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Teacher Education for Researchbased

Practice in Expanded Roles: Finland's
experience
a

Ian Westbury , SvenErik Hansn , Pertti Kansanen & Ole

Bjrkvist

University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign

bo Akademi University , Finland

University of Helsinki , Finland

Published online: 24 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Ian Westbury , SvenErik Hansn , Pertti Kansanen & Ole Bjrkvist (2005)
Teacher Education for Researchbased Practice in Expanded Roles: Finland's experience,
Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 49:5, 475-485, DOI: 10.1080/00313830500267937
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Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

Vol. 49, No. 5, November 2005, pp. 475485

Teacher Education for Research-based

Practice in Expanded Roles: Finlands
experience
Ian Westburya, Sven-Erik Hansenb, Pertti Kansanenc* and
Ole Bjorkvistb
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; bAbo Akademi University, Finland;
University of Helsinki, Finland

a
c

Preparing teachers for a research-based professionalism has been the central mission of teacher
education in Finland since the mid-1970s. More recently, as a result of such national policy
developments as school-based curriculum development and local decision-making, the conception
of teachers work and professionalism has expanded. Drawing on experience within the teacher
bo Akademi University, this paper
education programmes at the University of Helsinki and A
discusses some of the programmatic issues that these developments have raised in class-teacher, i.e.
elementary, teacher education programmes. We focus in particular firstly on the research thesis
that is a part of every teacher education programme in Finland, and the hallmark of the researchbased professional ideal; and, secondly on the emerging issues that derive from the need to
incorporate the expanded understanding of the teachers role within the curriculum of teacher
education.

Keywords: Curriculum of teacher education; Research-based teaching; Student teaching; Teacher

education

Introduction
Over the past 20 or so years teacher education in Finland has gone through a process
of reconstruction which has been directed, most fundamentally, by the quest for a
stable research-oriented approach to teaching, grounded in the idea of the teacher as
a professional. Teacher education has been consolidated in faculties of education
in eight of Finlands universities and preparation for elementary teachers reorganised
as a 4-year programme leading to a masters degree, involving in all cases a thesis.1
Recently new demands around teacher education have emerged. There is a call for
*Corresponding author. Department of Applied Sciences of Education, PO Box 9
(Siltavuorenpenger 20), FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: pertti.kansanen@
helsinki.fi
ISSN 0031-3831 (print)/ISSN 1430-1170 (online)/05/050475-11
2005 Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research
DOI: 10.1080/00313830500267937

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extended and more systematised collaboration centred around school-based

curricula, and thus better-developed abilities on the part of teachers for individual
and collective reflection. In this paper we will be highlighting the implications of
these themes in the patterns of contemporary and future teacher education in
Finland. We first consider some of the long-term trends, which have contributed to
the changing understanding of the work of Finnish teachers. We will then discuss the
curriculum of teacher education, particularly the masters thesis, focusing on the idea
of a research-based teacher professionalism. We will conclude with an exploration of
some of the new issues for Finnish teacher education that emerge from an expanded
conception of teachers work and professionalism.
Teachers Work and its Implications for Teacher Education
Three processes, which have become intertwined in recent years and have
profoundly affected teachers work in Finland, can be distinguished. First, there
has been a long-term policy trajectory based on the assumption that a researchgenerated knowledge base, and the accompanying research-based way of thinking
and acting, will enhance teachers professionalism (cf. Hansen & Wenestam, 1999;
Kansanen, 1991; Kansanen et al., 2000; Kosunen & Mikkola, 2002). This vision lay
behind the incorporation we noted earlier of all forms of teacher education, from
pre-school to secondary and vocational, in the universities.
A more recent policy process towards the decentralisation of the management of
schools is part of a wider set of changes in patterns of public sector governance and
management occurring across many countries. Insofar as education in Finland is
concerned, decentralisation instantiates the idea that decisions should be made as close
to the acting level as possible. As a result local school authorities, schools and teachers
have been given the responsibility for the curriculum-making process, which in the past
has been the function of the educational authorities in the national government.
Such decentralisation has been seen positively by many teachers: it foreshadows
increased participation in, for example, managerial and curricular decision-making,
thus opening new options for shaping a distinct school-specific policy. This positive
acceptance of decentralisation both flows from and into the second process we will
highlight, the emergence of an expanded ideology of professionalism based on an
emerging reconstruction of teachers work, which is creating real changes in teachers
work in Finland. These contemporary changes would seem to have far-reaching
potential implications for the pre-service and in-service education of teachers,
particularly for thinking about who has the responsibility for preparing teachers, and
how teachers should be prepared for the changing forms of teachers work.
Research-based Teaching and Teacher Education
We will now turn to a discussion of the patterns and practices of research-based
teacher education by way, primarily, of a discussion of the teacher education

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Teacher Education in Finland

477

programme at the University of Helsinki. Later we will consider some of the

implications for teacher education of the newer policy developments, focusing in the
main on examples of issues and developments from the teacher education
bo Akademi University, the university which serves Finlands
programme at the A
Swedish-speaking minority.
While every contemporary pre-service teacher education programme would locate
its foundational principles in the theory of education rather than craft-practice, preservice teacher education in Finland seeks, in addition, to be research-based (Kosunen
& Mikkola, 2002). The aim of such a pre-service teacher educationas this is
understood in Finlandis to prepare teachers who are aware of the effects of their
actions and factors around their work, thus equipping them to control their own
activity and, perhaps, these factors. The goal is to develop teachers who will base
their educational decisions on rational arguments in addition to experiential
arguments; or, to put this in another way, to develop teachers who have the capacity
to use research and research-derived competencies in their on-going teaching and
decision-making. This goal also presupposes a general understanding of research
methods as well as a positive attitude towards research. It also implies that the
teachers should be able to undertake their own research. For teacher education,
these goals come together around a vision of the kind, and the quality, of the
pedagogical thinking appropriate for pre-service and in-service teachers.
As these goals have been operationalised at the University of Helsinki, the aim is a
balanced programme in which research-based pedagogical thinking is the central
organising concept across the three major strands in the pre-service programme:
subject didactics, educational theory, and teaching practice. These areas are seen as being
in reciprocal interaction, with the organising principle being the conviction that there
should be a research base for practice.
In order to develop research-based thinking, a continuous interaction of research
and practice is the pattern from the very beginning of the programme. The idea of a
spiral curriculum is appliedwith the core courses vertically integrated, and research
methods courses integrated with other courses at every point in the programme.
Thus research, theory, and practice are fusedwith the idea of research-based
thinking as the connecting glue. The final goal is the writing of the masters thesis,
but several minor formal research papers are required throughout the programme
(Bergem, Bjorkqvist, Hansen, Carlgren, & Hauge, 1977).
Let us now consider some examples of this integration; we focus on the
programme for class teachers, i.e., teachers who teach mainly in grades 16, teaching
all or several subjects to whole-class groups. We begin by outlining some of the
principles that have been the starting points for the development of the programme.
The first principle is that practice teaching should be initiated as early as possible.
Although many students at the University of Helsinki have had teaching experience
before they begin their teacher education, it is important to experience schools in
order to become familiar with their culture, routine, and activities.2 Second, as we
have already noted, educational theory, research, subject didactics, and practice are

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presented as a totality. Thus, there is practice teaching in every year and every study
period, and every practice teaching period is combined with theoretical and research
studies related to the topic of the practice period. The reading of research texts,
mini-studies undertaken by students, and seminars in which these texts and studies
are discussed, are designed to support teaching practice.
In the second year of the programme, for example, when students take courses in
both the theory of teaching and assessment, the idea of instructional evaluation is
highlighted, and approached in the following way: Although learning is not a direct
consequence of teaching, the outcomes of teaching-studying-learning need to be
evaluated in relation to the aims and goals of the curriculum. From this viewpoint,
the teaching process seeks to achieve clearly defined outcomes. Further, the choice of
one or another teaching method or approach presumes a weighing of their strengths
and weaknesses in terms of outcomes. Such assessments should be at the core of
every teachers thinking because it gives the teacher the capacity to develop, and
justify, the arguments behind decisions about teaching approaches.
To take up some different issues, how should a teacher get to know his or her
students?one of the themes of the first year of the Helsinki programme.
Discussions with students, formal interviews, and observation techniques offer
methods for securing comprehensive descriptions and understanding. Such
approaches presuppose, of course, an understanding of qualitative research methods
and their background assumptions, as well as the psychological theory and principles
developed in parallel coursework. Likewise, the teacher is always working with the
values behind the curriculum and questions around the purposes of education pose
issues which require systematic analysis. Philosophical studies provide the necessary
understanding for a teachers curriculum-making, assessment, and evaluation.
The idea of an autonomous teacher who is able to think and act on the basis of
theory and research, and to justify educational decisions using formal, systematic
arguments, presupposes an ability and a readiness to read the professional and
research literature critically. Teachers must be able to select what to read, evaluate
what they read, and appropriate what is useful or significant from that reading for
their practice. Although pedagogical thinking typically (and perhaps necessarily)
mixes intuitive and formal arguments, a research-based attitude makes it possible to
steer thinking and decisions towards practices which are grounded in a wider, and
hopefully more systematised, experience than the circumscribed worlds of
immediate places and settings.
The culminating experience of the programme, the writing of the research thesis,
takes place over a 2-year period, beginning in the third year of the programme. As
they prepare their projects, students present and discuss their developing ideas and
their more formal research proposals in seminars, and complete methodological
studies in parallel courses. Wherever possible, the theme of the thesis, as illustrated
in Figure 1, is chosen from personal experiences during practice teaching.
To summarise, the research-based teacher education that is the heart of Finnish
teacher education and formalised by the writing of the masters thesis, is directed at

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Figure 1. Titles of some recent pre-service masters theses from the University of Helsinki

preparing students for both critical thinking and autonomous decision making, and
thus for action guided by a gradually elaborated practical theory. The underlying
intention of the programme as a whole is to make an explicit demand on students to
acquire both knowledge about the research basis for the education they are
experiencing and the skills necessary to undertake their own research. Course
readings are selected because of their theoretical and methodological quality and
significance. In other words, the aim of the coursework is to help our students
acquire a research-based understanding and way of reasoning about schooling. They
learn how to discuss and argue with a constant reference to research, and not rely on
everyday thinking and magical or mystical arguments.
The Integration of Theory, Research, and Practice
In all forms of teacher education, in all countries, theoretically and practically
oriented studies are intertwinedwith many people, representing pedagogy, the
subject matters, and schools involved. In the different phases of programmes one or
another group of stakeholders, groups with different roles and different priorities,
highlight one or another perspective on the teaching process and its context. These
differences are often interpreted as reflections of a fundamental division between
educational theory/research and practice.
Thus in Finland, despite integrated programmatic structures like that of the
University of Helsinki, class, that is, both educational theory and research, and
field are typically separated, both spatially and in styles of thought. The theoretical
foundations for teaching and subject studies are taught in classrooms on university
campuses, while practice-oriented preparation is located in training and field schools
with their own staffs and mentorsand missions. Many see this spatial and
organisational differentiation as creating a dichotomy, which remains unabridged,
between the necessary components of programmes. As Kosunen and Mikkola (2002,

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p. 138) put it, Information does not travel between units, the demands made on
students are contradictory, the division of work in inappropriate, and the scientific
premise of the other discipline is publicly questioned.
As this comment suggests, overcoming the perceived gulf between theory,
research, and practice in pre-service teacher preparation is seen a widespread
problem (Buchberger, De Corte, Groombridge, & Kennedy, 1994; Jussila & Saari,
2000; Kosunen & Mikkola, 2002) and there have been, and are, many projects
aiming at articulating and realigning theory and research and school practice more
closely. These projects seek to integrate teaching practice more firmly with researchoriented preparation and/or to develop an integrated theory/research and practice
model of teacher.
One example of such a pattern of programme development can be illustrated by
bo Akademi University. When the research interests of
the ELMA project at the A
some teacher educators in the Universitys Department of Teacher Education and
Practice School converged, an ambitious curriculum development project became
possible. The aim of the project was to investigate the mathematical thinking of
children in their first years at school, to adapt educational materials to pupils with
varying readiness, and to design a curriculum that would better take into account the
previous experiences and developmental stages of the pupils.
During three years of the ELMA project, pre-service students had the opportunity
to write a masters thesis closely connected with the project. By focusing the final
period of student teaching on mathematics (at that time student teaching normally
involved two subjects, one of which might be mathematics), and by adapting the
contents of the practice teaching period to the topic of a thesis, it was possible to
obtain sequences of lessons which were long enough to allow for the empirical testing
of hypotheses the students developed. Working in this way, the students had the
opportunity to explore the effects of ELMA-based teaching, both as a research
project and a curriculum development project. They were not obliged to adhere to
the ELMA philosophy in a strict fashion and they were able, if they chose, to develop
a critique of the projects theoretical foundations based on the empirical evidence
they gathered during student teaching. This kind of feedback was very useful for the
project as a whole and the theses prepared by Andersson and Eriksson (1989),
Romar and Sunabacka (1989), Stromberg and Villanen (1991) and Rehn (1992)
played an important role in predicting how the ELMA philosophy and the teaching
materials that were being developed would be received by teachers.
Emergent Developments and Issues
With this background in hand, let us now turn to a discussion of some emergent
developments and issues around teacher education in Finland. We will consider
bo Akademi University.
these issues in the context of the programme at A
As a result of the expansion of the teachers professional role following Finlands
decentralisation of both managerial and curricular decision making that we discussed

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above, the traditional content of teaching practice is being insistently questioned.

Thus Hansen (1997) reported that nearly half of a present-day teachers working
time consists of such non-teaching activities as school-based curriculum work,
collective planning, co-operation with parents, outdoor activities, etc. Teacher
preparation in its dominant form does not prepare student teachers to face this reality of
schoolwork. A more appropriately organised preparation would offer a much broader
contact with the totality of the elements that now make up teachers work. The
emphasis would be not only on lesson-planning and the practice of present-day
forms of class teaching but also on the exploration of new teaching strategies,
participation in the dynamics of collaboration with colleagues and actor-groups like
parents and local authorities, tutoring students with special needs and problems, and
resolving social conflicts, etc.
Broadly speaking, this view of teachers extended competence can, as seen in
Figure 2, be divided into four levels:
Competence level 1 (C1): instructional activity, that is, the teachers interaction with
the students, typically in a class setting. On this level, the form of interaction is
expressed by way of teaching methods.
Competence level 2 (C2): the individual teachers on-going planning of his or her own
teaching. The teacher is not in direct contact with the instructional situation and is
focused on intentions around objectives, content, sequencing, use of time, etc., to be
actualised in day-by-day plans.
These levels together make up the core of the teachers classroom work. Teacher
preparation has been, and is, overwhelmingly focused on C1 and C2.
Competence level 3 (C3): in C2 teacher planning is mainly undertaken by individuals
and focuses on the day-by-day; C3 reflects the collective, collaborative, and
continuous planning processes around school-level curricula.
The work we associate with C3 is very significant in Finlands decentralised
bo
curriculum system. In order to open up such issues for pre-service students, the A

Figure 2. Levels of teachers extended competence

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Akademi University programme has initiated two new courses, along with matching
practice periods, into its pre-service programme. One course, Teachers work, has
a major component addressing the curriculum and curriculum work, although the
central focus continues the traditional emphasis on the didactics of the curriculum.
The second course, Curriculum theory and work, seeks to explicitly connect
theoretical perspectives with school-based curriculum work. In the practice
component associated with this course students become acquainted with on-going
school-based curriculum work by way of visits, collecting and discussing curriculum
material, and discussions with teachers and heads of their experiences.
Competence level 4 (C4): This level highlights the role of collective reflection as a verbal
activity, implying both interaction and the internalising of a professional language
(Carlgren, 1999; Hansen, 1998). Such professional language is derived from the
theoretical and research discourses of education, but is operationalised by and in
teachers own understanding.
As we identify these four levels of a teachers competence, two points are
highlighted. As we have noted, the traditional image of teacher competence has
centred on the levels on the teaching process (C1) and individual day-by-day
planning (C2). The contemporary Finnish image of the teachers role requires an
extended competenceto the levels of curriculum-making (C3) and collective
reflection (C4). However, in our experience, school-based curriculum work seems
to be a major problem for schools in Finland. It is extraordinarily difficult to create
focused and continuous collective discourse among school faculties.
As we see it, school-based curriculum work faces two main obstacles. One centres
around the structure of the school day: five to seven daily lessons, each of 45 minutes
followed by a 15-minute break. The attitude has developed among teachers that
tasks outside the classroom, that is, both individual planning and staff meetings, is not
part of the normal work. The other obstacle is more immediately important for
teacher education, and is linked to problems deriving from teachers inexperience in,
and preparation for, collaborative action and reflection. The pattern of one group/
one teacher forms the basis of the traditional, and much of the present-day,
structuring of the work.
As we have illustrated, departments of teacher education in Finland are beginning
to offer research- and theory-based pre-service courses in curriculum theory and
school-based curriculum work, and to connect these courses to curriculum work
during practice in training and field schools. However, students experience
difficulties in establishing a functioning dynamic interaction between the theoretical
basis for such work and practical activities. It is difficult for student teachers to get a
grip on what this work is; it is elusive, and well-hidden in the complexity of the
school reality. Even at training schools we see a lack of systematic exposure of
student teachers to school-based curriculum work.
bo Akademi University the aim is to systematically
In a current project at A
strengthen the ties in the training school between research- and theory-oriented
courses and teaching practice. One point of departure has been the explicit matching

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Figure 3. The relationship between theory/research courses and school practice

of the content of teaching practice to specific units within theoretically-oriented

courses; the other starting point has been the widening of practice to contain a better
sample of teaching-related activities (see Figure 3). Thus student teachers start by
doing field studies, by, for example, following a principals or a teachers work,
participating in school board meetings, meetings with parents, etc. In this kind of
inductive and broader approach to bridging the theorypractice gap, we seek to offer
students a way to derive a practical theory and language of action (i.e., level C4) from
experience in a concrete way.3

Conclusion
In this paper we have provided a sketch of long-term and more recent trends in teacher
education in Finland. The sketch raises the question What is the reality like?of
research-based teacher education, of the linkage of theory and practice, and, most
particularly, of the capture within pre-service programmes of an expanded understanding of teachers work. We can only note that, although our perspective might overemphasise the intentional to the neglect of what some might regard as a more realistic
analysis, we are well aware of the problems we are facing in the day-to-day work.
However, the projects discussed here illustrate both our awareness of the problems that
remain to be solved and a kind of thinking about how these problems might be addressed.
It remains, of course, an open question whether such programme development can
meet the needs of the field and, in particular, of the emerging needs associated with
the changing role of the contemporary school, and of the contemporary teacher.

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Notes
1. These programmes, which are based in departments of teacher education, now include a
major in education (55 credit hours), 35 credits of multidisciplinary subject-area studies, one
subject-area minor of 35 credits or two minors of 15 credits each, and a required research
thesis. We need to note that class-teacher education is very popular among Finnish students
with, nation-wide, only some 15% of applicants being admitted to programmes each year.
2. In Finland university-based practice schools are located in all universities which have teacher
education programmes. These schools function as normal comprehensive schools, following
the same curriculum as in other schools; however additional qualifications are expected of the
teachers, who become experienced supervisors of teacher education students. The so-called
field schools which are also used for practice teaching represent the everyday practice of
schools in general.
3. The faculty in the Universitys Department of Teacher Education and the lecturers in the
Practice School are jointly responsible for such work. This has meant increasing cooperationand new patterns of tensionand a deepening mutual understanding of each
others work.

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