educators’ teaching behavior to
student teachers. The topics in "professional identity" particularly
address the characteristics of teacher educators’ work and can be
seen as attempts to demarcate what really matters. Furthermore,
many current studies seem to commonly report on teacher educators’
learning of doing "research", both in terms of knowledge and skills.
Livingston, McCall, and Morgado (2009) provide two main reasons
for this finding: (a) an increasing higher education requirement has
become that all higher education staff be engaged in both teaching
and research and (b) research is seen as an important vehicle for
professional learning, often combined with the desire of teacher
educators to reflect on and improve their teaching. Only a limited
number of studies are explicit about the knowledge teacher educators
should process, which might indicate a lack of a clear knowledge base
essential for teacher educators’ work. In addition, many studies do not
or hardly differentiate between the knowledge of what constitutes a
53
Chapter 2
professional teacher and a professional teacher educator.

Many of the professional activities reported on in our review study are
closely related to the teacher educators’ own practice. For example,
doing practice-oriented research, especially self-studies conducted
both individually and collectively, usually starts from the practical
issues or concerns that teacher educators face in their daily teaching
practice. Some reasons exist for self-study research being one of the
activities most referred to in the reviewed articles. Internationally,
a large network of teacher educators strongly promotes this kind of
research, organizing its own conferences and having its "own" peer-
reviewed journal—"Studying Teacher Education". Self-study provides
an efficient approach for teacher educators to explore the why of
their routines in their everyday teaching practices and places inquiry
at the center of learning and teaching about teaching. Arguments
related to the ‘quality’ self-study research often pertain to the
tension between scientific relevance and rigor of the research on the
one hand and understanding research and its practical effectiveness
on the other (cf. Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2015).
Regarding the reasons for professional learning, one category reflects
"reasons from inside" (personal ambitions) and two reflect "reasons
from outside" (external requirements and challenges to be met in
the transition from teacher to teacher educator). Most reasons for
professional learning as reported in the reviewed studies appear to
be "reasons from inside". To some extent these reasons may imply
that many teacher educators feel the desire or need to learn; in turn,
this finding might be seen as an indication that teacher educators
also consider themselves professionals who practice "their own"
profession.
To our knowledge, this review study is one of the first to analyze
and synthesize relevant research articles about teacher educators’
professional learning. The overview includes many elements that play
a part in teacher educators’ learning, demonstrating the complexity
of this issue. This review study can be used as a framework to discuss
54
teacher educators’ work and professional learning in future research.

It may also add to our understanding of designing a professional
development program for (future) teacher educators. Our study
indicates that the content of such a professional development program
could center around pedagogy of teacher education, research and
reflection, professional identity, and different kinds of knowledge.
The types of professional learning activities included may differ but
entail elements of collaboration and reflection. Moreover, insight
into teacher educators’ reasons for professional learning may help
to better address their needs for professional development in such 2
a program. In addition, our overview may furthermore serve as a
reflective tool for teacher educators, inspiring them to critically
reflect on their own professional learning and opportunities to learn.
There are several limitations to our review study. First, we focused
only on research articles and not on articles organized by professional
organizations for teacher educators (e.g., the ATE in the US, the
VELON in the Netherlands, the AITSL in Australia, and the MOFET
in Israel). These professional associations may organize professional
development programs for teacher educators without publishing
about these programs in international research articles. In this
context, we suggest future research to investigate the topics teacher
educators consider important and applicable for their professional
learning at work. Second, we focused only on university-based
teacher educators. An overview of school-based teacher educators’
professional learning would be valuable since they play a pivotal role in
mentoring student teachers. To summarize, many aspects of teacher
educators’ professional learning have been specifically addressed
in the last decade. Coherence between the content and activities of
as well as the reasons for professional learning is still barely visible
in research on teacher educators’ professional learning. Our study
may help to realize such coherence and therefore contribute to the
development of a professional development program for teacher
educators as indicated above.
55
Chapter 3
Teacher educators' professional learning:

Perceptions of Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators3
This chapter has been published as:

3
Ping, C., Schellings, G., Beijaard, D., & Ye, J.Y. (2020). Teacher educators' professional learning:
perceptions of Dutch and Chinese teacher educators. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education.
Advanced online publication. doi: 10.1080/1359866X.2020.1725808
57
Abstract
This survey study explores how teacher educators perceive relevant

aspects of professional learning in their practice. These aspects were
considered as important by teacher educators in a previous review
study. A total of 583 Dutch and Chinese teacher educators completed
a digital questionnaire regarding the content of teacher educators’
learning, their learning activities, and reasons for learning. Most
teacher educators perceived all professional learning aspects as
relevant for their practice. The professional learning scales showed
correlations with several background variables, such as educational
degree and how teacher educators perceive their identity in the
teacher education institutes. When comparing Dutch and Chinese 3
teacher educators, significant differences were only found in their
perceptions of research-related scales and the scale “getting input
from others”. It can be concluded that all aspects are essential for
learning and functioning. The differences between Dutch and
Chinese teacher educators were related to the contexts in which they
work.
59
Chapter 3
3.1 Introduction
It is widely acknowledged that professional learning by teacher
educators is vital to cultivating competent (future) teachers (Cochran-
Smith, 2003; European Commission, 2013). The last two decades,
this topic has become an increasing field of interest, particularly
with regard to what constitutes teacher educators’ professional
learning. Some researchers have tried to understand the areas on
which teacher educators focus with their professional learning, such
as specific types of knowledge that they find essential for their work
(Goodwin et al., 2014; Kosnik et al., 2015), the pedagogy of teacher
education (Berry, 2007; Loughran, 2014), and aspects of doing
research by teacher educators (Griffiths, Thompson, & Hryniewicz,
2010; Harrison & Mckeon, 2010). Other researchers have begun to
explore ways in which teacher educators engage in professional
learning, such as self-study (Murray, 2010; Williams & Ritter, 2010),
professional learning communities (Hadar & Brody, 2010), and
organized professional development programs (Koster, Dengerink,
Korthagen, & Lunenberg, 2008; Shagrir, 2010).
In a previous study, we reviewed 75 research articles resulting in a
comprehensive list of main categories and subcategories regarding
the content of teacher educators’ learning, their learning activities,
and their reasons for learning (Ping, Schellings, & Beijaard, 2018).
We restricted our review study to teacher educators who work in
higher education institutes (i.e., colleges and universities). We did
not include teachers in schools who also play a role in educating
student teachers, for example as a mentor, coach, or supervisor. In
the current study, this list of (sub) categories has been used as a
framework to empirically explore and validate how these previously
found aspects of professional learning by teacher educators are
recognised and perceived by them as being part of their work as
teacher educators.
Teacher educators’ professional learning is challenging and
demanding, because there are no formal routes to become a teacher
60
educator and usually hardly any supportive induction programs to

learn from (Mayer, Mitchell, Santoro, & White, 2011; Reichenberg,
Avissar, & Sagee, 2015). The majority of the teacher educators often
enter teacher education institutes after having taught in a school
setting for several years, such as in the UK and the Netherlands
(Murray, Swennen, & Shagrir, 2009), or after having obtained a
degree in their subject of study in a university setting as is the case
in countries like China (Chao, 2015). Neither of these two routes is
sufficient to address the challenges teacher educators face when
starting their work, including the development of a (new) professional
identity (Dinkelman, Margolis, & Sikkenga, 2006; Martinez, 2008).
In a comparative study, Czerniawski, Guberman, and MacPhail (2017)
found that professional learning needs vary significantly for the two
routes of becoming a teacher educator. Against this background,
Dutch and Chinese teacher educators participated in this study
3
to investigate the similarities and differences in their professional
learning as a result of having followed different routes into the
profession of a teacher educator. Although this survey is not set up
to compare teacher educators across countries, it is also interesting
to know whether the questionnaire applies to teacher educators who
come from different national contexts. So, we briefly pay attention
to the differences between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’
perceptions of professional learning as well.
The main aims of this study are: (1) to confirm the aspects of
professional learning found in our previous review study and (2)
to explore the extent to which teacher educators consider these
aspects as important for their work in practice. The general research
question of this study is formulated as follows: how do Dutch and
Chinese teacher educators perceive relevant aspects of professional
learning in their practice? The answer to this question contributes
to providing an empirical picture of what teacher educators value for
their work in practice and what they find important for learning to
do this work well.
61
Chapter 3
3.2 Theoretical background

As mentioned above, we used the categories found in the review
study regarding what teacher educators learn (content), how they
learn (activities), and their reasons for learning as a framework
for the current study (see Table 3.1). Below we briefly explain this
framework (see Ping et al., 2018, for more detailed information).
Table 3.1 Main professional learning categories as a framework for the current study
Foci Main category
Content of professional learning Pedagogy of teacher education
Research and reflection
Professional identity
Knowledge base
Activities of professional learning Learning through academic engagement

Learning through collaborative activity
Learning through attending professional development
programs
Learning through reflective activity
Reasons for professional learning External requirement
Personal ambition
3.2.1 Content of professional learning

Four content areas were found in the previous study. The content area
“pedagogy of teacher education” is a key for distinguishing teacher
educators from teachers. It includes the knowledge and skills about
explaining the underlying reasons, conceptions, or assumptions of
teaching to student teachers, and about student teachers’ learning
needs or concerns as well as teaching strategies to meet these needs
(Loughran, 2014). This pedagogy also includes knowledge and
skills about mentoring and supervision of student teacher practices
(Montecinos et al., 2002) as well as supervising student teachers’
doing research (Roberts & Weston, 2014).
The content area “research and reflection” refers to the knowledge
and capacities of conducting research and reflection on a wide range
62
of practical experiences. Due to an increasing emphasis on teachers’

research capacities and the need to supervise student teachers doing
small-scale research, teacher educators are also expected to develop a
research profile (Griffiths et al., 2010). Reflective capacity, interrelated
with research capacity, refers to the ability to systematically analyse
and improve own teaching practices and supporting student teachers
to do so as well (Selkrig & Keamy, 2015).
The content area “professional identity” pertains to the professional
roles that teacher educators try to take. In our review study, we could
distinguish a predominant role as a “teacher of teachers” and as a
“researcher”. The development of a teacher of teachers is an ongoing
process, closely connected with the ways in which they understand
their work and changes therein (Dinkelman, 2011). The development
of a researcher role sometimes conflicts with the role of teacher of 3
teachers. Griffiths et al. (2010), for example, wrote about teacher
educators’ intensive teaching load as a major barrier to developing a
researcher identity. It appeared that teacher educators predominantly
committed themselves to student teachers and their needs at the
expense of doing research.
The content area “knowledge base” is essential for preparing student
teachers for their future profession and also for understanding
the teacher education profession. The identified knowledge
in our previous study includes subject or content knowledge,
pedagogical content knowledge, and the knowledge of curriculum
design and curriculum materials (Cheng, Tang, & Cheng, 2014).
The characteristics and culture of the profession or the specific
context of teacher education are also content aspects that teacher
educators seem to focus on (Patrizio, Ballock, & McNary, 2011). It
can be concluded that a knowledge base for teacher educators and
their work as teacher educator is not yet clear when compared, for
example, with the knowledge base for teachers and their work in
schools (Verloop, van Driel, & Meijer, 2001).
3.2.2 Professional learning activities
63
Chapter 3
Four types of professional learning activities were distinguished

in our previous study. “Learning through academic engagement”
entails two kinds of activities. One of these refers to conducting
both academic and practitioner research. Having the opportunity
of working on a research project with experienced researchers or
regularly receiving the professional guidance from supervisors
during their Ph.D. study are both highly valued by teacher educators
to improve their research capacity (Tanner & Davies, 2009). Doing
individual or collaborative self-study into teacher educators’ own
practices is particularly seen by them as an effective way to improve
their profession (Han et al., 2014). The other academic activities
refer to reading and writing research papers or attending academic
conferences (Kosnik et al., 2015).
“Learning through collaborative activity” can take place both formally
and informally. We found two types of collaborative activities. One
of these pertains to organising learning in learning communities,
in which a group of teacher educators share a common interest
and learn with and from each other in order to realise a common
goal (Hadar et al., 2010). The other type refers to getting input from
others by discussing or exchanging opinions about their work with
immediate colleagues from the workplace, student teachers, mentors,
or teachers at school (Sharplin, 2011).
“Attending professional development programs” is another type of
learning activities. Professional development programs that support
teacher educators’ expertise include educational and research-related
programs. The educational programs generally comprise planned
and structured activities aiming at supporting one specific aspect
of teacher educators’ profession (Karagiorgi & Nicolaidou, 2013). The
research-related programs focus on specific research capacities, for
instance, a program about academic writing (White, Roberts, Rees,
& Read, 2014).
Finally, “learning through reflective activity” includes collaborative
and individual reflections by teacher educators on their teaching
64
practices or after having undertaken a specific activity, for example

co-teaching a lesson (Capobianco, 2007).

Three types of reasons for professional learning could be distinguished
in our review study. Meeting “external requirement” is the first type
of reasons for teacher educators to engage in professional learning.
For example, due to changes in teacher education policy or programs
that urge teacher educators to update or deepen their knowledge and
skills (Timmerman, 2003), or as a response to the assessment of the
research and/or educational performance of the institute one works
in (Harrison et al., 2010).
“Personal ambition” is another type of reasons for professional
learning and pertains to personal interest and responsibility. 3
Personal interest refers to teacher educators’ desire to learn or
improve relevant aspects of their work (Peeraer & Van Petegem,
2012), personal responsibility to their need to learn new professional
knowledge and skills enabling them to better support their student
teachers (Sharplin, 2011).
“Professional role transition”, the last type of reasons for professional
learning, mainly focuses on new expectations and challenges teacher
educators meet after their transition from a school teacher to a
teacher educator in a higher education institute. These expectations
and challenges motivate them to learn new capacities or develop a
new professional identity (Williams et al., 2010).
3.3 Research questions

The general research question of this study aims at answering how
Dutch and Chinese teacher educators perceive relevant aspects of
professional learning in their practice. Based on the distinctions
made between the learning content, learning activities, and reasons
for learning as elaborated above, this study will answer the following
three sub-questions:
65
Chapter 3
1. What are the Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’

perceptions regarding the learning content, learning
activities, and reasons for their professional learning in
practice?
2. How do these perceptions relate to relevant background
variables?
3. What similarities and differences exist in Dutch and Chinese
teacher educators’ perceptions of professional learning?
3.4 Method
3.4.1 Research contexts

Given the substantial differences in teacher education systems
between the Netherlands and China, we brief ly describe the
institutes which provide pre-service teacher education programs in
both countries.
In the Netherlands, pre-service teacher education is part of the higher
education system and is offered by two types of institutes: Research
universities and Universities of applied sciences (Snoek, 2011). The two
types of universities provide different teacher education programs
with distinct characteristics. Generally, Research universities offer
research oriented teacher education programs for upper secondary
education. Universities of applied sciences offer practice and
vocational oriented teacher education programs for primary and
lower secondary and vocational education.
In China, pre-service teacher education programs are generally
offered by four types of higher education institutes. The first type
includes two kinds of institutes: Normal Universities under the
Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and some
Comprehensive Research Universities. They provide research-
oriented teacher education programs, mainly for educating senior
secondary school teachers. The second type includes provincial
Normal Universities. They emphasise research in their teacher
66
education programs, and they are mainly educating senior secondary

school teachers in their own provinces. The third type consists of
local Normal Colleges for training junior secondary school teachers.
The fourth type includes Specialized Higher Education Schools and
Vocational Higher Education Schools, mainly for the education of
primary and preschool teachers.
3.4.2 Participants
Digital questionnaires were sent to both Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators in the different types of higher education institutes.
They volunteered to fill out the digital questionnaire in their native
language; by filling out the questionnaire, they approved that the
results would be published; their anonymity was guaranteed.
With the support of 16 teacher education institutes in the 3
Netherlands, an online questionnaire was administered among the
teacher educators of these institutes from November 2017 to April
2018. In total, 274 respondents returned the questionnaire, of which
218 were appropriate for data analysis; 56 responses were deleted
because of missing data. Among the 218 respondents, 29.8% came
from the Research Universities, 67% from the Universities of Applied
Sciences, and 3.2% from both types of universities.
With the support of the Center for Teacher Education Research in
China, the digital questionnaire was distributed among teacher
educators working in the different types of institutes, from October
2017 to April 2018. In total, 373 teacher educators returned the
questionnaire, of which 365 were appropriate for data analysis. Eight
responses were deleted because of invalid data. Namely, they spent
excessively minimal time on completing the questionnaire. Among
365 respondents, 23% worked in Normal Universities under the
Ministry of Education, 4.4% worked in Comprehensive Research
Universities, 40.8% in provincial Normal Universities, 26.8% in local
Normal Colleges, 3.3% in Specialized Higher Education Schools and
Vocational Higher Education Schools.
67
Chapter 3
Table 3.2 displays the general characteristics of the Dutch and

Chinese respondents. It shows that the Chinese respondents were
younger than the Dutch. Most of the Chinese respondents hold a
Ph.D. degree as their highest educational degree; by contrast, most of
the Dutch hold a Master degree. Chinese respondents had no or less
working experiences as a school teacher than Dutch respondents.
They combined more research tasks with educating teachers than
the Dutch respondents.
Table 3.2 General characteristics of the Dutch (NL) and Chinese (CN) respondents
NL CN Total
(N = 218) (N = 365) (N = 583)
Characteristics Categories N % N % N %
Gender Male 83 38.1 127 34.8 210 36.0
Female 135 61.9 238 65.2 373 64.0
Age ≤ 24 3 1.4 1 0.3 4 0.7
25-34 21 9.6 87 23.8 108 18.5
35-44 61 28 182 49.9 243 41.7
45-54 75 34.4 85 23.3 160 27.4
≥ 55 58 26.6 10 2.7 68 11.7
Highest degree Bachelor degree 12 5.5 48 13.2 60 10.3
Master degree 141 64.7 140 38.4 281 48.2
Ph.D. degree 52 23.9 174 47.7 226 38.8
Other 13 6 3 0,8 16 2.7
Type of teacher education Primary education 77 35.3 29 7.9 106 18.1
program involved in
Secondary education 114 52.3 120 32.9 234 40.0
Both 2 0.9 85 23.3 87 14.9
Other 25 11.5 131a 35.9 156 26.7
Level of teacher education Bachelor level 115 52.8 171 46.8 286 48.9
program involved in
Master level 34 15.6 28 7.7 62 10.6
Both 69 31.7 149 40.8 218 37.3
Other 0 0 17 4.7 17 2.9
Days spent on educating ≤ 1 day per week 35 16.1 72 19.7 107 18.4
student teachers
2-3 days per week 106 48.6 155 42.5 261 44.8
4-5 days per week 77 35.3 138 37.8 215 36.9
68

NL CN Total
(N = 218) (N = 365) (N = 583)
Characteristics Categories N % N % N %
Working experience ≤ 3 years 35 16.1 58 15.9 93 16.0
as a teacher educator
4-6 years 40 18.3 43 11.8 83 14.2
7-10 years 43 19.7 69 18.9 112 19.2
> 10 years 100 45.9 195 53.4 295 50.6
Working experience 0 year 31 14.2 199 54.5 230 39.5
as a school teacher
≤ 3 years 47 21.6 68 18.6 115 19.7
4-6 years 35 16.1 30 8.2 65 11.1
7-10 years 36 16.5 21 5.8 57 9.8
> 10 years 69 31.7 47 12.9 116 19.9
Combining teacher Yes, as an integral part of my job 53 24.3 103 28.2 156 26.8
education work and
3
Yes, occasionally 55 25.2 240 65.8 295 50.6
research task
No 110 50.5 22 6 132 22.6
Main tasks (more Teach courses 179 82.1 308 84.4 487 83.5
answers)
Mentor student teachers 115 52.8 235 64.4 350 60.0
Supervise student teacher 107 49.1 286 78.4 393 67.4
research
Conduct research 3 1.4 264 70.8 267 43.8
Visiting and guiding teachers 4 1.8 113 30.3 117 19.2
at school
Other 69b 31.7 15 4.1 84 14.4
Label yourself General educational teacher 73 33.5 63 17.3 136 23.2
educator
Subject-matter teacher educator 94 43.1 160 43.8 254 43.4
Researcher 1 0.5 139 38.1 140 23.9
Other 50c 22.9 3 0.8 53 9.1
Note: a This number is large because pre-school education is separated from primary education
in Chinese education systems.
b
This number includes answers, such as being engaged in the in-service teacher
development programs and coordination tasks.
c
This number includes answers, such as being a pedagogue or subject specialist.
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Chapter 3
3.4.3 The questionnaire

The development of the questionnaire consisted of the following steps:
Step 1: Constructing the questionnaire
We used the main categories of what, how, and why of professional
learning from the review study as a framework for the preliminary
questionnaire scales (see Table 3.1). Text fragments selected from the
research articles under each main category served as the input for
the operationalisation of the scales into items.
Step 2: Consulting experts
After this first construction of the questionnaire, we prepared two
files to consult three experts (all being both researcher and teacher
educator) for their comments. The two files consisted of: (1) the aim
of the questionnaire, the scales, and items and (2) the main categories
of what, how, and why of professional learning and the corresponding
text fragments from the articles analysed for our previous review
study. These three experts independently evaluated all the scales
and items and suggested to combine similar items across the scales
and to delete similar-looking items within the scales.
Step 3: Consulting experienced teacher educators
Based on the feedback from the experts, the questionnaire was
improved and reorganised into a total of 35 content, 20 activity, and
23 reason items. We asked six experienced teacher educators to rate
the items on a four-point Likert scale to the extent of what they have
learned about the topics included, the learning activities, and the
reasons for professional learning (1 = not at all; 4 = to a great extent).
After completion of the questionnaire, we asked them to comment
on the clarity and relevance of the items. They suggested to clarify
the distinction between two items to avoid misunderstanding.
Step 4: Piloting the questionnaire
A pilot study was conducted among 28 Dutch and 31 Chinese teacher
educators to test and refine the questionnaire. We increased the
70
reliability of scales in the questionnaire by deleting three

items based on item-total correlation results. A final English
version questionnaire consisted of 34 items for the content part, 19
items for the activity part, and 22 items for the reason part. After
the adjustments made, the reliability of the scales improved to an
acceptable level (α ranging from .63 to .91). During the pilot study,
we received feedback to translate the English questionnaire into
the native languages of the respondents. We consulted two other
researchers in both countries about which language to use. It was
decided to translate the questionnaire carefully. First, two authors
separately translated the English questionnaire into Dutch and
Chinese. Then the translated and the original English questionnaires
were sent to two other authors (both being researcher and teacher
educator) for a check on the correctness of the translations. They
specifically focused on the comprehensibility and clarity of the
3
native words used. This procedure led to some adjustments to the
native words used in the translated questionnaires.
Step 5: Collecting data and validating the questionnaire
The final digital questionnaire was sent to both Dutch and Chinese
teacher educators. We first looked at the correlations between the
nine scales and found a few relatively strong correlations between
“pedagogy of teacher education” and “curriculum” (r = .69, p < .01),
between “research” and “learning through academic engagement” (r
= .66, p < .01), and between “learning through academic engagement”
and “learning through reflective activity” (r = .60, p < .01).
Next, we did a principal component analysis (PCA) to explore
the factors underlying the data, given that we developed a new
instrument based on a review study, which had not yet been used
in other research. For the PCA, we chose a direct oblimin rotation
method to allow correlations between the underlying factors
(Schmitt, 2011). Items were assigned to a component if they had a
component loading of .40 at a minimum. The items below .40 were
deleted. Several criteria for determining the number of the factors
71
Chapter 3
were used: Kaiser's criterion to retain eigenvalues bigger than one

and Cattell’s scree test.
The analysis showed that the sample size and the variables were
appropriate (Field, 2009) for PCA content (KMO = .95, Bartlett’s test
of sphericity X2 (496) = 9881.30, p = .000), PCA activity (KMO = .92,
Bartlett’s test of sphericity X2 (171) = 6429.99, p = .000), and PCA
reason (KMO = .90, Bartlett’s test of sphericity X2 (231) = 4926.44,
p = .000). The PCA on the learning content resulted in 22 items for
three components, which explained 51.6% of the total variance. After
the PCA, 12 items were removed because of the lower component
loadings and meaningless items within the same component. Of
these three components, the Cronbach’s Alpha varied from .83 to
.91. The PCA on the learning activity resulted in 17 items for three
components, which explained 62.2% of the total variance. Two items
were removed after PCA because of lower component loadings. For
these three components, the Cronbach’s Alpha varied from .81 to .89.
The PCA on the reasons for learning resulted in 21 items for three
components, which explained 50.3% of the total variance. One item
was removed because it did not match the meaning of the component
and the other component ‘insufficient preparation’ was renamed
as ‘professional role transition’. For these three components, the
Cronbach’s Alpha varied from .75 to .87. Table 3.3 presents the final
scales, Cronbach’s alpha of each scale, number of items, as well as
example items of the questionnaire (see Appendix A for the complete
English questionnaire).
72
Table 3.3 Foci, scales, Cronbach’s Alpha, number of items, and example items of the
questionnaire
Foci Scales Cronbach’s Number Example items

α of items
Content Pedagogy of .91 13 - the teacher educator as a mentor
teacher education of student teachers
(n = 583)
- student teacher individual
learning need
Research .86 4 - academic writing skills

- how to conduct research
Curriculum .83 5 - the teacher educator as a

curriculum developer
- how to design course modules
Activity Learning through .89 6 - attending scientific/professional
academic conferences
(n = 583) engagement
- participating in research projects
3
Getting input from .86 7 - evaluating my course with
others student teachers
- discussing with school teachers
Learning through .81 4 - doing self-study on my own

reflective activity teacher education practice
- keeping a reflective diary of my
teaching practice
Reason Personal ambition .87 9 - desiring to model for student

teachers
(n = 576)
- desiring to extend didactic
knowledge
Professional role .82 7 - having had insufficient training

transition in doing research
- receiving insufficient training in
teaching adult teachers
External .75 5 - feeling obliged to learn due to

requirement the change of teacher education
program
- feeling obliged to learn due to the
teacher education policy
73
Chapter 3
3.4.4 Data analysis

A frequency analysis was conducted to see how respondents rated
on the professional learning scales. A MANOVA test with the post-
hoc Hochberg’s GT2 test (Field, 2009) was performed to explain
differences between the nine professional learning scales with the
help of background variables. An independent t-test was used to
investigate the similarities and differences in scores on the scales
between the Dutch and Chinese teacher educators.
3.5 Results
3.5.1 Teacher educators’ perceptions of the professional

learning scales
Table 3.4 shows the Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ means and
standard deviations of nine professional learning scales. In general,
respondents’ ratings are above the mean of the scales, namely 2.5,
except for the “professional role transition”.
Table 3.4 Means and standard deviations of the professional learning scales
Foci Scale Mean Std. Deviation
Content Pedagogy of teacher education 3.11 .56
Curriculum 2.94 .66
(n = 583) Research 2.74 .79
Activity Getting input from others 3.07 .62
Learning through academic engagement 2.91 .78
(n = 583) Learning through reflective activity 2.49 .82
Reason Personal ambition 3.20 .56
External requirement 2.55 .67
(n = 576) Professional role transition 2.27 .69
Of the learning content scales, the mean scores of the three scales
do not differ much. The respondents had learned to a large extent
about these content areas. The “pedagogy of teacher education”
was rated as the highest with a relatively small standard deviation.
This indicates a certain consensus among the respondents in their
74
view on learning about the pedagogy of teacher education. The

standard deviation regarding “curriculum” also indicates similar
opinions among the group of respondents. The “research” scale had
the smallest mean score with a relatively large standard deviation,
indicating that respondents learned less about research knowledge
and skills and that they varied in their opinions regarding what they
had learned about research.
Of the learning activities scales, the mean scores on “academic
engagement” and “getting input from others” were somewhat higher
than “reflective activity”. “Getting input from others” had the highest
mean score and the lowest standard deviation, indicating that
respondents agreed on interactive activities as their most common
way of learning. The mean score on the “academic engagement”
scale was less high but with a higher standard deviation, revealing 3
that respondents actively engaged in academic activities but with
diverse opinions about the frequency in which this takes place.
“Reflective activity” had the lowest mean score and the highest
standard deviation, showing that respondents were less engaged in
this activity and with various views on it.
Of the reasons for learning, the mean score on the “personal
ambition” scale was the highest one, indicating that respondents
had a strong intrinsic desire to learn about their profession. The
mean score on “external requirement” was also high (mean = 2.55),
showing that respondents to some extent agreed with it as a reason
for learning. The mean score of “professional role transition” was the
lowest one, indicating that most respondents disagreed with it as
their reasons for their learning.
3.5.2 Related background variables

The results showed several significant differences between the
background variables with regard to the professional learning scales
(see Table 3.5). We illustrate a few important ones below.
75
Table3.5 Mean differences for background variables regarding the professional learning scales
76
Scales (mean, sd)
Background variables P R C LA G LR PA PR ER
Chapter 3
Highest degree Bachelor 3.13 (.48) 2.71* (.80) 2.92 (.63) 2.65* (.72) 2.94 (.63) 2.58* (.70) 3.10 (.57) 2.41 (.67) 2.64 (.58)
Master 3.08 (.54) 2.55* (.75) 2.93 (.65) 2.67* (.73) 3.06 (.62) 2.31* (.81) 3.22 (.54) 2.26 (.64) 2.51 (.68)
PhD 3.13 (.61) 3.00* (.78) 2.97 (.68) 3.30* (.70) 3.09 (.62) 2.69* (.82) 3.18 (.59) 2.27 (.75) 2.56 (.68)
Time spending on ≤ 1 day per week 2.86* (.63) 2.61 (.85) 2.61* (.68) 2.89 (.81) 2.88* (.62) 2.34* (.81) 3.01 (.64) 2.18 (.70) 2.45* (.69)
educating student
teachers 2-3 days per week 3.13* (.53) 2.75 (.78) 2.99* (.60) 2.95 (.75) 3.09* (.61) 2.48* (.81) 3.21 (.55) 2.25 (.68) 2.51* (.66)
4-5 days per week 3.20* (.54) 2.82 (.77) 3.06* (.67) 2.88 (.80) 3.14* (.63) 2.59* (.84) 3.29 (.51) 2.35 (.69) 2.65* (.68)
Working experiences as 0 year 3.03 (.59) 2.81 (.81) 2.86 (.66) 2.98 (.78) 2.93* (.63) 2.58* (.78) 3.14 (.60) 2.32 (.69) 2.61* (.65)
a school teacher
1-3 years 3.14 (.64) 2.75 (.80) 3.07 (.69) 3.03 (.78) 3.14* (.61) 2.60* (.83) 3.26 (.59) 2.22 (.75) 2.69* (.67)
4-6 years 3.18 (.51) 2.69 (.80) 3.04 (.59) 2.84 (.82) 3.10* (.67) 2.37* (.86) 3.18 (.60) 2.26 (.66) 2.38* (.69)
7-10 years 3.11 (.45) 2.71 (.77) 2.94 (.69) 2.75 (.74) 3.10* (.56) 2.24* (.76) 3.22 (.44) 2.14 (.61) 2.38* (.62)
> 10 years 3.18 (.53) 2.68 (.75) 2.96 (.64) 2.78 (.74) 3.26* (.57) 2.41* (.87) 3.27 (.47) 2.31 (.67) 2.50* (.71)
Working experience as a ≤ 3 years 3.03* (.61) 2.74 (.91) 2.83* (.64) 2.82 (.83) 3.05 (.60) 2.56 (.89) 3.28 (.52) 2.30 (.72) 2.55* (.62)
teacher educator
4-6 years 2.98* (.52) 2.54 (.81) 2.91* (.62) 2.88 (.78) 3.07 (.57) 2.32 (.84) 3.14 (.50) 2.26 (.65) 2.35* (.65)
7-10 years 3.04* (.54) 2.71 (.75) 2.82* (.66) 2.89 (.79) 3.05 (.61) 2.45 (.77) 3.16 (.54) 2.24 (.62) 2.53* (.70)
> 10 years 3.19* (.56) 2.83 (.76) 3.04* (.67) 2.96 (.76) 3.09 (.65) 2.54 (.82) 3.21 (.60) 2.28 (.71) 2.62* (.67)
Combing work with a Yes, as an integral part 3.36* (.50) 3.07* (.80) 3.21* (.62) 3.38* (.67) 3.30* (.53) 2.78 (.95) 3.32* (.54) 2.27 (.77) 2.56 (.76)
research task
Yes, occasionally 3.05* (.55) 2.81* (.69) 2.87* (.63) 2.93* (.71) 2.94* (.64) 2.60 (.68) 3.17* (.57) 2.35 (.65) 2.64 (.60)
No 2.94* (.59) 2.24* (.75) 2.81* (.69) 2.31* (.65) 3.08* (.61) 1.92 (.68) 3.14* (.55) 2.11 (.63) 2.36 (.68)
Labelling General TEor 3.13 (.51) 2.57* (.81) 2.84 (.64) 2.85* (.77) 3.12* (.59) 2.36 (.86) 3.19 (.52) 2.19 (.68) 2.52* (.73)
Subject-matter TEor 3.09 (.58) 2.73* (.77) 2.97 (.66) 2.85* (.77) 3.05* (.63) 2.45 (.81) 3.20 (.58) 2.27 (.67) 2.53* (.64)
Researcher 3.10 (.63) 3.06* (.71) 2.96 (.70) 3.24* (.71) 2.99* (.65) 2.87 (.71) 3.16 (.58) 2.39 (.72) 2.69* (.62)
Other 3.17 (.44) 2.46* (.77) 3.08 (.58) 2.46* (.69) 3.28* (.58) 1.99 (.67) 3.35 (.49) 2.22 (.65) 2.38* (.75)
Note: P = Pedagogy of teacher education; R = Research; C = Curriculum; LA = Learning through academic engagement; G = Getting input from others; LR = Learning through reflective
activity; PA = Personal ambition; PR = Professional role transition; ER = External requirement. *p < .05.
Participants with a Ph.D. degree rated higher than respondents

with a Bachelor or Master degree on the research-related scales:
“research”, “learning through academic engagement”, and “learning
through reflective activity”. Participants, who combined their work
with research tasks scored high on “pedagogy of teacher education”,
“research”, and “curriculum”, as well as on the learning activity
scales “academic engagement” and “getting input from others”.
Respondents who saw themselves as a researcher rated higher on
“research”, “academic engagement”, and “external requirement”
than those who saw themselves as a general (subject-matter) teacher
educator or other.
The more days a week that respondents spent on educating student
teachers, the more they seemed to focus on “pedagogy of teacher
education” and “curriculum”, and the more often they engaged in the 3
activity of “getting input from others”.
In summary, the research-related scales “research and academic
engagement” related to three background variables, namely holding
a Ph.D. degree as the highest educational degree, combining
teacher education work with a research task, and teacher educators
seeing themselves as a researcher. The scales “pedagogy of teacher
education, curriculum, and getting input from others” related to
one background variable of working days, namely the days spent on
teacher educating.
3.5.3 Similarities and differences in professional learning

between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators
Table 3.6 shows differences in the scores on the professional learning
scales between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators. Chinese
respondents focused more on “research” as their learning content
than Dutch respondents. Correspondingly, Chinese respondents
engaged in “academic activity” and “reflective activity” more often
than their Dutch colleagues. By contrast, Dutch respondents engaged
in the activity of “getting input from others” more often than Chinese
77
Chapter 3
respondents. Chinese respondents perceived “professional role

transition” and “external requirement” as their reasons for learning
more than Dutch respondents.
Table 3.6 Independent t-test results for Chinese and Dutch responses
Foci Scales CNa NLb
Mean (sd) Mean (sd) t

Content Pedagogy of teacher education 3.11 (.63) 3.11 (.45) 0.07
Research 3.00 (.69) 2.32 (.77) 10.71**
Curriculum 2.96 (.67) 2.92 (.64) 0.79
Activity Learning through academic 3.09 (.75) 2.59 (.74) 7.81**
engagement
Getting input from others 2.96 (.67) 3.26 (.49) -6.39**
Learning through reflective activity 2.81 (.72) 1.95 (.70) 14.06**
Reason Personal ambition 3.18 (.61) 3.24 (.47) -1.28
Professional role transition 2.39 (.71) 2.08 (.61) 5.29**
External requirement 2.70 (.63) 2.30 (.67) 7.30**
Note: a n = 365; b n = 218 for the content and activity; n = 211 for the reason. ** p < .01.
3.6 Discussion
The main aim of this survey study was to empirically explore how
teacher educators recognised and perceived aspects found in a
previous review study by the authors into their professional learning
in practice. The results of the present study confirm, although to
varying degrees that all these aspects are important for learning and
functioning as a teacher educator.
Most respondents have extensively learned the different aspects
of their profession. However, their perceptions of research in their
practice varied. Further analysis showed that these variations
were related to their highest educational background, the extent
of combining teacher education with research tasks, and how they
perceived their identity. This finding corresponds to results of a study
by Hu, Van der Rijst, Van Veen, and Verloop (2015) on perceptions of
Dutch teachers in a research university and a university of applied
science respectively about what the role of research in teaching should
78
be. These researchers found that teachers’ various perceptions of

research were related with their highest educational background,
their research experience, and the time spent on doing research
themselves, i.e., the similar related backgrounds as found in our study.
Our study showed that some teacher educators perceived research as
an important part of their professional identity while others did not
or to a much lesser extent.
To learn content areas, the respondents indicated to have been
engaged largely in the activity of getting input from others,
normally taking place in their daily work settings. Being engaged
in interactive activities with others as an important way of learning
by teacher educators corresponds to similar research findings,
such as consulting colleagues or exchanging ideas with colleagues
(Czerniawski et al., 2017; Dengerink, Lunenberg, & Kools, 2015). 3
Striking is that respondents in our study showed a relatively low
score on being engaged in the reflective activity. This might be due
to the four items that together formed the reflective activity scale
in our study. It is very likely that the respondents scored low on the
item of being engaged in keeping a reflective diary simply because of
lack of time to do so. Similar counts for the item regarding making
use of an induction program, because such a program might be
hardly available for teacher educators (see also the Introduction
section 3.1). Conducting self-study of teacher education practice or
doing action research appeared to be a popular and effective way
of learning or improving the profession by teacher educators in our
review study (Ping et al., 2018). However, respondents in our survey
study indicated that they are not doing self-study or action research
so often in their practice. Lunenberg, Korthagen, and Zwart (2011)
reported that in the Netherlands, compared with other countries,
conducting systematic research into one’s own practice (self-study)
is rather new to most Dutch teacher educators. This is also shown
in our study where only 24% of the Dutch participants reported
that they combine their teacher education work with a research
task as an integral part of their job. There might even be a smaller
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Chapter 3
percentage of our participants who conduct a self-study. A possible

explanation for this might be that great importance is put on teacher
educators to contribute to knowledge development by publishing
in scientific journals; this purpose is often seen as less important
for research that primarily focuses on improving or changing one’s
own practice. In fact, practitioner research including self-study or
action research is often criticized as lacking methodological rigour
and transparency (Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2015). The wider
context of higher education usually values research performance
and publications more than teaching when it comes to promotion
and tenure for teachers, including teacher educators (Van Lankveld,
Schoonenboom, Volman, Croiset, & Beishuizen, 2017). This and the
pressure to publish together make it difficult for teacher educators
to find time for conducting self-study or action research. Lunenberg
and her colleagues (2011) furthermore concluded that supporting
teacher educators in carrying out a self-study is an intensive and
time-consuming activity. It takes time for teacher educators to accept
a research stance and to learn doing research, but also the wider
context in which they work needs to reconsider teacher educators’
work in this respect.
Respondents in the survey study showed a strong personal desire to
learn. Teacher educators have more autonomy than school teachers
in deciding on what and how to teach. As a consequence, they take
responsibility for their own professional learning and development,
which intrinsically motivates them to learn. This is also supported by
the finding of Dickinson (1995) who wrote: “individual involvement in
decision making in one’s own learning enhances personal motivation
to learn” (p.165). Surprisingly, respondents in our study scored
relatively low on the scale “professional role transition” (M=2.27; SD
= .69) as a reason for learning. Apparently, they do not see any urgent
challenges that the transition to the profession of teacher educator
entails in advance. The theory about teacher learning in higher
education - particularly about self-regulated learning, may help
to understand our respondents’ low recognition of role transition
80
as a reason for learning. Van Eekelen, Boshuizen, and Vermunt

(2005) found that higher education teachers tend to follow a non-
linear learning pathway, i.e., they do not know beforehand what
(no learning goals) and how (no learning routes) to learn to teach
students in higher education. They seem to be directly triggered by
the (unexpected) result of their working activities or situation. So
in our case, teacher educators usually without formal professional
preparation learn to become a teacher educator by doing their job,
which triggers them to at least behave according to the new job (role).
It is argued that they may not recognise such behavioural changes as
a direct reason to learn due to their role transition. Besides, the role
transition is particularly relevant to teacher educators in the period
of changing job positions, i.e., when the transition is actually taking
place.
3
Some significant differences in professional learning were found
between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators. In general, Chinese
teacher educators tend to be more active in conducting research
than their Dutch colleagues. Similarly, they tend to see themselves
more as a researcher instead of a teacher educator than Dutch
respondents. This emphasis on research performance by Chinese
teacher educators is confirmed, among other things, in a study
by Lai, Du, and Li (2014). They found that “the new employment
reform in China pressured academics (including teacher educators)
to obtain more research funding and publish frequently” (p. 976).
It seems that this difference closely relates to the contexts in which
teacher educators work, including differences in reforms taking
place in teacher education, ways in which their jobs are arranged,
and performance assessments by their teacher education institutes.
Analyzing how contexts in different countries impact on teacher
educator professional learning and, through that, influence their
professional identity would enrich our understanding of this topic.
Chinese respondents scored higher on the “professional role
transition” than Dutch respondents. This indicates that Chinese
respondents seem to encounter more challenges after their role
81
Chapter 3
transition that motivate them more to learn new things about the
profession than Dutch respondents. Generally, Chinese teacher
educators follow an academic route from graduate student to teacher
educator; Dutch teacher educators more frequently follow a practice
route from school teacher to teacher educator.
There is only one scale, “getting input from others”, on which Dutch
respondents scored significantly higher than Chinese respondents.
This difference can be understood from an organisational perspective,
namely how teacher education institutes are organised in the two
countries. In China, teacher educators generally work in departments
of different subjects, for example, a mathematics teacher educator
works in the department of mathematics. The drawback of such an
organisation might be a problem of isolation: they probably lack the
opportunity to share or discuss issues about their work with other
teacher educators. In the Netherlands, more teacher educators work
in one teacher education institute, which makes it easier for them to
share relevant aspects of their professional identity by discussing or
exchanging ideas about their profession.
3.7 Limitation and further research

Next to the analyses reported on, we explored whether we could
categorise teacher educators into different clusters of professional
learning. Such exploration aims at creating a benchmark for those
who wish to design a professional development program for teacher
educators that also attune to the different professional development
needs among teacher educators. However, the data in our survey
were too interrelated to distinguish clusters.
Although based on a thorough review study (Ping et al., 2018), the
survey study has some limitations. First, the participation in our
study was on a voluntary basis and by teacher educators working in
a limited number of institutes. So, we need to be careful about the
generalisation of the results.
Second, the results are based on self-reported data. We are not
82
certain about the extent to which the respondents understood

the questionnaire items in the same way as we did. We suggest a
follow-up interview study to gain a deeper understanding of their
professional learning.
Third, the translated questionnaires (both Dutch and Chinese
version) were not tested among teacher educators in practice. Though
the questionnaire was reliable and valid and seemed generally
applicable, for strict cultural comparisons, the questionnaire should
be examined further on its validity regarding correct translations and
cultural adaptions regarding meanings of the items in each country.
3.8 Implications and conclusion

The results of the survey study confirm the aspects of professional
learning found in our previous review based on a large number 3
of research articles: the aspects of professional learning are also
empirically recognised and perceived as more or less relevant to their
practice by teacher educators. As such, the questionnaire developed
in the survey study can be used by teacher educators as a self-
reflection tool to get an image of their positions of themselves with
regard to those professional learning aspects. The questionnaire can
furthermore be used by teacher education institutes to see to what
extent the professional learning aspects apply to teacher educators,
thus serving as a tool for discussing their work and professional
learning with colleagues. Both the Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators seem to have a genuine personal desire to learn their
profession, which may be relevant to policy makers. Furthermore,
the differences in professional learning between Dutch and Chinese
teacher educators closely relate to the contexts in which they work.
Taking the varying contexts into consideration, it is worth to explore
how teacher educators in such different contexts can learn from each
other, for example, by taking differences as a source to reflect on
their work about what really constitutes their profession – and what
is important for learning this profession in terms of content, learning
activities, and reasons for learning.
83
Chapter 4
A further exploration of the questionnaire

results
85
Abstract
This chapter is a follow-up of the study presented in Chapter 3 aiming
at gaining a deeper understanding of the questionnaire results.
Connecting the highly correlating scales across the three foci of
the questionnaire study resulted in two patterns: a teaching related
pattern, namely teacher educators’ personal interest in learning
about pedagogy of teacher education through getting input from
others; and a research related pattern, namely teacher educators’
learning about research through academic engagement and
reflective activity. Further exploration of the correlations between
the items of those scales resulted in a deeper understanding of the
two professional learning patterns. The teaching related pattern
appeared to be characterized by teacher educators’ feeling of being
responsible to stimulate student teachers’ learning by focusing on
facilitating student teachers' learning and using student teachers’
input for that. The research related pattern emphasized teacher
educators’ learning of research by conducting research themselves
or being involved in research projects. We further explored the
4
items of the scales with significant differences between the Dutch
and Chinese teacher educators’ scores. Results indicate that Chinese
teacher educators are more involved in research projects and do keep
a reflective diary more than their Dutch colleagues. In contrast,
Dutch teacher educators do attend conferences and workshops more
than their Chinese colleagues.
87
Chapter 4
4.1 Introduction
In Chapter 2, we reported on a literature review regarding three foci
of teacher educators' professional learning, namely the content of
teacher educators’ professional learning, their learning activities,
and their reasons for professional learning. In our follow-up study
(Chapter 3), we used the main categories that resulted from the review
study (as preliminary scales) and corresponding text fragments
under each main category to construct a digital questionnaire to
investigate the extent to which teacher educators have experienced
those identified professional learning aspects in practice. Teacher
educators were requested to give a score on each scale item on a four-
point Likert scale (for the content scales: the extent of what they
have learned; for the learning activities: the extent they have been
engaged in the activities; and for the reasons for learning: the extent
to which they agreed with the reasons presented (1 = not at all; 4 =
to a great extent). The final version of the digital questionnaire was
sent to Dutch and Chinese teacher educators (N = 583). A principal
component analysis (PCA) resulted in nine reliable professional
learning scales.
In grounding our initial theoretical insights further, and in accordance
with the initial stage of our theory formation, we decided to further
explore the questionnaire results on the item level. In Chapter 3, we
looked at the correlations between the nine professional learning
scales and found some (relatively) high correlations between the
nine professional learning scales (see Table 4.1). We particularly
wanted to gain more insight into specific associations between highly
correlating scales across the three foci (content of learning, learning
activities, and reasons for learning) that might result in some deeper
understanding of aspects of teacher educators’ professional learning.
For this purpose, we looked closer at correlations between the items
of these scales that particularly might explain why those associations
between some scales were high.
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Table 4.1 Correlations between nine professional learning scales

Foci Content Activity Reason
Scales P R C LA G LR PA PR ER
Content P —
(n = 583) R .453** —
C .693** .495** —
Activity LA .391** .655** .402** —
(n = 583) G .641** .270** .561** .466** —
LR .442** .560** .452** .602** .453** —
Reason PA .553** .306** .482** .316** .553** .345** —
(n = 576) PR .182** .216** .195** .110** .128** .277** .316** —
ER .283** .314** .290** .230** .206** .418** .466** .569** —
Note: **. Significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). P = Pedagogy of teacher education, R =
Research, C = Curriculum, LA = Learning through academic engagement, G = Getting
input from others, LR = Learning through reflective activity, PA = Personal ambition, PR =
Professional role transition, and ER = External requirement.
In Chapter 3, we also compared the Dutch and Chinese teacher

educators’ mean scores on the nine professional learning scales (see
Table 4.2) and found some significant differences. Chinese teacher
educators scored significantly higher on the three research related
scales “research”, “learning through academic engagement”, and 4
“learning through reflective activity”. The Dutch teacher educators
scored significantly higher on the activity scale “getting input from
others”. We further explored these significant differences on the
item-level in order to get a deeper understanding of the differences.
Table 4.2 Independent t-test results for Chinese and Dutch responses
Foci Scales CNa NLb

Content Pedagogy of teacher education 3.11 (.63) 3.11 (.45) 0.07
Research 3.00 (.69) 2.32 (.77) 10.71**
Curriculum 2.96 (.67) 2.92 (.64) 0.79
Activity Learning through academic engagement 3.09 (.75) 2.59 (.74) 7.81**
Getting input from others 2.96 (.67) 3.26 (.49) -6.39**
Learning through reflective activity 2.81 (.72) 1.95 (.70) 14.06**
Reason Personal ambition 3.18 (.61) 3.24 (.47) -1.28
Professional role transition 2.39 (.71) 2.08 (.61) 5.29**
External requirement 2.70 (.63) 2.30 (.67) 7.30**
Note: a n = 365; b n = 218 for the content and activity; n = 211 for the reason. ** p < .01.
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Chapter 4
4.2 Method
4.2.1 Research data

The complete dataset (N = 583) of the previous questionnaire study
(see Chapter 3) was used. There were 210 male and 373 female teacher
educators who participated. Nearly 69% of our participants’ ages
ranged from 35 to 54 years old. About 51% of our participants had
more than ten years of working experiences as a teacher educator.
See Table 3.2 in Chapter 3 for detailed background information of
our participants and how the questionnaire was constructed and
sent to the participants.
4.2.2 Data analysis procedure

To further explore the highly correlating scales across foci, we firstly
selected the scales whose correlation coefficients were above .50 (see
the correlations in bold and italic in Table 4.1), which represent a
strong relationship (Field, 2009). Secondly, we did a bivariate Pearson
correlation analysis on the items of the above selected scales and
again chose to only look at the item correlation coefficients above
.50. Appendix B presented the item-item correlation coefficients; the
coefficients above .50 are highlighted in bold and italic.
To further explore the scales with significant differences between the
Dutch and Chinese teacher educators, we firstly determined whether
or not it made sense to further explore these differences on item level,
resulting in four scales (highlighted in Table 4.2). Secondly, we did an
independent t-test to compare the items of the four selected scales.
See Appendix C for the significant results. Thirdly, we visualized the
frequency of teacher educators’ scores on the items in figures to show
the significant differences between Dutch and Chinese participants’
scores on the items.
4.3 Results
4.3.1 Highly correlating scales
90
In general, the nine professional learning scales significantly

correlated with each other, but some correlated higher or lower than
others. We found two patterns of professional learning by connecting
the highly correlating scales across the foci.
Figure 4.1 The teaching related pattern Figure 4.2 The research related pattern
The first pattern (see Figure 4.1), which we called the teaching
related pattern, includes the associations between the content scale
“pedagogy of teacher education (P)”, the activity scale “getting input
4
from others (G)”, and the reason scale “personal ambition (PA)”. These
three scales together form a strong “chain” in teacher educators’
professional learning at the workplace. The high association
between the reason scale “personal ambition” and the content
scale “pedagogy of teacher education” might indicate that teacher
educators find it very important for their work as teacher educators
to learn about pedagogy of teacher education. Similarly, the high
association between the reason scale “personal ambition” and the
activity scale “getting input from others” might indicate that teacher
educators find it very important to be informed by relevant others for
learning their work as teacher educators. Within the questionnaire
study, the relevant others are particularly their student teachers.
Taking a closer look at the correlations between the items of the
three scales in Figure 4.1, there appears to be two high associations
between the items, one between the item PA3: feeling responsible to
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stimulate student teachers’ professional development and the item

G6: listening to ideas about teaching from student teachers (.513),
and one between the item P13: how to create opportunities for student
teachers to think about teaching in general and the item G6: listening
to ideas about teaching from student teachers (.519). These associations
seem to indicate a relevant aspect of teacher educators’ learning
about the pedagogy of teacher education, namely their focus on
facilitating student teachers' learning by using student teachers’
input or feedback to improve or optimize their teaching.
The second pattern (see Figure 4.2), which we called the research
related pattern, includes the associations between the content
scale “research (R)” and the two activity scales “learning through
academic engagement (LA)” and “learning through reflective activity
(LR)”. This pattern seems rather obvious, namely learning research
through engaging in research related activities. Taking a closer look at
the correlations between the items of these scales, there appear to
be high associations, namely the item R1: academic writing skills
correlates highly with the item LA1: doing academic research (.515)
and LA4: engaging in scholarly writing (.632). Besides, the item R4:
how to conduct research correlates highly with the item LA1: doing
academic research (.524), the item LA3: participating in research
projects (.504), and the item LA4: engaging in scholarly writing
(.568). These associations seem to indicate that teacher educators
learn about research by conducting research themselves or by being
involved in research projects.
4.3.2 Scales with significant differences between the Dutch

and Chinese teacher educators’ scores
Significant differences on four items of the content scale “research”
were found between Dutch and Chinese participants, namely R1:
academic writing skills, R2: the teacher educator as a researcher, R3:
educational research methods, and R4: how to conduct research.
Figure 4.3 displays the graphs of the scores on these four items. In
92
each graph, the white area represents the frequency of the scores on
the entire data (n = 583), and the grey area represents the frequency
of the scores on the Chinese data (n = 365) and Dutch data (n =
218) ,respectively. The clearest differences come from the items R1:
academic writing skills and R4: how to conduct research. These
differences seem to indicate that Chinese teacher educators focus
more on acquiring research skills such as academic writing and how
to conduct research than their Dutch colleagues.
Figure 4.3 Comparisons of "Research" items

4
Significant differences on five of the six items of the activity scale
“learning through academic engagement” were found between Dutch
and Chinese participants, namely LA1: doing academic research, LA2:
interacting with researchers, LA3: participating in research projects,
LA4: engaging in scholarly writing, and LA5: attending scientific/
professional conferences. See Figure 4.4 for the visualization of
the differences. The clearest differences come from the items LA1:
doing academic research, LA3: participating in research projects,
and LA4: engaging in scholarly writing. It is noteworthy to mention
the item LA5: attending scientific/professional conferences, because
it is one of two items which Dutch participants scored higher than
their Chinese colleagues. Learning from doing research and research
related activities seems to be more valued by Chinese than by Dutch
teacher educators. However, Dutch teacher educators attended
scientific/professional conferences more often than their Chinese
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colleagues.
Figure 4.4 Comparisons of "Learning through academic engagement" items
Significant differences on three of the four items of the activity scale

“learning through reflective activity” were found between Dutch
and Chinese participants, namely LR2: doing self-study on my own
teacher education practice, LR3: doing action research on my own
teacher education practice, and LR4: keeping a reflective diary of
my teaching practice. See Figure 4.5 for the visualization of the
differences. The remarkable difference comes from the LR4: keeping
a reflective diary of my teaching practice. This difference seems to
indicate that in general Chinese teacher educators spend more time
on reflection about their teaching than their Dutch colleagues.
Figure 4.5 Comparisons of "Learning through reflective activity" items
94
Only one significant difference was found for one item of the activity
scale “getting input from others” between Dutch and Chinese
participants, namely G7: attending professional development
workshops. See Figure 4.6 for the visualization of this difference.
Apparently, Dutch teacher educators attend more professional
development workshops than their Chinese colleagues.
Figure 4.6 Comparison of "Getting input from others" item
4.4 Discussion
The current chapter builds on the results described in Chapter 4
3 and aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the high(est)
correlations between the professional learning scales across three
foci of teacher educators’ professional learning by further exploring
the correlations between the items of those scales. A teaching and
a research related patterns of scales were identified and further
explored. High associations between items of these scales indicate
some details about what and how teacher educators learned their
profession at their workplace. This chapter also aimed at gaining
a deeper understanding of the scales with significant differences
between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ scores in the
questionnaire study by further comparing the items of those scales.
It appears that conducting research and reflecting on the teaching
practice play a more important role in Chinese teacher educators’
professional learning than in the learning of their Dutch colleagues.
However, Dutch teacher educators seem to learn more from
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attending professional development workshops or conferences than

their Chinese colleagues; probably they have more opportunities to
attend that kind of occasions.
The first pattern of scales seems to exclusively pertain to teacher
educators’ daily teaching. Learning pedagogy of teacher education
fits teacher educators’ personal ambitions for learning about their
work and highly takes place through getting input from others, in
our study, particularly from student teachers. The high association
found between learning “pedagogy of teacher education”, more
specifically focusing on facilitating student teachers' learning, and
the learning activity “getting input from others”, more specifically
listening to student teachers’ ideas about their teaching, is in line
with research results described by Kosnik, Menna, Dharamshi,
Miyata, Cleovoulou, and Beck (2015). They also found that teacher
educators gained a better understanding and developed their own
teaching practice by talking with student teachers, listening to
student teachers’ feedback, and observing student teachers’ growth.
The second pattern of scales related to teacher educators’ research.
Learning about “research” through “academic engagement” are
highly interwoven aspects of teacher educators’ professional learning. A
closer look at the correlations between the items within the scales
indicates that participating in research projects and conducting
academic research are both valued by teacher educators as the
activities of gaining research skills about academic writing and how
to conduct research. Looking at these two patterns together, it seems
that teacher educators’ perceptions of learning to teach in teacher
education and learning research by teacher educators are rather
separated in their professional learning in practice.
When looking at Table 4.1, it is striking that almost all the reasons
for learning scales correlated rather low with the content and
activity scales. In their review study focusing on teacher informal
learning, Kyndt, Gijbels, Grosemans, and Donche (2016) found that
the reasons for teachers to engage in professional learning activities
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are important factors influencing the quality of that professional

learning. In our opinion, this importance of reasons for learning
also applies to teacher educators’ professional learning. However,
their reasons for learning did not appear to be explicit part of or
connected to teacher educators’ learning activities in this chapter.
This especially pertains to the two reason scales “professional role
transition” and “external requirement”. Taking a closer look at
the item-item correlations between the two reason scales and the
content and activity scales, it appears that especially the items of
the reason scale “professional role transition” correlated hardly or
rather low with the items of the content and activity scales. Those
(rather) low or non-significant associations were not expected
based on the results of the review study (Chapter 2), where we
reported that the challenges teacher educators face after transition
from a school context to a higher education context are important
reasons for them to learn new knowledge and skills (Murray &
Male, 2005; Reichenberg, Avissar, & Sagee, 2015). Perhaps the reason
scale “professional role transition” is a typical one for beginning
teacher educators who are experiencing such role transition. In the 4
questionnaire study (Chapter 3), most of our participants (nearly
70%) had above seven years of working experience as a teacher
educator; therefore it is plausible that they to a less extent tended
to agree with this scale as a reason for their professional learning.
Another possibility is that Chinese participants’ scores on this scale,
to some extent, have blurred the overall results, because nearly 55%
of the Chinese teacher educators do not have working experience
as a school teacher before becoming a teacher educator in higher
education; by comparison, only about 15% of the Dutch participants
do not have such school teaching experiences.
Chinese teacher educators’ scores on the research related scales
are significantly higher than their Dutch colleagues. Comparing
the items of these scales indicate that Chinese teacher educators’
professional learning focuses more on acquiring research skills
through conducting and/or participating in research projects.
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Chapter 4
That higher association confirms our expectation. In Chapter 3 we

already explained that research performance plays an important
role in teachers’ (including teacher educators) promotion in higher
education institutes in China, which probably influences what and
how they focus on their professional learning. Dutch teacher educators
attended scientific/professional conferences more often than their
Chinese colleagues. Attending conferences as an important learning
activity for Dutch teacher educators confirms one of the main
research findings of Dengerink, Lunenberg, & Kools (2015), namely
that university-based teacher educators with seven or more years
of experience explicitly say to learn from attending conferences.
When comparing the items of the activity scale “learning through
reflective activity” between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’
scores, it seems that Dutch teacher educators are not as active as
their Chinese colleagues in spending time on keeping a reflective
diary about their teaching practices. This is hard to explain but it
might be, but this is rather speculative, that Dutch teacher educators
feel less needs to reflect on their teaching by writing in a diary
because of having less problems with teaching as a result of being
more experienced. This explanation is supported by one of the main
research findings of Jansen in de Wal, Martens, den Brok, and van
den Beemt (2016), namely that Dutch secondary school teachers’
engagement in reflective activities decrease when they become
more experienced. Dutch teacher educators’ score is significantly
higher than their Chinese colleagues on the activity scale “getting
input from others”, specifically with regard to attending professional
development workshops. Dengerink and his colleagues (2015) found
that university-based teacher educators with seven or more years of
experiences felt the least interest in participating in courses. Again
this may be speculative, but it might be that more experienced
teacher educators prefer to learn according to their needs and not
from courses that are predetermined with none or little space for
tailor-made learning. There is no significant difference in interaction
with colleagues, school teachers, and student teachers as a learning
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activity between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators, which may

indicate that interaction with relevant others is a common learning
activity for all teacher educators.
4.5 Implications
The two patterns found in this chapter have some implications
for teacher education institutes to support teacher educators’
professional learning in practice. The teaching related pattern
apparently shows teacher educators’ strong interest in learning the
pedagogy of teacher education and having interactions with their
student teachers for facilitating their learning. It is important to be
aware of this as the essence or core of teacher educators’ profession
in higher education institutes and to explicitly recognize this as the
main focus of their professional learning. The European Commission
(2013) reported that one key tension existing in the profession of
teacher educators is the insufficient recognition of teacher educators
within higher education institutes, i.e., universities, resulting in
driving many promising teacher educators away from the profession
towards other academic professions. The research related pattern
4
highly shows that teacher educators learn about research through
being engaged in research activities. The implication of this pattern
may be useful for those who would like to support teacher educators in
gaining research expertise. It seems thus relevant to connect learning
about how to do research with providing opportunities for teacher
educators to be engaged in research activities. Furthermore, the item
associations we further explored in this chapter could be relevant
to those who want to investigate teacher educators’ professional
learning in future research.
4.6 Conclusion
One main intention of this chapter was to further explore the
associations between the items of the highly correlating scales across
three foci of teacher educators’ professional learning. The item
associations of two patterns of scales gave a deeper understanding
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Chapter 4
of what teacher educators perceive as important in their professional

learning, namely a strong interest in focusing on facilitating
student teachers' learning by using student teachers’ input and
by conducting research themselves or by being involved in
research projects. Another main intention of this chapter was to
further compare the items within the scales on which Dutch and
Chinese teacher educators significantly differ in their scores on
the professional learning scales. The item differences resulted in a
further understanding of the difference between Dutch and Chinese
teacher educators’ professional learning regarding their extent of
conducting and/or being involved in research projects, keeping a
ref lective diary, and attending conferences and professional
development workshops. Based on the results, it can be concluded
that the analyses on item level added more specific information to
the information regarding the correlations between the scales and
gave more meaning to the differences between Dutch and Chinese
teacher educators’ professional learning as reported on in Chapter 3.
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Chapter 5
Understanding what, how, and why teacher

educators' learn through their personal
examples of learning4
4
This chapter has been accepted for publication as:
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2020). Understanding what, how, and why teacher edu
cators' learn through their personal examples of learning. In D.R. Andron, & G. Gruber (Eds.),
Education beyond crisis: Challenges and directions in a multicultural world. Leiden: BRILL |
Sense press.
101
Abstract
This study aims at gaining a deeper understanding of what, how,

and why teacher educators learn about their work. It is a follow-up of
a questionnaire study into teacher educators’ professional learning.
Through an interview, eleven teacher educators were asked for their
personal examples with regard to what they have learned for their work
as well as how and why they have learned that. These examples were
then analyzed for themes related to the content of learning, learning
activities, and reasons for learning. Reported examples of learning
content cover a diverse range of professional knowledge themes with
a focus on knowledge of pedagogy and experience-based knowledge.
Reported examples of learning activities concern mainly personal
informal initiatives to learn; the teacher educators reported only a
few examples of formal learning opportunities. Reported examples
of reasons for learning range from personal interest to meeting job
demands. These findings indicate that teacher educators’ work is
a profession with an own knowledge base, that it is important to
value informal learning activities and to offer teacher educators the
opportunity to decide to participate in formal learning activities.
Teacher educators’ intrinsic drive to learn appears to be inherent in
their work with student teachers – seeing the value of their work. 5
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Chapter 5
5.1 Introduction
Teacher educators' professional learning is an emerging field of
interest. Its significance is rather self-evident in discussions about
the quality of the whole education system (Cochran-Smith, 2003) on
the one hand, but the professionalism of teacher educators is lacking
clarity (Buchberger, Campos, Kallos, & Stephenson, 2000) on the
other. So, questions regarding who teacher educators are, what they
do in their work as educators, and how they professionally learn are
very relevant research questions (Berry, 2016; White, 2018).
In a previous study (Chapter 2), we firstly explored what constituted
teacher educator professional leaning by means of a literature
review (Ping, Schellings, & Beijaard, 2018). In this review study, 75
research articles were analyzed resulting in a comprehensive list of
main categories and subcategories regarding the content of teacher
educators’ learning, their learning activities, and their reasons for
learning. It concluded that teacher educators’ professional learning
is rather diverse instead of being fixed. In a follow-up study (Chapter
3), the main categories and the text fragments these categories
were based on, were used to construct a digital questionnaire to
confirm the professional learning aspects found in the review study
and to explore the extent to which teacher educators perceived the
professional learning aspects as relevant to their work in practice. The
questionnaire resulted in nine professional learning aspects which
teacher educators perceived as highly relevant to their practice. A
brief description of the nine professional learning aspects is provided
in the theoretical background section below. As a follow-up study
of the literature-based questionnaire (Chapter 3), the current study
mainly aims at gaining a deeper understanding of teacher educators’
professional learning by investigating their personal examples of
learning.
5.2 Theoretical background

The theoretical background of this study is based on our previous
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research results described in Chapter 3 with a focus on the content

of teacher educators’ professional learning, their learning activities,
and their reasons for professional learning. Each focus appeared
to consist of three professional learning aspects (see Table 5.1; see
details in Chapter 3).
Table 5.1 Foci and aspects of the current study

Foci Aspects of professional learning
Content of professional learning Pedagogy of teacher education
Research
Curriculum
Activities of professional learning Learning through academic engagement
Learning through reflective activity
Getting input from others
Reasons for professional learning Personal ambition
External requirement
5.2.1 Content of professional learning
Of the learning content, the aspect “pedagogy of teacher education”

refers to the professional knowledge of learning about teaching and
teaching about teaching. Learning about teaching mainly relates to
learning the knowledge and skills about how to teach and about how
student teachers learn to teach. Learning about how to teach includes
curriculum instruction, teaching strategies, and the integration of
ICT into teaching practices (Jacobs, Assaf, & Lee, 2011). Learning
5
about how student teachers learn to teach relates to the knowledge
and skills needed for teaching learners and supporting their learning
(Loughran, 2014). Teaching about teaching emphasizes making
pedagogical reasons or assumptions underlying teacher educators’
own practices explicit and meaningful for themselves and their
student teachers (e.g., Willemse & Boei, 2013). The aspect “research”
entails the knowledge and skills of doing research by teacher
educators themselves. Research knowledge, for example, refers to
methodological knowledge regarding methods and techniques for
the collection and analysis of data (Kosnik et al, 2015). The skills of
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Chapter 5
conducting research include skills like the development of a research

design and the construction of research methods (Harrison & Mckeon,
2010). The “curriculum” as an aspect deals with the knowledge and
skills of designing a curriculum or modifying course modules to meet
student teacher learning needs. It generally refers to the knowledge
about the teacher education program and curriculum materials used
within the program (Castle, 2013; Cheng, Tang, & Cheng, 2014).
5.2.2 Activities of professional learning

Of the learning activities, the aspect “learning through academic
engagement” contains research-related activities, including
conducting academic/practitioner research and attending
an academic conference. For example, Griffiths, Thompson,
& Hryniewicz (2010) found that teacher educators highly value
conducting a Ph.D. research project with formal supervisory
support. Another example concerns teacher educators improving
their practice by doing practitioner research. Han et al. (2014)
conducted a collaborative self-study in order to understand the
concept of cultural responsiveness and to implement it in their
teaching practices. The aspect “learning through reflective activity”
refers to teacher educators critically examining their own teaching
practices or other relevant aspects of their work either individually
or collaboratively. For example, White (2011) reflected on her
teaching practice by successively reflecting on the theory implicit in
her teaching, reflecting on the teaching process to see whether the
implicit theory was clear for her student teachers, and reflecting on
the comments or feedback from student teachers. “Getting input from
others” as an aspect pertains to teacher educators discussing the
difficulties met in their teaching or exchanging ideas related to their
work with significant others, usually their colleagues. Selkrig and
Keamy (2015), for example, reported that teacher educators invited
their trusted colleagues as critical friends to comment on their
teaching, and through the conversations with their critical friends,
they adjusted their teaching.
106

Of the reasons, the aspect “personal ambition” includes teacher
educators’ personal interest in learning and professional responsibility
of keeping on learning about their work. For example, Peeraer and Van
Petegem (2012) found that teacher educators with a strong interest
in learning ICT applied it into their lessons more frequently and in
more diverse ways than other teacher educators who were in the same
training program. The “external requirement” as an aspect refers
to updating knowledge or capacities due to the changes happening
in teacher education policy/programs or as a result of assessments
of research (and education) of the teacher education institute. For
example, Jónsdóttir, Gísladóttir, and Guðjónsdóttir (2015) found
that the extension of a teacher education program from a three-year
bachelor to a five-year master program led to changes for teacher
educators; as a consequence, it was necessary for them to learn doing
research and supervising student teachers doing research task. The
“professional role transition” as an aspect pertains to updating
knowledge or developing skills due to the new demands after their
role transition, such as from a secondary school teacher to a teacher
educator in higher education. For example, Reichenberg, Avissar,
& Sagee (2015) found that teacher educators, either having a school
teaching background or a research background, hardly received
professional training to learn to become a teacher educator. As a 5
result, it took a while for teacher educators to learn the knowledge,
develop the skills, and develop a professional identity as a teacher of
teachers after having started to work as a teacher educator.
The above research findings gave us insights into what matters
regarding what, how, and why teacher educators learn their work in
general. In this study, we aimed at gaining a deeper understanding
of these three foci by asking teacher educators for their personal
examples of what they have learned about their work, the learning
activities they undertake for that, and their reasons for learning.
The research question for this study is as follows: What professional
learning aspects in terms of content, activities, and reasons can be
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Chapter 5
drived from teacher educators' own examples of learning?
5.3 Method
5.3.1 Participants
Of the Dutch participants of the survey questionnaire (N = 218), 75
teacher educators volunteered to be interviewed. Of this group, 15
teacher educators were purposefully selected by two criteria: (1) having
high mean scores on the questionnaire items of the content that they
have learned and (2) having predominately defined themselves as a
teacher of teachers. As such, we have selected teacher educators who,
to a large extent, have learned about their work in a more diverse
way. Four teacher educators could not be interviewed because of
their lack of time. Eleven teacher educators agreed to participate in
the interview study and gave informed consent. Table 5.2 displays
an overview of the participants’ general background information.
Seven female and four male teacher educators participated in our
study. Their ages ranged from 35 to 55 years old and their working
experiences as a teacher educator ranged from 7 to 20 years. Nine
interviewees worked as subject teacher educators (e.g., physics), one
as a general pedagogy teacher educator, and one as a teacher educator
teaching research skills to student teachers. Five of them worked in a
research university, four in a university of applied science, and two in
both types of universities. In the Netherlands, in general, a research
university offers teacher education programs for upper secondary
education, and a university of applied science provides educational
programs for primary and lower secondary and vocational education
(Snoek, 2011).
108
Table 5.2 Background information of the eleven teacher educators

Gender Type of institute Subject they teach Working experience as a
teacher educator
Female RU Chemistry didactics 7 years
Female UAS Geography didactics 7 years
Female UAS Research skills 8 years
Male Both History didactics 10 years
Male UAS Physics didactics 10 years
Female RU English didactics 13 years
Male UAS Chemistry didactics 16 years
Female Both Biology didactics 17 years
Female RU General pedagogy 18 years
Male UAS Philosophy didactics 20 years
Female RU Chemistry didactics 20 years
Note: RU = Research University; UAS = University of Applied Science; Both = Research
University and University of Applied Science
Six participants followed a path to become a teacher educator in

higher education that used to be common in the Netherlands: as
experienced school teachers they left their schools and began to work
as a teacher educator. Three participants followed another path: they
reached a Ph.D. degree in their subject and entered the profession
as a teacher educator. The remaining two had a different career
before they became a teacher educator, one worked in a company
doing chemistry research and the other worked as a nurse. Our
participants’ main tasks covered a wide range: seven participants
were mainly involved in teaching student teachers subject didactics, 5
five in supervising student teachers during their internships, four in
conducting research projects, and one mainly as a course director of
the professional master programs – learning and innovation.
5.3.2 Data collection

A semi-structured interview was constructed including three
main sections: (1) questions about background information of the
participants, for example, how they had become a teacher educator;
(2) questions about their main tasks as teacher educator in their
current institute; and (3) questions about personal examples of their
professional learning pertaining to what they learned, how they
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learned, and why they learned. The interview questions were open-
ended to elicit teacher educators’ personal examples. For example,
with regard to what they had learned, we asked: “could you please
give some examples of what you have learned during your work as
a teacher educator?” After our participants had given their answers,
we usually summarized their answers in order to check whether
we understood these corrrectly. We also asked follow-up questions
when we wished to know more about the examples given or to ask
for more examples regarding what they have learned. In the same
way we asked for their personal examples of how and why they have
learned during their work as a teacher educator. A try-out interview
with a teacher educator took place to check whether the interview
questions were understandable and would result in elaborate
answers, and also to test the duration of the interview. This only
resulted in some reformulations of the wording of the questions.
Eleven interviews were conducted in a face-to-face form in English
by the first author at the interviewees’ workplace. All interviews were
audio recorded and transcribed. On average, the interview lasted
about 45 minutes ranging from 20 to 65 minutes and took place from
October to December 2018.
5.3.3 Data analysis

The data analysis consisted of the three steps described below.
Step 1: Summarizing interview transcriptions and displaying
summaries into a matrix
For each interview question, participants’ answers were summarized.
For example, one participant’s answer about what she had learned
was: “I think what adds to my professional learning is that I started
thinking and paying more attention to the rationale behind my teaching.
When I was teaching in secondary school, I did a lot of things because
I know it worked well based on my past teaching experiences. But
now I give more thorough thinking to the theory behind my teaching
and try to explain it clearly to my student teachers.” The first author
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summarized this piece of interview transcription as “focusing on the

why behind teaching”. A matrix was designed to display summaries
per teacher educator systematically. In this matrix, the row
represented summaries of participants’ answers to each interview
question, and the column represented the teacher educators. The
matrix thus provided a concise overview of summaries from eleven
teacher educators’ answers to interview questions, regarding
examples of learning content, examples of learning activities, and
examples of reasons for learning. Representative quotes were added
to the summaries. This process took place in close consultation with
the other two authors.
Step 2: Labelling summaries and combining labels into themes
A label was assigned to each summary in the matrix. A label
represented the meaning of a summary. All labels with similar
meanings were combined into one theme. The following is an
example to illustrate Step 2. It is an example of one teacher educator’s
answers to the interview question about how she has learned about
her work. Her answers were summarized into two phrases: “learning
from supervising teachers’ research project” and “learning by
experimenting new insights into my teaching”. A label of “learning
from doing tasks” was given to the summary of “learning from
supervising teachers’ research project”; a label of “learning from
personal experiment” was given to the summary of “learning by
5
experimenting new insights into my teaching”. Thereafter, the two
labels were combined into one theme “practicing and testing”.
Step 3: Checking the accuracy of the data analysis
To ensure the accuracy of the analysis of the data, an external
researcher, a colleague of the authors though with different research
expertise, was invited to check the data analysis procedure. We
sent her a file including data summaries, labels, themes, and the
representative quotes belonging to the summaries. Based on her
readings of the materials, she concluded that the data analysis
procedure, in general, has been adequate, but she commented on
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the similarity between the themes in the focus of learning content.

We decided to reorganize those themes in order to make them
more distinguishable based on her suggestions. The following
example illustrates the adjustments made in the themes: the label
“pedagogy knowledge” was originally put under the theme “subject
matter knowledge”, but has been valued as one separate theme of
learning content after a discussion with the other two authors. A
report including the file that we sent to the external researcher and
adjustments in themes can be requested from the first author.
5.4 Results
The main results are displayed in the Tables 5.3 to 5.5, each consisting
of themes and descriptions of the themes, followed by representative
quotes. Below each table, the themes are explained more in-depth.
5.4.1 Content of what teacher educators learn

The eight learning themes and their descriptions in Table 5.3 show
a wide range of what teacher educators learn during their work. The
learning themes represent knowledge areas which were seen by
them as important to learn about their work. As shown by Table 5.3,
most examples they gave pertain to the pedagogy knowledge and the
knowledge gained from their own teaching experiences as a teacher
educator.
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Table 5.3 Themes of professional learning content
Theme Descriptions of themes Examples of quotes
Subject The knowledge of the subject matter that student “I learned the chemistry content knowledge.”
knowledge teachers will teach in secondary schools.
Pedagogy Three kinds of knowledge that are all pedagogical “I learned about educational psychology.”
knowledge in nature. One is general educational knowledge,
like educational psychology theories. One is “I started to learn more subject specific didactics about what it means to teach chemistry.”
PCK, the didactic knowledge of making subject
matter teachable. The last one is knowledge about “I learned a lot about how teaching at schools actually looks like. Students at schools differ
the schools, e.g., school development and what a lot, how students behave differ a lot, and teaching in a real classroom is always more
happens in schools. complex than in theory. It is nice to have both a theoretical and a practical view of how
teaching takes place at school.”
Student The knowledge about how student teachers learn, “I always keep in mind what student teachers need to learn.”
teacher including their learning needs and development
learning level. “As a teacher educator, I gradually noticed that it is important to make my student teachers
see the connection from the beginning of their study to the moment that they can graduate
and become a teacher at school. Usually, student teachers spend about one and a half years
of learning in this institute, and my job is to help them make that connection.”
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5
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Experience The knowledge that they learn from their own “My didactics has changed from that I am the one who knows and tells a lot about
Chapter 5
based teaching experiences and observations. It mainly chemistry as I did in the school beforehand, to that student teachers are active adult
knowledge refers to the practical knowledge of teaching PCK, learners and we are going to work together.”
including the changes in their focus of teaching, “When I started working here as a teacher educator, I focused on telling my own
linking theory and practice, and the role modelling experiences that worked well in my teaching and explained it in a certain way. But now
capacity. It furthermore includes the pedagogical I could explain my teaching in-depth, more explicit, and richer in helping my student
instrumental skills of planning and preparation teachers make choices in their teaching. So, I could bring more knowledge from theory
of courses, designing instructional programs, and into my explanation of teaching.”
assessing student teacher learning.
“I firmly believe that how I behave as a professional teacher educator also reflects on
student teachers who should become a professional teacher. I want to be transparent in
that.”
“I learn to internalize the general goals of our teacher education program into my own
course.”
“I learn to do more formative assessment in my teaching, like asking and giving more
feedback to my student teachers.”
Coaching The knowledge and capacity of supporting student “As a supervisor, I learn to be open-minded, willing to listen to student teachers’
teachers to reflect on the issues they meet in their concerns, and being adaptive to student teachers’ learning needs.”
internship and invoke them to think deeply about
what it means to develop their identity as a teacher.
Research The knowledge and skills of how to do research, for “I really learned the skill to observe and apply it to my teaching now. When I give courses
example regarding research methods. to my student teachers, I always combine observing what they do with what they say
instead of only focusing on what they say.”
Management Taking the leadership in developing, “I have been working in this institute for 18 years as a teacher educator. It becomes quite
and implementing, and evaluating teacher education normal for me to develop into an expert in my field. And now I get more opportunity
leadership programs for the institute. to do management tasks than teaching. For example, I am taking the responsibility of
developing a new curriculum for our institute.”
Professional Developing a professional role as a teacher of “I realized that I am here not just like a biology teacher, instead, I am getting into the role
identity teachers. of a teacher of teachers.”
The theme “subject knowledge” refers to content knowledge of

subjects such as physics. Our participants expressed that they were
well-prepared for the content knowledge of their subject, and now
as a subject teacher educator, they consider subject knowledge
as important to keep updated with. For example, one participant
explained: “Learning chemistry content knowledge is such a small
part in my learning because I think I have already acquired sufficient
chemistry knowledge. However, I still keep updated with the chemistry
content knowledge, when it relates to the new developments in
chemistry subject happening in the school context.”
The theme “pedagogy knowledge” relates to our participants’ learning
of pedagogical aspects. Under this theme, teacher educators particularly
refer to three kinds of knowledge they have learned: (1) learning general
education knowledge, (2) subject didactic knowledge (PCK), and (3)
knowledge about schools, although this latter was not often reported
by the participants. With regard to general knowledge about learning
and teaching, for example, one participant reported that he learned
more about educational psychology at the beginning of his career as
a teacher educator. Being educated as a historian, he was not aware
of the relevance of the teacher-student relationships as well as how
to motivate student teachers’ learning. Taking another example, a
chemistry teacher educator learned a lot about conceptual change
theory in his educational master study, and now he uses it when he 5
prepares and teaches his courses. The didactic knowledge of how to
teach a certain subject to student teachers was reported by many
participants as part of their main expertise they did not gain before
working as a teacher educator. It seems as it takes some time for
teacher educators to become capable of teaching subject didactics.
For example, a physics teacher educator talked about his struggle in
teaching subject didactic especially at the beginning of his career: “As a
teacher educator, I always remind myself that it is not enough to only
teaching the subject, I also need teaching student teachers how to teach
that subject. In the beginning, I found it extremely hard to combine
these two in my teaching, because it was already hard enough to get
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student teachers to the subject content. And then when my experiences

grow, it becomes a little bit easier to take the teaching of that subject
into account. Also because I read more literature and I become more
aware of the part where student teachers experience difficulty in their
learning. It gets slightly easier for me to integrate or at least to make
connections between teaching subject content and subject didactic.”
Another participant expressed that learning subject didactics for
her is more about learning what it means to teach chemistry. The
knowledge about schools is added to this theme. Our participants
implied that keeping updated with what happens at secondary schools
helps them to make a connection between theory and practice. For
example, one geography teacher educator said: “I kept my network
with geography teachers from different secondary schools. I have
learned a lot about the current things happening at schools, the kind
of issues these teachers encountered at schools. In this way, I shared
this practical knowledge about schools with my student teachers and it
helped my teaching to be more relevant to student teachers’ learning.”
The theme “student teacher learning” refers to the knowledge about
understanding student teachers’ learning needs as well as their
student teachers’ development level. For example, one participant
indicated her knowledge changed from focusing on what she could
teach to what student teachers need to learn. “Now I transferred my
focus in teaching into what student teachers need to learn and what
is the most effective way for them to learn.” Another participant
reported that he became more aware of the importance of making
student teachers being active learners. “I want to make my student
teachers curious about learning. I think it is important in my teaching
to make my student teachers to know their own development level. For
example, they should learn to know in what they are good and in what
they are not. How to take these consideration into account in order to
develop a lifelong learner.”
The theme “experience based knowledge” refers to the knowledge
about teaching in practice. Our participants expressed much about
the changes that occurred in their teaching as a result of their growing
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teaching experiences, which we mention here as their practical

knowledge. The first kind of practical knowledge they expressed
is about the change in their focus in their teaching: from teacher-
centered to student-centered teaching. For example, one participant
reported her change in teaching, namely transferring responsibility
to student teachers, as follows: “In my didactic teaching part, student
teachers practice a lot instead of me as a teacher educator who tells them
what to do. For example, I am now teaching a didactic subject about
collaborative learning. I make my student teachers think about what is
important in their classroom teaching, and how and why they should
make groups of pupils in one classroom… And in the end, they make their
own lessons, perform, and explain those lessons.” The second kind of
practical knowledge is about the change in which our participants
paid more attention to the theory behind their teaching and started
searching theory or empirical evidence to support their teaching. For
example, one participant depicted her knowledge change as follows:
“When I taught in secondary school, I did many things because I knew
it worked well based on my experiences. Now as a teacher educator, I
think more about the theory behind my teaching to connect theory with
practice. I also try to explain that theory clearly to my student teachers
in my teaching.” The third kind of practical knowledge pertains to
the role of modelling in teaching. Many participants indicated that it
takes a while for them to give attention to the double layers in their 5
teaching, i.e., role modelling how to teach while they are teaching. For
example, one participant reported that she became more purposeful
in role modelling: “Being a teacher educator, I gradually realize that
student teachers are looking at me how I instruct them and what kind
of assignments I give them. So, I firmly believe that how I behave as
a professional teacher educator also influences student teachers who
learn to become a professional teacher.” All the above examples
concern changes directly relating to teaching, but they mentioned
also changes in their course preparation and the assessment of
student teachers’ learning. For example, one teacher educator said:
“I paid attention to the curriculum issues more broadly. In preparing
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my lessons, I am not only considering the goal of my own lesson, but

also thinking about what my other colleagues’ goals of their subject
teaching are.” Another participant said: “I learned many things about
how to assess student teachers’ learning, for example not only about
making good questions but also considering the rationale behind the
assessment.”
The theme “coaching” pertains to providing guidance to student
teachers, especially when they meet difficulties. One participant
has been involved in coaching student teachers for many years, and
she said that there are always some tensions in student teachers’
learning to teach. She gave one example concerning student teachers’
dilemmas in learning to teach. “My student teachers are very smart
students in their subject study. If they study hard in one subject, they
get a good score at the end of the term. When they come here to learn
to become a teacher, everything changes fundamentally. They study
hard, but sometimes it does not guarantee that they can become
good teachers when they go to the real classroom during internships.
Sometimes, they can be very emotional.” As a teacher educator, her
task is not so much about giving hands-on solutions, instead, it has
to be more about guiding student teachers to reflect on the tensions
they meet and help them to analyze these and move forward by
themselves. For example, she described what she tried to do in
supervision meetings: “In classes, we often have reflection exercises
in a group. I try to engage my student teachers in conversations about
what it means for them to be a teacher. What they need to become a
better teacher. I also provide them with the theory and ask them what
they could use. I would like to discuss different learning styles with
them.”
The theme “research” refers to the knowledge and skills of doing
research. Participants’ answers implied that conducting research is
helpful to their professionalization when it closely relates to their
daily practice. For example, one participant benefited from doing her
Ph.D. research and said: “I really learned the skill to observe and apply
it to my teaching now. When I give courses to my student teachers, I
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always combine observing what they do with what they say instead of
only focusing on what they say.”
The theme “management and leadership” refers to teacher educators
taking a leadership role in developing a new curriculum or managing
some tasks for the institute. For example, one teacher educator said:
“I am responsible for leading a master physics program in my institute.
It involves many organization tasks, for example, making sure that
teacher educators are responsible for different courses.”
The theme “professional identity” was not so often referred to by the
participants. For example, one teacher educator indicated the change
in how she saw herself as a teacher educator: “Gradually I know the
difference between being a teacher and being a teacher of teachers. I
am aware that I am a role model for student teachers, I have to explain
and explicate the theory behind my teaching practice to them.”
5.4.2 Activities of how teacher educators learn

Formal and informal learning activities can be distinguished; where
formal learning activities are systematically organized with more or
less structured support, informal learning activities are not. As Table
5.4 indicates, teacher educators undertake more types of informal
learning activities than formal ones.
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Table 5.4 Themes of professional learning activities

Informal Informal learning activities are “I have learned by doing, by teaching
activity based on teacher educators’ different groups of student teachers with
personal initiatives. Learning different experiences.”
activities that could be
distinguished pertain to: “When I encountered difficulty in practice,
learning from practising and I discussed it with colleagues to see how
testing, learning from interacting they deal with it if they were in the same
and discussing with others, situation. So I learned a lot from colleagues
learning from reading sources, who were more experienced in it than me.”
learning from reflective activity, “I purposely read a lot, for example, a theory
and learning from encountering about curriculum development. Because I
difficulties, dilemmas, and think it is important for a teacher educator
mistakes that happened in their to know something about curriculum
practice. development or curriculum design.”
“After each course I give, I reflect on what

should I learn and what is a more effective
way of teaching. If I am happy with my
teaching, then I just keep it. But if I am not
really happy with that and I think it could
change and be more effective next time… I
always make notes and next time I know
that I am going to change that part.”
“I am learning from making mistakes and

failure.”
Formal The formal activities include “I took a course in video interaction. It is
activity well-organized programs like quite an extensive course in guiding you how
professional development to use videos and images to have a reflection
programs and doing a study in the exercise with your student teachers.”
field of education, or by pursuing
“At this moment, I really learn a lot by doing
a Ph.D. study in subject-specific
my Ph.D. research.”
didactics.
The theme “informal activities” includes many types of activities

which teacher educators engage in for solving a problem in their
practice or gaining growth in their expertise.
The first type of informal activity that can be distinguished is
practicing and testing. Our participants reported that they learned
a lot from just doing tasks because they hardly received support
from a formal preparation program to learn to be a teacher educator.
For example, one participant reported that she learned much by
coaching student teachers. “Obviously I learned a lot by doing. When
I started here as a teacher educator, I got the task of coaching student
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teachers. I had no experience with coaching and did not take a course
in advance. So, I just have to do it and meanwhile, of course, I learned
a lot from doing it.” Besides, participants reported that they learned
much by experimenting, for example by purposefully experimenting
with a new didactic method in their teaching. One participant had
the habit of reflecting on the course she gave and made a note on
the part that she wanted to change next time. When the new course
came, she purposefully experimented in her course with the adjusted
idea. “I try my idea in different groups and contexts. I have different
student teacher groups: some with 20 and some with 5. I don’t change
my idea too quickly, because the dynamics of my (student teacher)
group differs a lot. So I learn much about when it works and when it
doesn’t by experimenting in different contexts.”
The second type of informal activity is interacting and discussing with
others. Most participants reported that they frequently discussed
the issues they met in their work or exchanged the information or
ideas of the new development in the field with their colleagues. For
example, one participant said that there is a formal meeting day in
her institute to discuss certain topics with colleagues: “We have a
fixed date where my colleagues and I sit together to discuss one specific
aspect for our professionalization as teacher educators.” Another
participant said that it is very normal for him to talk with colleagues
about the work, for example when there was a report coming he 5
just read it and discussed it with colleagues. Our participants
also indicated that they learned through receiving feedback from
colleagues or from their student teachers. The feedback could be
critical about aspects not having performed well but also rewarding
aspects that are going well. For example, one participant learned from
her colleague’s feedback that her subject didactics is doing well. “My
colleague told me that he learned so much about teaching teachers from
me. He observed what I did and how I approached the questions those
student teachers asked and how I shaped the interaction with them. I
am learning from the feedback that I am doing well in my teaching.”
Collaborative working or joint work is seen as one valuable informal
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learning activity by our participants. For example, one experienced

teacher educator valued that she learned much from writing a book
together with experienced teacher educators at the beginning of her
career. Another participant indicated that she learned a lot from
preparing a course together with experienced teacher educators.
Observing colleagues what they are doing also appears to be a
valuable learning activity. For example, one participant reported
that she learned a lot from observing colleagues what they did and
how they interacted with student teachers.
The third type of informal learning activity is learning from reading.
Our participants reported that they sometimes purposefully selected
research articles or books to learn one specific area of knowledge or to
solve one specific issue about their work. Sometimes it just happens
that they read something that inspires them or relates to their work,
for example, newsletters received from their workplace email. For
instance, one participant always tries to make a connection between
what she reads with her own work as a teacher educator: “When I
read, I always have the question in my mind, like what is its relation to
my work and how can I use it in my teaching?”
The fourth type of informal learning activity is learning from
reflection which seems so much intertwined with our participants’
work. They usually reflect after each course by considering what they
are (not) satisfied with either on their way home or making notes on
the parts (teaching) which need to be improved next time. Few of
them also share their reflection on teaching with student teachers.
For example, a teacher educator said: “I always share my reflections
with my student teachers. Like what my goals are for this lesson, how
I try to achieve these goals, and why I think that I am doing it ok in
this way instead of another way. How do you [student teachers] think
about it?”
The fifth type of informal learning activity is learning from
encountering difficulties in practice, like learning from dilemmas,
mistakes, and the discrepancies happening in their teaching.
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One participant, for instance, said to have learned much about

effective teaching from experiencing tensions in her teaching. “I
met discrepancy in my teaching. On the one hand, student teachers
want me as a teacher educator to tell them what they should do in the
classroom so that it is a kind of guarantee that what I tell will always
work for them in practice. On the other hand, I know that I cannot
give them a one-size-fits-all method, because every school differs and
the classroom varies as well. So how to balance and make my teaching
more effective is still quite challenging.”
The theme “formal activity” refers to structured programs with
systematic support. Attending professional development programs,
like taking a course or joining a workshop about one certain topic,
is seen as an important way to learn by our participants. For example,
participants reported that they followed a course about assessment
to get a certification. “As a teacher educator in my institute, we all
have to get a certification for how to make good exams organized by
my institute.”
Attending conferences is appreciated by our participants as an
opportunity to enrich their network and to get new insights into
one certain topic. This theme also refers to pursuing a formal study,
namely learning with systematic guidance like a Ph.D. study in a
subject didactic area. For instance, one participant highly appreciated
that he followed a Master study in educational sciences three years
5
ago. He said that he did not receive sufficient educational training
beforehand, so following this educational master study really gave
him new insights. He was inspired by the knowledge he read from the
books and the insights he got from the conversations with teachers
and peers.
5.4.3 Reasons for why teacher educators learn

The themes and their descriptions in Table 5.5 show that teacher
educators’ reasons for professional learning range from an internal
drive for learning to an external drive through job inspiration and
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external requirements. Of these reasons, teacher educators’ personal

interests and their appreciations of the value and the meaning of the
job are more often referred to than the external job demands.
Table 5.5 Themes of reasons for professional learning

Individual These reasons pertain to the “Learning and developing is important for
reasons personal attitude and personal me. I always want to do new things and I am
interest regarding learning. very curious and eager to learn. I think it is
my disposition to be curious about learning
new things.”
“Learning is a sort of magical thing. It is
fascinating and interesting. I want to learn
more.”
Reasons These reasons refer to feeling “I teach my student teachers about what
related professionally responsible for learning is and also instruct them how to
to the keeping on learning about the learn. In order to do that, I should have
job profession, the intrinsic reward experience of how I learn, and also keep on
of the work based on seeing the learning continuously about my profession.”
value or meaning of the work,
“I think for me that (professional learning)
and the demands and challenges
is the way to love my job.”
required from the job.
“Only 10% of the reasons come from the
changes taking place in my work. Because
something changes, I have to do something
for it as a response.”
The theme “individual reasons” refers to teacher educators’ personal

attitude of why they find it important to keep on professional
learning. One reason relates to their personal characteristics, like
having a curious personality. For example, one participant said: “I
would get bored if I do the same thing every day. I am always looking
for the possibility of improving my current teaching becoming better
and better, and I am eager to learn more about my profession.” Another
reason relates to their deep interest in learning. One participant, for
instance, said: “I like learning. This is the reason why I like teacher
education, because in the end it is about learning and developing.”
Part of the theme “reasons related to the job” is that teacher
educators are feeling responsible for learning about their work and
also want to be a role model for their student teachers in this respect.
For example, one participant expressed: “For me, being a professional
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teacher educator means keeping on learning. Because my student

teachers learn from my teaching every day, and it is my responsibility to
learn professionally and also model this for them.” Another example
is: “I commit to my work, so I take the responsibility of making it better
myself. I am responsible for my own professional learning instead
of what other people tell me to do or ask me to do.” Another part of
the reasons comes from the rewarding of teacher educators’ work,
namely that they love their work and would like to learn more about
it. For example, one of the participants expressed: “I like my job very
much. I have the idea that I can do it better and better.” Few reasons
come from their job demands, namely having to learn due to the
requirements from their work. For example, one participant said:
“Only 10% of the reasons come from the changes taking place in my
work. Because something changes, I have to do something for it as a
response.”
5.5 Discussion and conclusion
5.5.1 Discussion about main findings

In addition to the review and questionnaire studies (Chapter 2 and
3), this study provides a deeper understanding of Dutch teacher
educators’ professional learning based on the concrete examples of
their learning experiences in their own practices. Semi-structured 5
interviews were conducted with eleven Dutch teacher educators
about what they have learned for their work, their learning activities,
and their reasons for learning. Eleven teacher educators’ examples
of their learning experiences directly showed the diversity in their
professional learning and indirectly the multiple aspects of their
work.
A wide range of learning themes, namely what teacher educators
learn about their work could be identified in the interview data. It
is noteworthy to state that although eight learning themes were
identified, this does not necessarily mean that these themes were
isolated from each other; on the contrary, some of them were
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interconnected. For example, the themes “pedagogy knowledge”,

“student teacher learning”, and “experienced based knowledge”
are related to each other. Given that the interview study aimed
at showing what teacher educators learn about their work, we
decided to categorize learning themes as much as possible. The
eight learning themes identified in this study (as well as those in
our previous studies) can be seen as a contribution to substantiate
the statement by Berry (2016) that teacher educators’ work requires
professional knowledge and to her plea to uncover the unique body
of knowledge which comprises teacher educators’ work (in a Dutch
context) for more teacher educators. In this context Berry (2016,
p.46) wrote: “there is a pressing need for more teacher educators
to recognize and know that a unique body of knowledge comprises
their work and they can learn or develop such knowledge on the job.”
The eight learning themes in our study indicate multiple facets of
teacher educators’ work. This is, to some degree, in line with a review
study conducted by Lunenberg, Dengerink, and Korthagen (2014),
who identified six professional roles of teacher educators: teacher of
teachers, coach, researcher, curriculum developer, gatekeeper, and
broker. Five professional roles, except for the role of a broker, were
represented by our participants’ examples of learning content. The
learning themes “pedagogy knowledge”, “student teacher learning”,
“experienced based knowledge”, and “subject knowledge” can be
explicitly seen as belonging to the professional roles as distinguished
by Lunenberg et al. This also counts for the learning theme “research”
that links with the professional role of a researcher and the learning
theme “coaching” that connects with the professional role as a coach.
The professional role of a curriculum developer as distinguished
by Lunenberg et al. connects with the learning theme “experience
based knowledge” in our study, because this theme includes the
knowledge and skills regarding the planning and preparation of
courses and designing instructional programs. The professional
role of a gatekeeper that Lunenberg et al. distinguish connects with
the learning theme “student teacher learning”, because this theme
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includes the understanding and taking into account of student

teachers’ development level as found in our study. The role of being
a gatekeeper, namely, implies being responsible for admitting
student teachers to the profession of teacher (Lunenberg et al., 2014,
p.21). What teacher educators have learned about their work or the
expertise they developed seems to depend on how they perceive
their professional roles and tasks in their institute. For example, a
teacher educator primarily responsible for teaching subject didactics
emphasized at least to some extent other learning themes than a
teacher educator who is responsible for supporting student teachers’
internships and reflection on these. The different aspects of teacher
educators’ work that our study indicate may lead to the following
question: how do teacher educators in the Dutch context perceive
the multiple aspects of their work? Recent studies have shown that
there are tensions between maintaining high-quality teaching and
facing the increasing demand of conducting research, experienced
by higher education teacher educators in diverse contexts (Smith
& Flores, 2019). However, such tension might also imply that these
different tasks complement each other. For example, a recent study
by Maaranen, Kynäslahti, Byman, Jyrhämä, and Sintonen (2019)
showed that Finnish teacher educators see research as part of their
teacher educator work, and being a researcher is a relevant part of
their identity. Since we did not interview our participants about 5
their perceptions of different working tasks, we do not yet know the
answer to the above-mentioned question.
We categorized teacher educators’ learning activities into a formal
and informal theme. This categorization of learning activities did
not necessarily mean that our participants only used single activities;
instead, their reported learning activities consisted of a mix of
activities. For example, the “reflective activity” is often followed by
the learning activity “interacting and discussing with others”. We
found that the diversity and frequency of informal learning activities
mentioned by our participants outweighed the formal ones (see Table
5.4). The eleven teacher educators’ examples of learning activities in
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Chapter 5
our study support the general conclusion from studies on workplace

learning: a majority of professionals informally learn about their
work in and from the workplace (Eraut, 2004; Tynjälä, 2008). A study
conducted by Dengerink, Lunenberg, and Kools (2015) showed that
teacher educators with seven or more years of working experiences
prefer to learn in an informal way, such as discussing with colleagues;
they feel less interested in participating in courses. This result
may help us understand the informal learning activities frequently
reported by teacher educators in our study. Of the informal learning
activities, we found that our participants frequently mentioned
“learning from practicing and testing” and “learning from interacting
and discussing with others” as ways of how they learned about their
work. This finding is in line with the result of another study by Van
Eekelen, Boshuizen, and Vermunt (2005), in which they found that
higher education teachers frequently reported learning by doing
and learning in interaction as their learning activities. Similarly,
another study into experienced teachers’ learning activities also
found “experimenting”, “considering one’s own teaching experience”,
“getting input from others”, and “learning by doing” as the learning
activities happening in their workplace (Hoekstra, Brekelmans,
Beijaard, & Korthagen, 2009). These four types of learning activities
also appeared in our study as teacher educators’ learning activities.
Of the formal learning activities found in our study, attending
conferences and following professional development programs,
(for example, attending a workshop) have been reported on most
by the eleven participants. This result is similar with the result of
a recent survey by Tack, Valcke, Rots, Struyven, and Vanderlinde
(2018), who pointed to formal professional development activities
for Flemish teacher educators generally organized as workshops on
a voluntary basis. Besides the professional development programs,
pursuing a Master or Doctoral study is another formal learning
activity found in our study. These activities can be interpreted as
research related learning activities. Research related activities are
generally seen as important ways to improve teacher educators’
128
professional development (Maaranen et al., 2018). Among research

related activities, especially self-study is widely seen as an important
research activity which teacher educators use to improve their
professional learning (e.g., Loughran & Berry, 2005; Zeichner, 2007).
Self-study did not appear to be a professional learning activity for
teacher educators in our interview. This finding confirms one result
of our questionnaire study (Chapter 3), namely that Dutch teacher
educators score low on being involved in conducting self-study as
their learning activity.
Our participants seemed to have a strong internal drive to learn by
seeing the value of their work as an important reason for keeping
on learning about their work. In general, adult learners are more
motivated to learn by internal than external factors (Beavers, 2009).
Their strong internal drive to learn could also be seen as triggered
by what they do on a daily basis – supporting and working together
with students who learn to become a teacher. They want their
students to become good teachers, so they themselves also want to
be seen as good teachers by their students. It is the responsibility
inherent in their work with student teachers that obviously inspires
them to learn. Our participants’ strong professional responsibility
is in line with a result from a study by Meeus, Cools, and Placklé
(2018) who found that teacher educators’ shared responsibility for
the learning process of their student teachers is the key to learn in 5
a community. If we look at the research field of workplace learning,
one of the important factors influencing professionals to actively
engage in learning in the workplace is to appreciate the value of their
work together with feeling a commitment to learning (Eraut, 2004).
This factor is also found in our study, namely teacher educators
see the value of their work and feel a commitment to learning and
making their work better. Eleven teacher educators indicated that
personal professionalization, in their institutes, is compulsory, but
they have the autonomy to decide about what and how of their own
professional learning. This might explain why our participants have
such a strong intrinsic drive for professional learning. Given that our
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Chapter 5
participants were all experienced teacher educators, we wonder what

beginning teacher educators’ motivations are to becoming and being
engaged in professional learning. Future research could address this
question.
5.5.2 Implications for professional learning

In the introduction of this study, we mentioned the lack of clarity
about what comprises teacher educators’ profession. Our study,
though being small-scaled, contributes to making this profession
more visible by exemplifying what, how and why teacher educators
learn during their work. Given the multiple facets of their work and
the different ways in which they learn their profession, our study
provides some suggestions for supporting their professional learning.
Firstly, it would be useful to offer a wide range of professional
learning topics, which could help teacher educators, especially
beginning ones, to becoming and being aware of the diversity of
topics relevant for their profession and assisting them to make their
own choices regarding what they want or need to learn. Secondly,
teacher education institutes need to explicitly value informal
learning activities at the workplace, especially for experienced
teacher educators, and provide the necessary support for that, for
example by arranging a fixed time for them to talk with and learn
from each other. At the same time, the variety of formal learning
opportunities need to be provided as well but not be in a compulsory
way. Thirdly, it might be necessary for teacher education institutes
to keep teacher educators intrinsically motivated to learn, namely by
seeing the value of their work and feeling a commitment to learning.
5.5.3 Limitations of the study

There are some limitations to take into account when interpreting the
results of this study. Firstly, our participants might look biased: more
subject teacher educators than general pedagogy teacher educators
participated. We selected teacher educators based on their scores
in our questionnaire study (Chapter 3). Secondly, in our interview
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study only a small number of teacher educators participated.

More participants could give more examples of their learning
and therefore lead to stronger and more valid results. Thirdly, the
interview data is self-reported. Future research can use observation
methods to add more details next to what teacher educators report
about their learning. Fourthly and lastly, there might be a cultural
bias in the results because of the language and background of the
first researcher, who used non-native language to interview Dutch
teacher educators, which may have brought a language barrier in
the interviews, and who analyzed the data through her own ‘lens’.
Nevertheless, the participants explained very specifically their
examples whenever the researcher had any doubt or found something
unclear in their answers.
5.5.4 Conclusion
Based on our research findings we formulate three conclusions.
Firstly, through what teacher educators report they have learned
about their work, it becomes clear that their work is a profession
with its own knowledge base. Secondly, valuing informal learning
activities at teacher educators’ workplace, and providing them
with the opportunity of deciding to participate in formal learning
activities are both important to support their professional learning.
Thirdly, it is inherent in teacher educators’ work with student 5
teachers that they are intrinsically motivated to learn about their work
in practice. This seems to be a strong starting point for giving more
structural attention to teacher educators’ professional learning.
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Chapter 6
Conclusions and discussions
133
6.1 Overview
The focus of this dissertation is on the professional learning of
teacher educators who work in higher education institutes. Higher
education-based teacher educators generally come from two routes.
One route is through a practitioner path, namely experienced school
teachers who leave their schools and become a teacher educator.
The other route is through an academic path, followed by those
who immediately after having got their Ph.D. degree in their subject
enter the profession like other academics do in other professional
fields. However, neither of both routes is sufficient for preparing a
professional teacher educator. There is hardly any initial preparation
program and only limited support for teacher educators to grow into
the profession, for example, through an induction program (European
Commission, 2013). In general, teacher educators in higher education
face a situation in which they learn their work by doing it and what
and how they learn to do their work largely depends on themselves at
their workplace. However, systematic research on teacher educators’
learning at their workplace is still lacking (Boei et al., 2015).
The main goal of this dissertation is to contribute to a better
understanding of teacher educators’ professional learning in terms
of what they learn, the learning activities they undertake for that,
and their reasons for learning. Insight into teacher educators’
learning is a prerequisite for providing them with support to do
their work as qualified professionals. This dissertation reports on
three consecutive studies that have been conducted to answer our
general research question about how teacher educators learn their
profession. This dissertation starts with a review study (Chapter 2), 6
which resulted in an overview of main categories and subcategories
regarding what teacher educators learn during their work, how
and why they learn. Based on the results of this review, the main
categories were used as scales to construct a digital questionnaire.
The questionnaire was sent to both Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators to empirically investigate to what extent teacher educators
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Chapter 6
recognized and experienced the professional learning aspects found

in the literature in their practice (Chapter 3). By using the same
questionnaire data, an additional analysis was conducted to further
explore the questionnaire results on item level, namely by focusing
on the items within the highly correlating scales and on items of
the scales with significant differences between Dutch and Chinese
teacher educators’ scores (Chapter 4). In Chapter 5, we selected a
number of Dutch teacher educators who recognized and experienced
the professional learning aspects above the average (Chapter 3) for
an in-depth interview. The interview study aimed at gaining deeper
insights into their personal learning experiences by searching for the
themes from their reported examples of what they have learned, their
learning activities, and their reasons for learning. Taking the three
studies together, this dissertation contributes to the formulation of
the knowledge base of teacher educators’ profession and providing
insights into supporting their professional learning in practice.
In this final chapter, the main results of each study will be summarized
separately, followed by a discussion about these results. The chapter
ends with some limitations of this dissertation, suggestions for
future research, and implications for practice.
6.2 Main results and conclusion
6.2.1 Teacher educators’ professional learning: An overview

from the literature
What constitutes teacher educators’ professional learning was
explored by means of a review study. A literature search for studies
with the search terms “teacher educator(s) AND professional
development” and “teacher educator(s) AND professional learning”
written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals during
the period of 2000-2015 resulted in 1701 abstracts. After a careful
selection based on the abstracts, 75 research articles were further
analyzed and resulted in a comprehensive list of main categories and
subcategories regarding the content of teacher educators’ learning,
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their learning activities, and their reasons for learning.

The main categories of the content of teacher educators’ learning
included: pedagogy of teacher education, research and reflection,
professional identity, and knowledge base. “Pedagogy of teacher
education” was the most present main category, and the “knowledge
base” regarding what teacher educators learn for doing their work
was the least present main category. The main categories regarding
their learning activities consisted of learning through academic
engagement, learning through collaborative activity, learning
through attending professional development programs, and
learning through reflective activity. “Learning through academic
engagement” and “learning through collaborative activity” were
far more addressed than the other two activities which teacher
educators undertake to learn their work. The main categories about
their reasons for learning included: external requirement, personal
ambition, and professional role transition. “Personal ambition” was
the most addressed reason for teacher educators to learn their work;
by contrast, “professional role transition” was a hardly addressed
reason.
The findings of the review study show that teacher educators’
professional learning has become an independent research field. In
this growing research field of interest, teacher educators’ professional
learning covers a diverse range of main categories. However, a clear
knowledge base essential for the work of teacher educators is still
lacking. The frequency of the studies addressing the main categories
in the research articles differs, but this does not necessarily
mean that the most addressed ones are more important than the 6
least addressed ones. The main categories of the content of learning
and the learning activities sometimes seem to overlap but differ
in emphasis; for example, “reflection” as a content category and
“reflective activity” as an activity category.
This review study has provided a theoretically based overview of
teacher educators’ professional learning, consisting of categories
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Chapter 6
of teacher educators’ learning content, of their learning activities,

and of their reasons for learning. The overview can be used as a
framework to discuss teacher educators’ work and professional
learning in future research.
6.2.2 Perceptions of Dutch and Chinese teacher educators

of their professional learning
Based on the overview of teacher educators’ professional learning
from the review study, a digital questionnaire was constructed
to e m p i r i c a l l y i n v e s t i g a t e t e a c h e r e d u c a t o r s ’
p e r c e p t i o n s a n d r e c o g n i t i o n of the aspects derived from
that overview in practice. A total of 583 Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators (working in different types of higher education institutes)
completed the questionnaire.
Nine professional learning scales based on principal component
analysis (PCA) were empirically recognized and perceived as more
or less relevant to their practice by the teacher educators. These nine
professional learning scales included: pedagogy of teacher education,
curriculum, and research as the content of their learning; learning
through academic engagement, learning through reflective activity,
and getting input from others as the activities of their learning;
and personal ambition, external requirement, and professional role
transition as the reasons for their learning. Of the learning content,
“pedagogy of teacher education”, with a highest mean score and
lowest standard deviation, indicates a certain consensus among
our participants’ perceptions about learning this. Of the learning
activities, “getting input from others”, with a highest mean score
and lowest standard deviation, indicates that participants agreed on
the interactive activity as their most common way of learning. Of
the reasons for learning, “personal ambition” was the highest one,
indicating that respondents had a strong intrinsic desire to learn
their work.
Teacher educators’ perceptions of these nine professional learning
138
scales correlated with background variables. The research-related

scales “research” and “academic engagement” appeared to relate
to three background variables, namely holding a Ph.D. degree as
the highest educational degree, combining teacher education work
with a research task, and teacher educators seeing themselves as a
researcher. The scales “pedagogy of teacher education”, “curriculum”,
and “getting input from others” appeared to relate to one background
variable regarding working days, namely the number of days occupied
with teaching.
When comparing Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ perceptions,
significant differences could mainly be found in their perceptions of
research-related scales and the scale of “getting input from others”.
Chinese teacher educators seem to focus more on learning “research”
and being engaged in “academic activity” and “reflective activity”
than their Dutch colleagues. By contrast, Dutch teacher educators
seem to be engaged in the activity “getting input from others” more
often than their Chinese colleagues.
The nine professional learning scales from the questionnaire study
nearly confirmed the categories identified in the review study; they
were also recognized and perceived as more or less relevant to their
practice by teacher educators. What and how teacher educators
learn to do their work seems to correlate with their past learning
experience, how they see themselves as a teacher educator, and their
current working context. The differences in professional learning
between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators closely relate to
differences in the contexts in which they work.
6
6.2.3 A further exploration of the questionnaire results
In grounding our initial theoretical insights further, and in
accordance with the initial stage of theory formation, we decided to
further explore the questionnaire results on item level. In Chapter
3, we found some (relatively) high correlations between the nine
professional learning scales. We particularly wanted to gain more
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Chapter 6
insight into specific associations between highly correlating scales

across the three foci (the content of learning, learning activities, and
reasons for learning) that might result in some deeper understanding
of the aspects of teacher educators’ professional learning. For this
purpose, we looked closer at correlations between the items of
these scales that particularly might explain why those associations
between the scales were high. In Chapter 3, we also compared the
Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ mean scores on the nine
professional learning scales and found some significant differences.
Chinese teacher educators scored significantly higher on the three
research related scales “research”, “learning through academic
engagement”, and “learning through reflective activity”. The Dutch
teacher educators scored significantly higher on the activity scale
“getting input from others”. We further explored these significant
differences on item-level in order to get a deeper understanding of
the differences.
Selecting and connecting the highly correlating scales across the
three foci of the questionnaire resulted in two learning patterns: a
teaching related pattern, namely teacher educators’ personal interest
in learning about pedagogy of teacher education through getting
input from others, and a research related pattern, namely teacher
educators’ learning about research through academic engagement
and reflective activity. Further exploration showed that the teaching
related pattern appeared to be characterized by teacher educators’
feeling of being responsible to stimulate student teachers’ learning by
focusing on facilitating student teachers' learning and using student
teachers’ input for that. The research related pattern emphasized
teacher educators’ learning of research by conducting research
themselves or being involved in research projects.
We further explored the items of the scales with significant
differences between the Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ scores.
Results indicated that Chinese teacher educators are more involved
in research projects and do keep a reflective diary more often than
their Dutch colleagues. In contrast, Dutch teacher educators do
140
attend conferences and workshops more often than their Chinese

colleagues.
Based on the results, it can be concluded that the analyses on item
level added more specific information to the information regarding
the correlations between the scales and gave more meaning to
the differences between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’
professional learning as reported on in Chapter 3.
6.2.4 A deeper understanding of teacher educators’

personal learning experiences
Based on Dutch teacher educators’ scores on the professional
learning scales in the questionnaire study (Chapter 3), we selected
11 Dutch teacher educators for an interview about examples of their
professional learning. These learning examples were analyzed
into themes regarding the content of their learning, their learning
activities, and their reasons for learning.
Eight learning themes regarding the content of their learning could
be identified from their reported examples. Of these eight themes,
most examples they gave refer to the themes “pedagogy knowledge”
and “experience based knowledge”. By contrast, fewer examples they
gave pertain to the themes “professional identity” and “management
and leadership”. The remaining four themes were almost equally
represented by our participants’ learning examples.
Two themes within the activities of their learning could generally
be distinguished, namely informal and formal learning activities,
depending on the extent of being systematically organized or not and 6
with or without structured support. In general, teacher educators
reported that they undertook more types of informal learning
activities than formal ones. Of the informal learning activities, the
activities “learning from practicing and testing”, “learning from
interacting and discussing with others”, and “learning from reading”
were most often referred to by teacher educators. Of the formal
learning activities, the activities “attending professional development
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Chapter 6
programs” and “attending conference” were often reported as their

way of learning.
Two themes within the reasons for learning were identified:
“individual reasons” and “reasons related to the job”. Of the individual
reasons, personal interest in learning or personal characteristics like
having a curious personality were reported by teacher educators. Of
the reasons related to the job, teacher educators’ appreciations of the
value and the meaning of the job turned to be more representative
than external job demands.
What teacher educators have learned about their work or the
expertise they developed seems to depend on how they perceive
their professional roles and their current tasks and responsibilities
in their institutes. Eight themes within the content of their learning
were found, though this does not necessarily mean that these
themes are isolated from each other. These themes make it clear that
teacher educators’ work needs professional knowledge and that it is
a profession with its own knowledge base. The different activities
they undertook to learn their work does not necessarily mean that
they only used single activities; instead, their reported examples
of learning activities indicate that their learning consisted of a mix
of them. The types of informal learning activities which teacher
educators undertake to learn their work are quite similar to those
higher education teachers and experienced school teachers are used to
undertake. The strong intrinsic reasons to learn for teacher educators
seem inherent in their work with student teachers, by seeing the value
of their work as an important reason for keeping on learning. This
strong internal reason also comes from the responsibility inherent
in their work: they want their students to become good teachers,
and they themselves also want to be seen as good teachers by their
students. As such, this study, though being small-scaled, contributes
to making this profession more visible by exemplifying what, how,
and why teacher educators learn during their work.
6.2.5 Overall conclusion
142
The main goal of this dissertation is to contribute to a better

understanding of teacher educators’ professional learning, namely
by investigating the content of teacher educators’ learning for doing
their work, their learning activities, and their reasons for learning.
Research on teacher educators’ professional learning appears to be a
growing field of interest but fragmented in focus. Some researchers
have particularly tried to understand and conceptualize one aspect
of teacher educators’ work, for example, their pedagogy of teacher
education or their role modelling. Other researchers have begun
to explore effective ways to support teacher educators with their
professional learning, for example, through participation in a learning
community or doing a self-study. By bringing all these different
research foci together, we got a holistic overview regarding what they
learn during their work, how they learn, and what their reasons are
for learning. This overview was further used to empirically explore
how teacher educators have experienced the scales found in the
review study in their practice. This dissertation makes a contribution
to the field by not only showing the diversity in teacher educators’
professional learning but also giving empirical meaning to aspects
relevant for their professional learning as well as to relationships
between these scales. Next to contributing to the understanding
of teacher educators’ professional learning, this dissertation claims
to contribute to making the knowledge base essential for teacher
educators’ work available by having made explicit the content aspects
of their professional learning. Internationally, different associations
or teacher education institutes are giving more and more attention
to support teacher educators with their professional learning. The
results of this dissertation may inspire to provide teacher educators 6
with opportunities or programs that support their professional
learning.
6.3 Discussion of the main results

Teacher educators, a neglected group of professionals for quite some
time, are gradually receiving more attention from educational policy,
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Chapter 6
research, and within teacher education institutes themselves. The

idea, traditionally or culturally, that a good teacher automatically
becomes a good teacher educator is under scrutiny (Korthagen,
2000). Some actions are being undertaken to address this issue, like
research focusing on the characteristics of the profession of teacher
educators and associations or teacher education institutes taking
initiatives to support teacher educators’ professional learning, for
example, through providing induction programs for beginning
teacher educators (European Commission, 2013). This dissertation
adds to the increasing acknowledgement of and giving shape to the
teacher educators’ profession from a learning perspective. The review
study (Chapter 2) and the interview study (Chapter 5) show that
teacher educators’ work has its own knowledge base which they need
to learn to be competent in doing their work. The questionnaire study
(Chapter 3 and 4) shows that some aspects of that knowledge base
are more present than others, particularly regarding the “pedagogy
of teacher education”. Teacher educators’ professional learning most
often seems to take place through “getting input from others”, and
“personal ambition” appears to be their main reason for learning.
Among the aspects regarding the content of teacher educators’
learning, four aspects have repeatedly appeared in this dissertation,
namely pedagogy knowledge, knowledge (skills) about research,
knowledge (skills) about supervising student teachers during their
internship, and knowledge (skills) about curriculum development.
They could be closely connected with (some) teacher educators’
professional roles found in one of the first systematic review
studies about teacher educators’ work by Lunenberg, Dengerink,
and Korthagen (2014). In their review study, six professional roles
were identified: teacher of teachers, researcher, coach, curriculum
developer, broker, and gatekeeper. The pedagogy knowledge in this
dissertation could be connected with the professional role of teacher
of teachers; the knowledge (skills) about research with the role of
researcher, the knowledge (skills) about curriculum development
with the role of curriculum developer, and the knowledge (skills)
144
about supervising student teachers during their internship with the

role of coach. The disconnection between the aspects of content
in this dissertation with the remaining two professional roles as a
broker and a gatekeeper in that review study is not surprising. Also
in their review study, Lunenberg et al. found limited studies focusing
on the professional roles of a broker and a gatekeeper and hardly
discussing explicitly the accompanying behavior belonging to them.
We have given much attention to the categories and themes found
in the review study (Chapter 2) and the interview study (Chapter 5)
regarding the content of teacher educators’ learning, but it is not our
intention to claim that they represent the knowledge base essential
for all teacher educators or could be used as a checking list for
monitoring what is important for teacher educators’ functioning in
their work. It is not favorable nor applicable to have one knowledge
base that fits all teacher educators being a diverse professional
group responsible for multiples aspects of their work. The main goal
behind the categories or themes, identified in this dissertation, is to
inform that teacher educators’ work is a profession with a distinctive
body of professional knowledge, and to support the statement that
professional teacher educators need formal preparation and induction
into the profession (see also Goodwin & Kosnik, 2013; Goodwin et
al., 2014; Smith, 2005). Becoming a teacher is more challenging and
demanding nowadays, and it is teacher educators who are responsible
for the education of quality teachers our society needs. It is important
to acknowledge that being a teacher educator is a profession relevant
to the education in our current and future society. It is therefore
extremely relevant to transform this awareness into serious actions
for preparing professional teacher educators.
6
It becomes quite obvious from this dissertation, that teacher
educators do learn during their work to better enact their tasks,
particularly through learning from/with each other (relevant others
in their working environment) in an informal way. These relevant
people mainly include their colleagues, student teachers, and school
teachers. In Chapter 4, we found that there is no significant difference
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Chapter 6
between Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ interaction with

colleagues, student teachers, and school teachers. In Chapter 5, most
Dutch teacher educators reported that they frequently discussed or
exchanged information with their colleagues. That colleagues play
a part in teacher educators’ learning at the workplace is not a new
research finding. It confirms the conclusion that learning through
interaction with colleagues is a common way to learn at the workplace,
based on both research on teacher educators’ learning needs
(Czerniawski, Guberman, & MacPhail, 2017; Dengerink, Lunenberg, &
Kools, 2015) and research on their experiences (e.g., Williams, 2019).
The conclusion that teacher educators learn through interaction with
colleagues at the workplace is also in line with the way experienced
higher education teachers learn (Van Eekelen, Boshuizen, &Vermunt,
2005) and that of experienced secondary school teachers (Bakkenes,
Vermunt, & Wubbels, 2010; Hoekstra, Brekelmans, Beijaard, &
Korthagen, 2009; Meirink, Meijer, Verloop, & Bergen, 2009).
It has shown, from Chapter 5, that experienced teacher educators’
interaction with colleagues can take a variety of forms, ranging from
exchanging experiences or listening to information to purposefully
asking colleagues for advice or co-working on a task. Although this
dissertation provides evidence for interaction with others at the
workplace as an important learning activity for teacher educators,
it should be noticed that such informal learning largely relies on
their personal endeavor and willingness. This is indicated in our
research by the correlation between “personal ambition” (a reason
scale) and “getting input from others” (an activity scale). Teacher
educators’ interaction with others, their student teachers (see
Chapter 4) and colleagues (see Chapter 5), not only require the
availability of time and space at the workplace for that, but also may
depend on their relationship with student teachers and colleagues.
It can be imagined that more experienced teacher educators may
feel more at ease to interact with colleagues, since they have known
each other for a while. Beginning teacher educators who are just
newcomers in teacher education institutes might feel this totally
146
different. Due to the unfamiliar working environment (culture)

and work expectations, one of the main challenges beginning
teacher educators face is the feeling of isolation, because it is often
difficult for them to find people who they can ask questions or with
whom they can share their ideas (cf. Swennen, Shagrir, & Cooper,
2009). Apparently, teacher educators’ working environment is not
acknowledged as a learning environment. How to arrange such a
learning environment needs further study, but it is valued to create a
trustful knowledge sharing culture and to guarantee available time
for teacher educators who are responsible for different aspects of
their work sitting together and having conversations about their
work. We believe that such a culture strengthens their professional
identity as teacher educator. Additionally, time is often seen as one
of the main constraining factors having an influence on teachers
(teacher educators) to engage in any form of professional learning/
development activity, because teaching itself is already quite time-
consuming for teacher educators (van der Klink et al., 2017). As this
dissertation has shown, teacher educators’ work includes multiple
tasks. In their job description, teacher educators working in the same
institute may, therefore, be responsible for different tasks. Some
of them are for their work more connected with schools, some are
particularly teaching subject didactics, some are more involved in
supervising student teachers, and some are doing more research. It
takes time for teacher educators to have interaction with colleagues
and student teachers, and also to connect this interaction with their
own learning. A study by Hadar and Brody (2017) indicates that the
key to decreasing teacher educators’ vulnerability and promoting
their professional learning in a learning community is that their 6
institutes explicitly legitimize communal activities for that purpose.
This is also supported by one participant from our interview study,
who reported on her appreciation of the formal meeting day in her
institute to make it possible to meet and talk with her colleagues.
She appreciated this type of fixed group activity as more efficient
than those occasional talks with colleagues which, to a great extent,
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Chapter 6
rely on whether colleagues are present at the institute and their

availability of time. Besides and in general, creating a learning
environment at the workplace also needs to take the importance of
organizational structures into account. The contexts where teacher
educators work are often rather small departments consisting of one
or two experts for each subject (Trower & Gallagher, 2008). This
might be a certain barrier for teacher educators’ opportunity of
meeting colleagues and learning from each other.
It is important for teacher educators’ professional learning to
connect research and teaching. This not only contributes to their
professional learning, it also contributes to the knowledge base of
their profession (Lunenberg & Wilemse, 2007). However, a strong
connection between research and teaching was not present as part of
our participants’ professional learning in practice. Results from the
questionnaire study have shown two distinctive patterns of teacher
educators’ learning: 1) a teaching related pattern regarding teacher
educators’ personal interest in learning about pedagogy of teacher
education through getting input from others, and 2) a research related
pattern regarding teacher educators’ learning through academic
engagement and reflective activity. These two distinct patterns
of teacher educators’ learning seem to indicate that teaching and
research are rather separated from each other. In terms of teacher
educators conducting research, the questionnaire study (Chapter
3) has shown that Dutch and Chinese teacher educators are more
often engaged in academic research, based on a traditional research
stance, than in so-called practitioner research, like doing self-studies
of their own practice. This latter type of research seems not to be
part of Chinese and Dutch teacher educators’ professional learning
in practice. In other contexts, for example in the US, Australia and
the UK, the role of practitioner research like doing self-studies is
more valued by teacher educators themselves as a powerful way to
improve their own practice and for their professional growth; it is
also recognized as being important for research agendas in teacher
education. The recognition of practitioner research is supported by
148
the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) special

interest group “Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP)”
sponsoring multiple AERA sessions and organizing international
conferences on self-study in teacher education. It also played a major
role in developing an international handbook of self-study research
on teaching practices (cf. Cochran-Smith, 2005). Apparently, this
kind of support for doing practitioner research is not or hardly
available for Dutch and Chinese teacher educators; they work in
contexts with a traditional view of seeing what research is, how to
conduct research, and also why to do research.
This dissertation has shown a match between what has been found
in the review study (Chapter 2) and what has been reported on by
teacher educators themselves in the interview study (Chapter 5).
Specifically, in the review study the key words with regard to what
teacher educators learn about their work, such as “role modelling”,
“second-order teaching”, and “teach as you preach” were seen as
the professional characteristics of teacher educators’ work. In the
interview study, we found that teacher educators referred to these
professional characteristics of their work when they talked about
their examples of learning. For example, one of our participants used to
describe her learning as “Being a teacher educator, I gradually realize
that student teachers are looking at me how I instruct them and what
kind of assignments I give them. So, I firmly believe that how I behave
as a professional teacher educator also influences student teachers who
learn to become a professional teacher.” This participant’s learning
example coincides with the meaning of “role modelling” from the
review study. It, at least to some degree, indicates that our participants
are aware of unique characteristics of their profession and also
6
possess the professional language for talking about their work and
their professional identity. The limited number of participants in the
interview study does not allow to generalize this to a large group of
teacher educators. Nevertheless, it shows the evidence that research
results are informative and relevant to teacher educators’ practice
and also to how they see their profession. In general, however,
149
Chapter 6
the connection between teacher education research and teacher

educators’ practice could be strengthened and more acknowledged
by teacher educators in practice. If more and more teacher educators
see the connections between what is found in research on their work
and their daily work, then their research engagement will be more
meaningful for their work, their professional learning, and their
professional identity.
6.4 Implications for practice

The results of our studies strongly suggest that teacher educators’
work is indeed a profession. The relevant aspects of what, how, and why
with regard to teacher educators’ professional learning that resulted
from the review study, the questionnaire study, and the interview
study, provide sufficient evidence that teacher educators’ work is a
profession on itself requiring specific professional knowledge and
competencies. An important implication of this dissertation is the
evidence it provides for acknowledging teacher educators’ profession
as a real profession with its own knowledge base. In turn, this may
have serious consequences in terms of being explicit about who can
become a teacher educator and what is required for that.
Our studies have furthermore shown that teacher educators learn
about their work/profession mainly on the job by their personal
endeavor and that there is hardly any formal induction support for
them to enter the professional field of teacher education. It usually
takes two to three years for beginning teacher educators to develop
their professional identity as a teacher educator (Murray & Male,
2005). It is particularly in their first year that many beginners feel
professional unease and discomfort because of the tension they
experience in their professional identity: namely feeling confident
and being an expert as a teacher on the one hand, meanwhile feeling
unfamiliar and novice as a teacher educator on the other. This tension
in their professional identity could become a strong motivation for
them to learn the new aspects of their work and thereafter develop
a new professional identity as a teacher educator. However, such a
150
tension may also have severe consequences for their learning and
functioning and even cause them to quit teacher education and
leave the profession (cf. Pillen, 2013). Based on the research findings
of this dissertation, we strongly suggest to support beginning
teacher educators with entering their work and perform their new
professional role as a teacher educator more easily, for example, by
way of an induction programme (European Commission, 2013). This
dissertation has shown that teacher educators learn from interaction
with relevant others, so we suggest their induction support to be
organized in a learning community in which beginning teacher
educators feel safe to share and learn from their stories and struggles.
Induction support needs to be tailored to individual teacher educators’
learning needs, because of the diversity of their past experiences. We
suggest that beginning teacher educators work together with more
experienced teacher educators, in such a way that beginners are in
the opportunity to observe their experienced colleague and learn
from him/her as a role model and to receive individual feedback.
This dissertation has shown the importance of learning with relevant
others at teacher educators’ workplace. This suggests that providing
opportunities for teacher educators to have collective conversation
either about their teaching practices or research output relevant to
their work is important. In general, although sharing the common
broad purpose of teaching prospective teachers about teaching,
teacher educators are not well structured or organized as a group
in terms of the knowledge they share (cf. Berry, 2016). Creating
opportunities for teacher educators to get acquainted with each
other’s expertise may help them to feel a sense of belonging and
thus also help them with their professional identity development.
6
Although it is known or at least acknowledged that research is an
important resource for learning about practice, it is not particularly
found in Dutch and Chinese teacher educators’ as an integrated part
of their professional learning. As we discussed, Dutch and Chinese
teacher educators are more often engaged in traditional academic
research than in practitioner research. In these contexts, we see it
151
Chapter 6
as a challenge to broaden and reconsider views on teacher education

research and also (re-)conceptualize the role of teacher educators
in this respect. Doing practitioner research on the own teacher
education practice, like self-study, is acknowledged by many teacher
educators, particularly in the US and Australia, as an effective way
to improve their own practice and a powerful way of professional
learning. The internationally growing meaning behind provoking
teacher educators doing practitioner research on their own practices
is to provide them with (new) opportunities for seeing ways to
investigate teaching as well as to learn about teaching and having an
inquiry stance in their daily practice. In addition, forms of self-study
are often conducted by teacher educators collaboratively, for example
by two or three teacher educators who jointly study a common aspect
of their teaching practice. In turn, such collaboration can also be
seen as a kind of learning community, in which teacher educators
learn with and from each other. Conducting practitioner research
in a collaborative way is a good starting point for teacher educators
who are not familiar with research in the past and want to develop
themselves in research.
6.5 Limitations and future research

This dissertation consists of three consecutive studies to gain an
understanding of teacher educators’ professional learning: a review
study, a questionnaire study, and an interview study. The relevant
aspects concerning what teacher educators learn about their work,
the learning activities they undertake for that, and their reasons
for learning that were found in the literature were confirmed by
teacher educators’ practice. Two patterns of their professional
learning could be identified, namely a teaching related pattern and
a research related pattern. The results of this dissertation confirm
that teacher educators’ work is indeed a profession with its own
knowledge base. However, there are some certain limitations. The
collected research data in this dissertation consists mainly of self-
reported data, namely questionnaire and interview data. Those
152
data allowed us to gain insight into content aspects of what teacher

educators are learning, which activities they are using for learning,
and their reasons for professional learning. Doing participatory
research in the future could provide more details in what is going on
in their learning practice, and thus allow us to make more in-depth
portraits of teacher educators’ professional learning and to search
for similarities and differences in these portraits given the different
tasks teacher educators perform as well as the different contexts they
work in.
The way we chose to analyze our research data is based on an analytic
perspective which allowed us to get an overview of the categories and
themes of teacher educators’ learning content, learning activities, and
their reasons for learning. However, that analytic view does not allow
us to have a holistic view on each teacher educator, to connect his/
her past experience with what, how, and why he/she learns his/her
work, and to identify the uniqueness of each teacher educator. Future
research could continue studying teacher educators’ professional
learning from a professional identity perspective, focusing on how
their professional learning connects with the development of their
professional identity as a teacher educator.
One of the aims of the questionnaire study was to explore the
relevant aspects of teacher educators’ professional learning based on a
literature review in practice. We used the combined research data
(Dutch and Chinese) for the factor analysis given that a large sample
size may result in more reliable factors. By analyzing the combined
data, we did not take the heterogeneousity of teacher educators
in each country into account where teacher educators come from 6
different types of higher education institutes. In addition, it seems
that Dutch and Chinese teacher educators are not so well chosen
from a comparison perspective, because their professional learning
looks more similar than different. In future research, for comparative
reasons it is worthwhile to include other countries like the US and
Australia that have different traditions of teacher educators learning
their profession.
153
Chapter 6
We only focused on higher education-based teacher educators and

also explained why we made that decision in the introductory chapter
of this dissertation. Our research shows how higher education-based
teacher educators learn about their work, namely predominantly by
their personal endeavor on the job. We suggest that future research
also focuses on school-based teacher educators regarding what,
how, and why they learn about their work as a teacher educator
at the workplace. It can be imagined that their development of a
teacher educator identity and their professional learning may be
more difficult, as they are involved in their work as “teachers of
children (pupils)” and “teachers of teachers” at the same time. They
furthermore often work in isolation within their school context and
may lack the support of a “community of practice” of fellow school-
based teacher educators and/or of higher education-based teacher
educators (cf. Amott & Ang, 2019).
Although there are certain limitations, this dissertation is one
of the first Ph.D. research projects focusing on teacher educators’
professional learning in Dutch and Chinese contexts. It provides
an empirical overview of what teacher educators learn about their
work, how they learn that, and why they learn. As such it contributes
to the knowledge base about what matters in teacher educators’
profession from a learning perspective. This dissertation has shown
that teacher educators’ professional learning takes place on their
job on a daily basis. Teacher educators have great intrinsic motives
for learning about their work/profession, either through feelings of
personal interest or through feelings of responsibility for their work.
Teacher educators’ learning about teaching and research still seems
to be separated too much, which is a challenge for teacher educators
in terms of learning about teaching.
154
Understanding teacher educators' professional learning
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166
Appendices
Appendix A Original Questionnaire Chapter 3
A Survey on Teacher Educators' Professional learning
The questionnaire consists of five parts and may take you about 15 minutes to fill out. If you
are interested in the results of this research or willing to participate in a follow-up in-depth
interview study, please fill out your e-mail address at the end of the questionnaire. On a
final note, the personal information of this research will be held strictly confidential.
Part 1: General Background Questions
Please only tick one box.
1. What is your gender?
□ Male
□ Female
2. What is your age?
□ ≤ 24
□ 25-34
□ 35-44
□ 45-54
□ ≥ 55
3. What is the highest degree you have received?
□ Bachelor degree
□ Master degree
□ Ph.D. degree
□ Other, namely ________________________

4. What kind of institute do you work in?
□ Scientific University
□ University of Applied Sciences
□ Both
5. Which level of teacher education program are you involved in?
167
Appendices
□ Bachelor level
□ Master level
□ Both
6. Which teacher education program are you involved in at the present?
□ Primary education
□ Secondary education
□ Other, namely _____________________

7. What is the extent of your entire contract in the teacher education institution?
□ ≤ 1 day per week
□ 2-3 days per week

8. How many days do you spend on educating student teachers?
□ ≤ 1 day per week

9. How many years have you worked as a teacher in school setting, before you became a
teacher educator?
□ 0 year
□ ≤ 3 years
□ 4-6 years
□ 7-10 years
□ > 10 years
10. How many years have you worked as a teacher educator?
□ ≤ 3 years
□ 4-6 years
□ 7-10 years
168
□ > 10 years
11. What is your main task as a teacher educator? (More answers are possible.)
□ Teach courses
□ Mentor student teachers
□ Supervise student teacher research
□ Other, namely ________________________

12. Do you combine your work as a teacher educator with a research task?
□ Yes, as an integral part of my job
□ Yes, occasionally
□ No
13. How would you label yourself most?
□ General educational teacher educator
□ Subject-matter teacher educator
□ Other, namely __________________________
Part 2: Topics of Professional Learning
14. Could you please indicate to what extent you have learnt about the topics listed below
during your work as a teacher educator?
To a
Not
great
at all
extent
1). Student teacher individual learning needs
1 2 3 4
2). How student teachers learn 1 2 3 4
3). How to be a teacher of teachers 1 2 3 4
4). Theoretical underpinnings of different teaching
methods 1 2 3 4
5). Subject matter knowledge 1 2 3 4

6). How to design assignments for student teachers 1 2 3 4
7). General educational knowledge 1 2 3 4
8). Being a role model for student teachers 1 2 3 4
9). Contemporary issues of teacher education policy 1 2 3 4
10). Academic writing skills 1 2 3 4
169
Appendices
To a
Not at
great
all
extent
11). How to model my teaching to student teachers 1 2 3 4
12). How student teachers develop high-order thinking 1 2 3 4
13). The teacher educator as a researcher 1 2 3 4
14). How to relate my teaching to student teachers’
professional growth 1 2 3 4
15). The teacher educator as a mentor of student teachers 1 2 3 4

16). The knowledge and skills about reflection 1 2 3 4
17). How student teachers develop an inquiry-oriented
attitude 1 2 3 4
18). Educational research methods 1 2 3 4

19). How to connect practice and theory 1 2 3 4
20). How to mentor student teachers during their internship 1 2 3 4
21). Pedagogical knowledge(e.g., social-emotional wellbeing
of students) 1 2 3 4
22). How to create opportunities for student teachers to

think about teaching in general 1 2 3 4
23). How to deal with the criticism about my work 1 2 3 4

24). The teacher educator as a curriculum developer 1 2 3 4
25). How to select teaching methods 1 2 3 4
26). Didactic knowledge (e.g., teaching strategies) 1 2 3 4
27). How to contribute to developing teacher education
curriculum 1 2 3 4
28). How to design course modules 1 2 3 4

29). Being a model for my student teachers how to be
vulnerable 1 2 3 4
30). Practical knowledge of teacher educators 1 2 3 4
31). How to choose appropriate learning materials for
1 2 3 4
student teachers
32). The teacher educator as a discipline expert 1 2 3 4
33). Verbalization of implicit knowledge 1 2 3 4
34). How to conduct research 1 2 3 4
170
Part 3: Professional Learning Activities
15. Could you please indicate to what extent you have been engaged in the activities listed
below during your work as a teacher educator?
To a
Not
great
at all
extent
1). Exchanging ideas with school teachers 1 2 3 4
2). Discussing student teacher learning with colleagues 1 2 3 4
3). Participating induction program for beginning teacher
educators 1 2 3 4
4). Doing self-study on my own teacher education practice 1 2 3 4
5). Participating training program for conducting research 1 2 3 4
6). Doing academic research 1 2 3 4
7). Interacting with researchers 1 2 3 4
8). Participating in research projects 1 2 3 4
9). Trying out new ideas 1 2 3 4
10). Engaging in scholarly writing 1 2 3 4
11). Discussing with school teachers 1 2 3 4
12). Evaluating my course with student teachers 1 2 3 4
13). Attending scientific/professional conferences 1 2 3 4
14). Listening to ideas about teaching from student teachers 1 2 3 4
15). Doing action research on own teacher education
1 2 3 4
practice
16). Attending professional development workshops 1 2 3 4
17). Reading scientific/professional journals 1 2 3 4
18). Attending professional seminars 1 2 3 4
19). Keeping a reflective diary of my teaching practice 1 2 3 4
Part 4: Reasons for Professional Learning
16. Could you please indicate to what extent the following items have been the reasons for
your professional learning during your work?
To a
Not
great
at all
extent
1). Feeling obliged to learn due to the teacher education
reform policy 1 2 3 4
2). Being interested in examining educational issues more

in-depth 1 2 3 4
3). Receiving insufficient training in teaching adult learners 1 2 3 4

4). Feeling the need to integrate new technology into
teaching 1 2 3 4
5). Experiencing the change through my transition from

teacher to teacher educator 1 2 3 4
6). Feeling responsible to stimulate student teachers’

professional development 1 2 3 4
171
Appendices
To a
Not
great
at all
extent
7). Receiving insufficient training in becoming a teacher
educator 1 2 3 4
8). Feeling insufficient capable in guiding student teachers
conduct research 1 2 3 4
9). Desiring to extend didactic knowledge 1 2 3 4
10). Feeling uncertain about the pedagogy of teacher
education 1 2 3 4
11). Desiring to improve my mentoring of student teachers 1 2 3 4

12). Feeling obliged to learn due to the change of teacher
education program 1 2 3 4
13). Desiring to extend subject matter knowledge 1 2 3 4
14). Experiencing contradictions between personal values
and the reality of practice 1 2 3 4
15). Desiring to model for student teachers 1 2 3 4

16). Feeling provoked by the gap of teaching perceptions
between my student teachers and myself 1 2 3 4
17). Desiring to continuously develop myself as a teacher

educator 1 2 3 4
18). Feeling the need to meet external standards for student

1 2 3 4
teachers
19). Experiencing change in my professional identity from
teacher to teacher educator 1 2 3 4
20). Desiring to understand the theory that underpins the

practice 1 2 3 4
21). Feeling uncertain about the knowledge base for teaching

about teaching 1 2 3 4
22). Having had insufficient training in doing research 1 2 3 4
Part 5: Open questions
17. Would you like to comment on this questionnaire?
Please specify, _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________.
If you are interested in our research results or willing to participate in the following in-depth
interview study, please leave your email address, __________________________________.
This is the end of the questionnaire. Thank you very much for your participation and
cooperation!
172
Appendix B Item-item correlation of highly correlating scales

The abbreviations in the three correlation Tables below refer to the scales and item
numbers within the scales respectively. For example, G1 represents the first item of the
scale “Gettting input from others”. Each correlation Table is followed by a full description of
the items included.
G-PA item-item correlation
G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 G6 G7
PA1 ,375** ,329** ,463** ,373** ,398** ,441** ,321**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA2 ,246** ,230** ,285** ,254** ,257** ,263** ,196**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA3 ,308** ,469** ,383** ,328** ,476** ,513** ,273**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA4 ,216 **
,218 **
,236 **
,205 **
,244 **
,268 **
,243**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA5 ,187 **
,341 **
,228 **
,254 **
,363 **
,371 **
,150**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA6 ,171** ,200** ,205** ,199** ,261** ,239** ,222**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA7 ,233** ,319** ,254** ,260** ,395** ,413** ,164**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA8 ,284 **
,376 **
,399 **
,298 **
,385 **
,415 **
,301**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
PA9 ,238 **
,156 **
,245 **
,247 **
,243 **
,261 **
,192**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
576 576 576 576 576 576 576
Note: **p < .01, n = 576
173
Appendices
Abbreviations of the scales and items

Personal ambition PA1: being interested in examining educational issues more in-depth
(PA)
PA2: feeling the need to integrate new technology into teaching
PA3: feeling responsible to stimulate student teachers’ professional
development
PA4: desiring to extend didactic knowledge
PA5: desiring to improve my mentoring of student teachers
PA6: desiring to extend subject matter knowledge
PA7: desiring to model for student teachers
PA8: desiring to continuously develop myself as a teacher educator
PA9: desiring to understand the theory that underpins the practice
Getting input from G1 = exchanging ideas with school teachers
others (G)
G2 = discussing student teacher learning with colleagues
G3 = trying our new ideas
G4 = discussing with school teachers
G5 = evaluating my course with student teachers
G6 = listening to ideas about teaching from student teachers
G7 = attending professional development workshops
174
P-G item-item correlation
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13

G1 ,329** ,296** ,329** ,280** ,280** ,278** ,282** ,306** ,296** ,287** ,304** ,291** ,333**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583
G2 ,384** ,414** ,333** ,390** ,340** ,336** ,268** ,385** ,338** ,187** ,319** ,284** ,382**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583
G3 ,374** ,388** ,361** ,381** ,317** ,361** ,355** ,338** ,308** ,278** ,383** ,320** ,456**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583
G4 ,303 **
,351 **
,341 **
,297 **
,292 **
,357 **
,353 **
,361 **
,319 **
,340 **
,328 **
,315 **
,387**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583
G5 ,392 **
,435 **
,294 **
,409 **
,334 **
,372 **
,290 **
,405 **
,321 **
,261 **
,374 **
,351 **
,450**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583
G6 ,445 **
,432 **
,328 **
,438 **
,361 **
,406 ,336
** **
,404 **
,395 **
,286 **
,350 **
,395 **
,519**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583
G7 ,211 **
,246 **
,301 **
,221 **
,165 **
,248 **
,228 **
,244 **
,259 **
,210 **
,282 ,184
** **
,311**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583 583
Note: ** p < .01, n = 583
175
Appendices

Pedagogy of P1 = student teacher individual learning needs
teacher education
P2 = how student teachers learn
(P)
P3 = how to be a teacher of teachers
P4 = how to design assignments for student teachers
P5 = being a role model for student teachers
P6 = how to model my teaching to student teachers
P7 = how student teachers develop high-order thinking
P8 = how to relate my teaching to student teachers’ professional
growth
P9 = the teacher educator as a mentor of student teachers
P10 = the knowledge and skills of reflection
P11 = how student teachers develop an inquiry-oriented attitude
P12 = how to mentor student teachers during their internship
P13 = how to create opportunities for student teachers to think about
teaching in gener
Getting input G1 = exchanging ideas with school teachers
from others (G)
G2 = discussing student teacher learning with colleagues
G3 = trying our new ideas
G4 = discussing with school teachers
G5 = evaluating my course with student teachers
G6 = listening to ideas about teaching from student teachers
G7 = attending professional development workshops
176
R-LA item-item correlation
R1 R2 R3 R4
LA1 ,515** ,493** ,479** ,524**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583
LA2 ,366 **
,494 **
,438 **
,457**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583
LA3 ,449 **
,486 **
,465 **
,504**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583
LA4 ,632 **
,487 **
,433 **
,568**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583
LA5 ,243** ,380** ,303** ,316**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583
LA6 ,263 **
,401 **
,342 **
,390**
,000 ,000 ,000 ,000
583 583 583 583
Note: ** p < .01, n = 583

Research (R) R1 = academic writing skills
R2 = the teacher educator as a researcher
R3 = educational research methods
R4 = how to conduct research
Learning through LA1 = doing academic research
academic engagement
LA2 = interacting with researchers
(LA)
LA3 = participating in research projects
LA4 = engaging in scholarly writing
LA5 = attending scientific/professional conferences
LA6 = reading scientific/professional journals
177
Appendices
Appendix C Significant independent t-test results on the item

level for Chinese and Dutch participants
Items CN NL

R1 2.99 (.82) 1.91 (.93) 14.16**
R2 3.00 (.86) 2.59 (.96) 5.26**
R3 2.97 (.85) 2.42 (.96) 7.00**
R4 3.02 (.80) 2.35 (1.00) 8.43**
LA1 3.12 (.85) 2.10 (1.20) 11.01**
LA2 2.99 (.89) 2.54 (1.00) 5.55**
LA3 3.13 (.88) 2.33 (1.06) 9.49**
LA4 3.13 (.82) 2.20 (1.07) 11.13**
LA5 2.97 (.95) 3.14 (.84) -2.19*
LR2 2.99 (.81) 2.23 (1.02) 9.26**
LR3 2.97 (.89) 2.03 (.98) 11.646*
LR4 2.57 (.98) 1.54 (.82) 13.55**
G7 2.55 (1.02) 3.00 (.90) -5.52**
Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01
178
Summary
Understanding teacher educators’ professional learning
Teacher educators, a neglected group of professionals for quite some

time, are gradually receiving more attention from educational policy,
research, and within teacher education institutes themselves.
This dissertation focuses on teacher educators who work in higher
education institutes. In general, higher education-based teacher
educators come from two routes. One route is through a practitioner
path, namely experienced school teachers who leave their schools and
become a teacher educator. The other route is through an academic
path, followed by those who immediately after having got their Ph.D.
degree in their subject enter the profession like other academics
do in other professional fields. However, neither of both routes is
sufficient for preparing a professional teacher educator. There is
hardly any initial preparation program and only limited support for
teacher educators to grow into the profession, for example, through
an induction program. Overall, teacher educators in higher education
face a situation in which they learn their work by doing it and what
and how they learn to do their work largely depends on themselves at
their workplace. Scholars in teacher education are trying to understand
the characteristic of teacher educators’ work and the professional
roles that teacher educators are taking in their daily working context.
However, not much is known about teacher educators learning of their
profession at their workplace. Against this background, this doctoral
dissertation addresses the following central research question: what are
the key aspects of teacher educators’ learning their work, how do they
learn those aspects, and for what reasons?
This dissertation adds to the increasing acknowledgement of
and giving shape to the teacher educators’ profession from a learning
perspective. It starts with a presentation of a review of the literature to
get an overview of what has been investigated so far (Chapter 2). The
review approach consisted of a comprehensive search of all potentially
relevant research papers about teacher educators’ professional learning
179
Summary
and teacher educators’ professional development, including the use

of explicit criteria in the selection of papers for review. This review
resulted in a comprehensive list of main categories and subcategories,
including a brief description of each subcategory, regarding the
content of teacher educators’ learning, their learning activities, and
their reasons for learning. The main categories regarding the content of
teacher educators’ learning pertain to: pedagogy of teacher education,
research and reflection, professional identity, and knowledge base.
The main categories regarding their learning activities are: learning
through academic engagement, learning through collaborative activity,
learning through reflective activity, and learning through attending
professional development programs. The main categories regarding
their reasons for learning include: external requirement, personal
ambition, and professional role transition. Based on this categorization
of the results, it can be concluded that the review study presented in
Chapter 2 contributes to the understanding of the key aspects of teacher
educators’ professional learning and provides a starting point for future
theoretical and empirical studies in discussing teacher educators’ work
and professional learning.
The questionnaire study presented in Chapter 3 empirically
investigated teacher educators’ perceptions and recognition of the
key aspects derived from the review study. The results of this review
study were used to construct a digital questionnaire. For this purpose,
the main categories of the review study regarding the what, how and
why of the professional learning of teacher educators have been used
as a framework for the preliminary scales of the questionnaire; text
fragments selected from the research articles belonging to each main
category served as input for the operationalization of the scales into
items. A total of 583 Chinese and Dutch teacher educators (working
in different types of higher education institutes) completed the
questionnaire. Nine professional learning scales based on a principal
component analysis (PCA) were empirically recognized and perceived
as more or less relevant to their practice by the teacher educators.
These nine professional learning scales are: pedagogy of teacher
180
education, research, and curriculum regarding the content of their

learning; learning through academic engagement, learning through
reflective activity, and getting input from others regarding the activities
of their learning; and personal ambition, external requirement, and
professional role transition regarding the reasons for their learning.
The teacher educators’ scores on these nine professional learning scales
indicate: 1) a certain consensus among teacher educators’ perceptions
about learning pedagogy of teacher education, 2) agreement among
teacher educators on the interactive activity as their most common way
of learning, and 3) a strong intrinsic desire by teacher educators to learn
their work. Teacher educators’ perceptions of these nine professional
learning scales appeared to relate with certain of their background
variables. Specifically, participants who hold a Ph.D. degree as the
highest educational degree, who combined teacher education work
with a research task and who saw themselves as a researcher, scored
higher on learning about research and being engaged in academic
activities. Besides, the more days per week that participants spent on
educating student teachers, the more they seemed to focus on learning
“pedagogy of teacher education” and “curriculum”, and the more often
they appeared to be engaged in the activity of “getting input from others”.
When comparing Chinese and Dutch teacher educators’ perceptions,
it appeared that Chinese teacher educators seem to focus more on
learning research and to be engaged more in academic and reflective
activities than their Dutch colleagues do; Dutch teacher educators
seem to be engaged in the activity of getting input from others more
often than their Chinese colleagues do. Overall, the results presented
in Chapter 3 confirm the aspects identified in the review study; they are
also recognized and perceived as more or less relevant to their practice by
teacher educators.
Chapter 4 presents a further exploration of the questionnaire
results on item level. More specifically, the selection and connection
of highly correlated scales across what, how, and why of teacher
educators’ professional learning resulted in two learning patterns.
The first one is a teaching related pattern, namely teacher educators’
181
Summary
personal interest in learning about the pedagogy of teacher education

through getting input from others. The second one is a research related
pattern, namely teacher educators’ learning about research through
academic engagement and reflective activity. Further exploration on
questionnaire items shows that the teaching related pattern appeared
to be characterized by teacher educators’ feeling responsible to
stimulate student teachers’ learning by focusing on facilitating their
learning and using their input for that. The research related pattern
emphasizes teacher educators’ learning of research by conducting
research themselves or being involved in research projects. We further
explored the items of the scales with significant differences between
the Chinese and Dutch teacher educators’ scores. Results indicate
that Chinese teacher educators seem to be more involved in research
projects and do keep a reflective diary more often than their Dutch
colleagues do. In contrast, Dutch teacher educators seem to attend
conferences and workshops more often than their Chinese colleagues
do. Overall, the results presented in Chapter 4 contribute to adding
specific information to the current questionnaire results regarding
the correlations between the scales and by giving meaning to the
differences between Chinese and Dutch teacher educators’ professional
learning as reported in Chapter 3.
The interview study presented in Chapter 5 empirically
investigated teacher educators’ personal examples of their professional
learning in practice. Eleven Dutch teacher educators were selected for
participation in this study based on their scores on the professional
learning scales in the questionnaire study. They were selected because
of their high mean scores on the questionnaire items regarding
the content of their learning and because of the fact that they had
predominantly defined themselves as a teacher of teachers. The semi-
structured interview consisted of three main sections: 1) questions
about background information of the participants, 2) questions about
their main tasks as a teacher educator in their current institute, and
3) questions about personal examples of their professional learning
pertaining to what they learned, how they learned, and why they
182
learned. These learning examples were analyzed into themes regarding

the content of their learning, their learning activities, and their
reasons for learning. Of the content themes, most examples they gave
referred to the themes “pedagogy knowledge” and “experience based
knowledge”. By contrast, they only gave a few examples regarding the
themes “professional identity” and “management and leadership”.
Of the learning activities, in general, teacher educators reported to
undertake more types of informal learning activities ( for example,
“learning from practicing and testing” and “learning from interacting
and discussing with others”) than formal ones (for example, “attending
professional development programs”). Of the reasons for learning,
teacher educators often reported their personal interest in learning or
their personal characteristics like having a curious personality as their
motives for learning. Besides, teacher educators’ appreciations of the
value and the meaning of their job turned to be representative reasons
for their learning. As such, the results presented in Chapter 5, though
being small-scaled, contribute to making teacher educators’ profession
more visible by exemplifying what, how, and why teacher educators
learn during their work.
Chapter 6 summarizes and discusses the main findings of the
studies described in previous chapters. It also discusses some limitations,
particularly regarding the way we chose to analyze our research data
that was based on an analytic perspective in order to get an overview of
the categories and themes of teacher educators’ professional learning.
This perspective differs from a holistic view on each teacher educator
that allows us to connect his/her individual (past) experiences and
specific contexts with what, how, and why he/she learn his/her work.
Therefore, some suggestions for future research pertain to doing
participatory research to provide more in-depth information about
teacher educators’ learning practice. It is also suggested to focus future
research on how teacher educators’ professional learning connects with
the development of their professional identity as a teacher educator. For
comparative reasons, it is worthwhile for future research to include more
countries than the Netherlands and China that have different traditions
183
Summary
regarding teacher educators’ learning about their profession, including

perceptions of research done by teacher educators. Although there are
certain limitations, this dissertation provides an empirical overview of
what teacher educators learn about their work, the learning activities
they undertake for that, and their reasons for learning about their work.
It can be concluded that teacher educators professionally learn different
aspects of their work, that they predominantly learn these informally
on the job on a daily basis, and that they are intrinsically motivated to
learn about their work/profession. Teacher educators’ learning about
teaching and research still seems to be separated too much, which is a
challenge for teacher educators in terms of learning about their work.
184
Acknowledgement
Dating back to the summer in 2015, I could still remember how excited
I was when I knew that I successfully got the Chinese scholarship to
pursue my PhD study in the Netherlands. At the same time, studying
in the Netherlands is more like an adventure for me because of the
unknown. Now, this challenging journey comes to the end with a lot of
unforgettable memories.
How fortunate I am to meet my supervisors Douwe and Gonny, who

have won the Best Supervisor Prize (VOR Promovendi Overleg)! Thank
you for your trust and constant encouragement, your patience, and
understanding that I need your extra help than other PhD students.
Douwe, when ESoE still had offices in Traverse, your room 3.26 is a magic
place for me. I came into your room with puzzles, and even sometimes
with the thought that I couldn’t continue, and I usually left your office
feeling that I knew where to move on. During the supervision meetings,
you often ask me “Cui, how do you think? What do you want? Are you
satisfied?” Gradually I can express more about what I think and what
I want, sometimes even without your question, I can just explain my
ideas or even ask you questions in our meetings. I think all the changes
happened to me is because of your guide step by step during the past
five years. I am appreciated that you give me the freedom and time to
try my ideas instead of pushing me to do what you want. Sometimes
it turned out my idea doesn’t work, but you never let me lost in my
research, which makes me feel safe with exploring. No matter how busy
you were, you kept our supervision meetings every two weeks, and
you always read and prepared before our meetings. Thank you for role
modelling interview scenario in your office for me and thank you for
checking everything in my manuscript. From which, I learn to treat
every research detail seriously.
Gonny, thank you for keeping your door always open for me and giving
priority to me even when you are busy with your own research. I enjoy
brainstorming with you, and I like the discussions we had about one
185
research paper, about one concept, and about the details of every
data analysis step. All these discussions with you make me feel more
and more interested in doing research. I still remember at the start
of my PhD, we kept weekly meeting, you taught me to do research
step by step, you explained to me what was expected to do research in
the Netherlands. Gonny, thank you for your kindness. I guess all my
emotional moments during PhD study all went to you. I will remember
your big smile and our “girl power”! Thank you for sharing your happy
moment with me and explaining the Dutch tradition festival to me. My
last conference in Romania, we were together, and our fun trip to that
park will be in my deep memory!
My great appreciation also goes to the committee members for their

valuable time in reviewing this thesis. I would also thank all the
committee members to adjust their time schedules for my new defence
date at this special moment.
My special thanks to Dr. Juyan Ye, associate professor from Center for
Teacher Education Research, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal
University, China. Thank you so much for helping me conducting
the questionnaire in higher education institutes in China. Thank you
for reviewing the translated questionnaire and later on reviewing the
manuscript. It was so nice to meet you in person in Beijing, and our
chats helped me to understand Chinese teacher educators’ daily lives
more vividly. I am so glad that we still keep contacted and hope we
could collaborate more in the future.
I want to express my thanks to my dear colleagues in ESoE. Connie and

Elvira, thank you for your warm welcome on my first day in ESoE. I got
so many extra help from you alongside my PhD. Tim, I am so lucky
to share one office with you for almost 2 years. In my impression, you
like asking questions: “ok, but why…?”, “Cui, how do you think?” and “I
am very interested in Chinese culture, could you tell me…?” About one
year later, Farran joined our office and after that, our office was full of
discussions about quantum mechanics and mathematics. I am grateful
186
that you never leave me out of the discussions, although I may not have
a word. Surrounded by your questions and discussions, it helped me
to think about my studies from a different perspective. Gradually, we
three are like a small research community, sharing our research and
helping each other. Tim, thank you for inviting me to your home several
times to be together with your family members, which makes me feel
the warmth of home. It is so nice to hear you saying that “hi Cui, I will
try to come to the office to talk to you, otherwise you feel too lonely. To
be honest, I feel very productive when I work from home, but I will try
my best to come.” Even now, when I told you my defence date changed,
you immediately replied to me: “I have put the date on my agenda and
I will be there to support you!” People used to ask me do you feel lonely
in a different country with a different culture? My answer is “Not really’
without thinking too long. I think this is the reason! Tim and Farran,
we used to share a lot about our dreams and struggles. I believe all the
things we encountered will finally make us stronger!
Dear Lesley “mama’, I do not mean you are old but the feeling you
gave me. Please forgive my direct expression which I may learn from
Dutch, but it is the exact feeling I have in my deep mind. You are like
a superwoman and almost know everything. Sometimes I am afraid of
looking at you because you can read from my eyes and facial expressions.
You care about my life the most. You are the one who encourages and
sometimes pushes me a bit to go beyond my confront zone. With your
help, I learned how to bicycle; with your advice, I chose to be brave and
active looking for what I want; with your care, I feel safe and powerful
because I know Lesley is there to offer help no matter what I met.
Marieke, since I started my PhD, we are always neighbours. Thank you

so much for offering feedback to my first study and sending relevant
papers to me. I learn a lot from you about how to effectively manage
daily work. Thank you for your kindness to be next to me and explain
things in English for me. In my impression, you are a very enthusiastic
researcher full of positive energy!
187
Antonie, thanks for reviewing my chapter and giving me constructive
feedback. I once had a short conversation with you at the beginning of
my PhD. That happened in somebody’s reception, you asked me “How
is everything going?’ I said: “I am fine. But it is quite challenging to
speak English all the time.” You replied to me: “That is the same for us.
English is not our native language, so it is also a challenge for us.” Your
answer to some degree reminded me that I was wearing my minority
glass to see things and ignore the entire picture.
Kostis, we are sitting near each other quiet often after moving to Atlas,
and I am gradually used to listen to your history and agricultural
"lessons" every day. Somehow, if you are not coming to the office, I will
feel “strange”. Later on, Anna, Ayse and Mara joined ESoE, which makes
the community more international than before. I enjoyed our chats and
our sharing of the must-to-do things in the Netherlands.
Nan, you are the first Chinese PhD in ESoE, and I joined two years later.
Thank you for your practical help with doing research and about life in
the Netherlands. I feel lucky to meet you in an unfamiliar place, which
makes me feel safe at the beginning. Saskia, since you come to ESoE,
you brought a lot of fun to this community. Thank you for your patient
listening and your practical tips in my stressful thesis-writing period.
Maaike, thank you for answering all my questions about research, no
matter how small it is, you were always willing to offer help. Janneke,
thank you for willing to be my paranymph. I enjoy our Monday chats
after moving to Atlas. Your charming smile always makes me feel
comfortable. Evelien, it is so nice to play with your lovely children
on that sunny afternoon. Jannet, thanks for inviting me to Efteling
with you! I enjoy that day, and I want to say that sitting in your car
is more exciting than playing the roller-coaster. Zeger-Jan, you are the
first teacher educator I have interviewed. What I didn’t expect is your
saying “You are doing good!” after the interview. Thank you for your
encouragement! Marlos, since you changed your working day on Friday,
we had a small team to have fun conversations at lunchtime. I would
like to say thank you to those who helped me at the start of my PhD,
188
Heleen, Daphne, and Michiel.
I owe my thanks to dear friends I met in the Netherlands. We saw

each other’s ups and downs, and at the same time, we witnessed each
other’s growth. Bo, thank you for your help on our first day in the
Netherlands. In memory, that day was very long, and you helped us
to settle down everything. In the past years, we were glad that we saw
your many important moments in life, Weiying and Chuyi. Minghe and
Lingling, our trips to Nice and Cologne all became a nice memory to
remember. Special thanks to Xiaofei and Shiya, we used to live in the
same apartment about half a year. I enjoyed and missed a lot about
our weekend gathering together and our small trips in the Netherlands.
Our unique interpretation of the arts in Louvre still makes me laugh
now. Thank you for taking care of me when I was sick and I feel sorry
that I ruined our plan to Hungary. I also want to say thank you to my
friends Yuyang, Yang, and their lovely son Jiamu, who kept company
with me and gave me a lot of help at that special moment. Zhenzhen
and Qi, our coffee break time became a happy moment during the
workdays. Zhenzhen was the most cheerful guy in our group and he
told us “Dream big!” Qi and Jiankang, our weekend yoga lessons and
brunch were full of fun! You are my lucky stars who gave me the tips just
at the right moment! I will pay extreme attention to the environmental
protection to express my gratitude. Yanan, thank you for designing the
nice thesis cover. I also want to say thank you to my dear friends in
China for being in touch and supporting me.
亲爱的妈妈，谢谢您无条件的支持与爱，也谢谢您的理解。生命像一
个轮回，小时候我需要您的陪伴，长大了您需要我的陪伴。感谢小
姨，小姨夫一家人在我不在的时候关心照顾妈妈。你们辛苦啦！
最后，想对我的男朋友刘政说一声谢谢。谢谢你无尽的包容与支持!
回忆往昔我们一起经历了很多开心的时刻，悲伤的时刻，迷茫无助的
时刻，也逐渐明白了生活的不易。你我相识因为缘分，相处舒适更是
幸运，愿执手偕老!
平翠
May, 2020
189
190
Curriculum Vitae
Cui Ping was born on 25-09-1989 in Dandong, Liaoning Province,
China. After finishing high school education, in 2008 she started
her study on Primary Education at Bohai University in Liaoning,
China. Cui obtained her Master degree in Comparative Education
from Northeast Normal University. Her master thesis consisted of
an analysis of the characteristics of the development of a knowledge
base for teacher educators in the Netherlands from a comparative
perspective. From 2015, Cui started her PhD project at the Eindhoven
School of Education (Eindhoven University of Technology) of which
the results are presented in this dissertation. Since February 2020, she
works as a post-doc researcher at the Eindhoven School of Education.
191
192
List of publications
Publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2018). Teacher educators’

professional learning: A literature review. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 75, 93-104.
Ping, C., Schellings, G., Beijaard, D., & Ye, J. (2020). Teacher educators’
professional learning: Perceptions of Dutch and Chinese teacher
educators. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. Advance online
publication. doi:10.1080/1359866X.2020.1725808
Book chapters
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2019). Learning the Teacher
Educator Profession. In: Peters M. (Eds), Encyclopedia of Teacher
Education. Singapore: Springer.
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (accepted). Understanding

what, how, and why teacher educators learn through their personal
examples of learning. In D.R. Andron & G. Gruber (Eds.), Education
beyond crisis: Challenges and directions in a multicultural world.
Leiden: Brill | Sense press.
Conference contributions
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2017). Teacher educators’

professional learning: A review of the literature. Paper presented at
the 17th Pre-conference of the Junior Researchers of EARLI, August 27-
28, Tampere, Finland.
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2018). A survey study into
teacher educators’ professional learning. Paper presented at the
Winter Conference of the Association for Teacher Education in
Europe, February 15-16, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2019). Insights into Dutch
teacher educators’ professional learning. Paper presented at the 19th
Biennial meeting of the International Study Association on Teachers
and Teaching (ISATT), July 1-5, Sibiu, Romania.
193
194
List of ESoE dissertation series
Sande, R. A. W. van de (2007). Competentiegerichtheid en scheikunde
leren: Over metacognitieve opvattingen, leerresultaten en
leeractiviteiten.
Hooreman, R. (2008). Synchronous coaching of trainee teachers: an
experimental approach.
Rajuan, M. (2008). Student teachers’ perceptions of learning to teach
as a basis for supervision of the mentoring relationship.
Raessens, B. A. M. (2009). De E-kubus: Een analysemodel voor curricula.
Rohaan, E. J. (2009). Testing teacher knowledge for technology teaching
in primary schools.
Oemar Said, E. (2009). De Da Vinci Case: Een onderzoek naar de
relaties tussen vernieuwende leeromgevingen en de motivatie en
regulatievoorkeuren van leerlingen in het MBO.
Koopman, M. (2010). Students’ goal orientations, information processing
strategies and knowledge development in competence-based pre-
vocational secondary education.
Mittendorff, K. M. (2010). Career conversations in senior secondary
vocational education.
Crasborn, F. J. A. J., & Hennissen, P. P. M. (2010). The skilled mentor.
Mentor teachers’ use and acquisition of supervisory skills.
Bragt, C. A. C. van (2010). Students’ educational careers in Higher
Education: A search into key regarding study outcome.
Bakker, G. de (2010). Allocated only reciprocal peer support via instant
messaging as a candidate for decreasing the tutoring load of teachers.
Vos, M. A. J. (2010). Interaction between teachers and teaching materials:
On the implementation of context-based chemistry education.
Bruin-Muurling, G. (2010). The development of proficiency in the
fraction domain.
Cornelissen, L. J. F. (2011). Knowledge processes in school-university
research networks.
Kraemer, J.-M. (2011). Oplossingsmethoden voor aftrekken tot 100.
Stiphout, I. M. van (2011). The development of algebraic proficiency.
Saeli, M. (2012). Teaching programming for secondary school: A
195
pedagogical content knowledge based approach.
Putter-Smits, L. G. A. de (2012). Science teachers designing context-based
curriculum materials: Developing context-based teaching competence.
Ketelaar, E. (2012). Teachers and innovations: on the role of ownership,
sense-making and agency.
Dehing, F. (2012). Preparing students for workplace learning in higher
engineering education.
Vrijnsen-de Corte, M. C. W. (2012). Researching the teacher-researcher.
Practice-based research in Dutch professional development schools.
Doppenberg, J. J. (2012). Collaborative teacher learning: Settings, foci
and powerful moments.
Linden, P. W. J. van der (2012). A design-based approach to introducing
student teachers in conducting and using research.
Diggelen, M. R. van (2013). Effects of a self-assessment procedure on
VET teachers’ competencies in coaching students’ reflection skills.
Gorissen, P. J. B. (2013). Facilitating the use of recorded lectures:
Analysing students’ interactions to understand their navigational
needs.
Keuvelaar-van den Bergh, L. (2013). Teacher feedback during active
learning: The development and evaluation of a professional
development programme.
Pillen, M. T. (2013). Professional identity tensions of beginning teachers.
Marée, T. J. (2013). Scripted collaborative enriched skeleton concept
mapping to foster meaningful learning.
Gómez Puente, S. M. (2014). Design-based learning: Exploring and
educational approach for engineering education.
Coninx, N. S. (2014). Measuring effectiveness of synchronous coaching
using Bug-In-Ear device of pre-service teachers.
Griethuijsen, R.A.L.F. van (2015). Relationships between students’
interest in science, views of science and science teaching in upper
primary and lower secondary education.
Want, A. C., van der (2015). Teachers’ interpersonal role identity.
Bogert, N. J. van den (2016). On teachers’ visual perception and
interpretation of classroom events using eye tracking and collaborative
196
tagging methodologies.
Beer, H. T. de (2016). Exploring instantaneous speed in grade 5: A
design research.
Kock, Z. D. Q. P. (2016). Towards physics education in agreement with
the nature of science: Grade 9 electricity as a case.
Slangen, L. A. M. P. (2016). Teaching robotics in primary school.
Leeferink, H. (2016). Leren van aanstaande leraren op en van de
werkplek.
Bent, G. J. W. (2016). Exploring geography teaching in primary
education: Perspectives of teachers, teacher educators and pupils.
Hoogland, K. (2016). Images of numeracy. Investigating the effects
of visual representations of problem situations in contextual
mathematical problem solving.
Wal-Maris, S. J. van der (2017). Meaning-oriented learning in Dutch
academic primary teacher education.
Heldens, H. P. F. (2017). Teacher educator collaboration: Activities,
networks and dynamics.
Heijden, H. R. M. A. van der (2017). Teachers who make a difference:
An investigation into teachers as change agents in primary education.
Swinkels, M. F. J. (2017). Learning to teach with a focus on student
learning.
Gresnigt, H.L.L. (2018). Integrated curricula: An approach to strengthen
Science & Technology in primary education.
Lok, A.E. (2019). Using digital video in teacher education and in
professional development activities to stimulate teaching for active
learning in Cambodia.
Li, N. (2020). Analyzing online in-service teacher training courses in
China.
Vaessen, B.E. (2020). Students’ perceptions of assessment and student
learning in higher education courses.
Vennix, J. (2020). Outreach learning environments and student
motivation in STEM.
Ping, C. (2020). Understanding teacher educators’ professional learning.
197

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UNDERSTANDING TEACHER

EDUCATORS' PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

© 2020 Cui Ping

A catalogue record is available from the Eindhoven University of Technology

Cover design: Cui Ping, Yanan Liu

Printed by: ProefschriftMaken

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische

geboren te Liaoning, China

Het onderzoek of ontwerp dat in dit proefschrift wordt beschreven is uitgevoerd

Chapter 1 - General introduction 11

Chapter 2 - Teacher educators' professional learning: A literature review 23

Chapter 3 - Teacher educators' professional learning: Perceptions of Dutch and Chinese

Chapter 4 - A further exploration of the questionnaire results 85

Chapter 6 - Conclusions and discussions 133

1.1 Focus of the dissertation

learn about their profession.

also wishes to gain insight into similarities and differences between

1.2 Theoretical framework 1

and cultural context, but becoming a teacher educator is challenging

1.2.2 Teacher educators' professional learning

face-to-face meetings (Vanassche et al., 2015). Nevertheless, most

1.3 Central aim and research questions

1. How do Dutch and Chinese teacher educators perceive relevant

1.4 Context of the dissertation

educator of general pedagogy. Different types of higher education

1.5 Relevance of the research

a theoretical point of view, the studies in this dissertation add to

1.6 Overview of the dissertation

professional learning in practice. This chapter also describes the

Figure 1.1 An overview of the three consecutive studies in this dissertation

Teacher educators' professional learning: A

This study reports on a systematic review of what, how, and why

(Swennen, Shagrir, & Cooper, 2009).

further research on this topic.

2.2.1 The literature search

2.2.2 Selection of abstracts

decisions about the articles’ further analysis. The abstracts were

Figure 2.1 The selection process of research articles for review

2.2.3 Analysis of the articles

of the first and second groups.

Table 2.1 Examples of content, activities, and reasons summaries

Number Author and Content Activity Reason

2 Karagior and Improving Formal learning Feeling

3 Willemse and Contributing Collaborating None

4 Davey, Ham, Developing a Engaging in None

We followed three steps to categorize the relevant fragments from

2.3.1 Professional learning content

use of resources that could be directly applied into their teaching

from Fletcher and Casey (2014), who distinguished three procedures

and analysis of data. For example, Kosnik et al. (2015) interviewed

Categorya Subcategoryb A brief description of the subcategory Study

Categorya Subcategoryb A brief description of the subcategory Study

The subcategory reflection pertains to teacher educators’ reflective

the identity development of a teacher educator showed a clear

or organization of the modules). The subject knowledge and

relationships among teacher educators: a sense of cooperation and

2.3.2 Professional learning activities

the aim to develop theoretical knowledge. In a study conducted

Learning through collaborative activity

The subcategory learning community refers to a group of teacher

The subcategory attending educational professional development

newly designed elementary science methods course. She also read

2.3.3 Reasons for professional learning