Learning through perplexities in inquiry-based learning settings in teacher education

ABSTRACTThe concept of inquiry-based learning has become widespread in teacher education in Europe and beyond. Inquiry-based learning courses aim to raise the research competence of (preservice) teachers and to increase their ability for reflection, uncertainties occur that have to be learned to cope with. Uncertainties can be disorienting and may cause perplexities, doubts and crises. However, they can be the starting point for learning processes. This paper addresses whether preservice teachers experience such uncertainties in research courses and how they discuss them. To obtain data, 10 group discussions were carried out with 35 preservice teachers enrolled in research courses at a German university. The discussions were analysed using the documentary method. Preservice teachers experience a range of perplexities as expression of underlying uncertainties within and through the research process (concerning data collection and data analysis) and the course design. Results also show two different ways of dealing with such perplexities: While in some group discussions the preservice teachers accept the perplexities as challenges and starting points for learning, others distance from them. The paper discusses how the experienced perplexities and uncertainties focus on central aspects and tensions of teaching. Implications for teacher education at university level are presented.KEYWORDS: Inquiry-based learningteacher educationuncertaintyperplexitiesdocumentary methodgroup discussions Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Evidence can also be found in publications that focus on several programs of undergraduate education other than teacher education (Brew & Mantai, Citation2017), for Australia (Spronken-Smith et al., Citation2012), for New Zealand (Levy & Petrulis, Citation2012), for UK.2. According to Koller (Citation2017), the German term ‘Bildung’ can be described as ‘an experience that the subject comes out of changed; a change which not only affects one’s thinking, but rather the subject’s relation to the world, to others, and to itself’ (Koller, Citation2017, p. 33).3. Teacher education in Germany is usually two-phased, consisting of a Bachelor degree (after six semesters) and a Master degree (after further four semesters). To become a full teacher, an additional supervised pedagogical training in schools (probationary teaching), lasting at a minimum one year, is obligatory.4. Two authors of this paper were instructors in a course and as researchers responsible for data collection and data analysis of the whole study.5. It is a characteristic of documentary method that it goes beyond the analysis of single cases by formulating more abstract results based on using case-external comparisons (e.g. Bohnsack, Citation2018). That is why the documentary method uses cases (e.g. group discussions), but is not seen as a ‚case study‘.6. We used the following transcription signs:/= abruption of an utterance, a word or a sentence;//= overlapping speech; […] = omission.Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the Kompetenzzentrum Nachhaltige Universität der Universität Hamburg (Competence Center for a Sustainable University, University of Hamburg).