Paulien C. Meijer

Radboud University | RU · Graduate school of education

This study examines teachers’ justifications for addressing unplanned controversial issues in the classroom. It builds on the premise that controversial issues arise unexpectedly in the classroom context and that some teachers actively choose to address such issues rather than avoid them. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with teachers...

Early career teachers (ECTs) are potential resources for educational innovation and development in schools. Innovative professional potential (IPP) emerges in interaction between ECTs and their school ecology. Using semi-structured timeline interviews, we explored 105 IPP experiences of 19 ECTs in the Netherlands, aiming to understand when and how...

Background Instructional differentiation within classrooms involves educators’ adaptations of instructional elements to meet diverse learners’ needs. It is usually regarded as a crucial component of high-quality education that promotes equal and inclusive opportunities for all students. However, defining and operationalising this complex construct...

In this multiple case study, we investigated teachers professional agency in relation to school development in the context of having a PhD scholarship, and the interplay of personal and social resources. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 Dutch secondary education teachers with PhD scholarships. Teachers are achieving bounded, restri...

This study reports on EFL teachers’ self-reported teaching practices aimed at stimulating students’ language awareness. It investigates whether, and to what extent, awareness-raising practices are currently implemented in EFL secondary education in the Netherlands, how these practices can be characterised, and how awareness-raising practices can be...

In educational, social or organizational studies, open-ended concept maps are used as an instrument to collect data about and analyze individuals’ conceptual knowledge. Open-ended concept map studies devoted to knowledge and learning apply a variety of methods of analysis. This literature review systematically summarizes the various ways in which o...

Controversial issues characterise life in democratic societies and they often arise unexpectedly in the classroom, without being planned for by the teacher. However, controversial issues are rarely addressed beyond a mandatory curriculum and are often avoided. The aim of this exploratory study is to investigate what teachers identify and addre...

Teaching algorithmic thinking enables students to use their knowledge in various contexts to reuse existing solutions to algorithmic problems. The aim of this study is to examine how students recognize which algorithmic concepts can be used in a new situation. We developed a card sorting task and investigated the ways in which secondary school stud...

Growing teacher shortages have lead policy makers in the Netherlands to measures that directly affect the quality of teacher education and, as such, of teachers and of education in general. And instead of focusing on the fact that many teachers quit teaching within the first five years after certification, most policies have focused, and still focu...

This vignette study examined mentor teachers’ intended direction and intensity to intervene during student teachers’ lessons in Dutch primary education and the triggers for their intervening. Based on Fenstermacher’s (1986) theory of premises leading to actions, we developed vignettes in which we manipulated trigger type, trigger severity, and stud...

Background and Context: Computing education is expanding, while the teaching of algorithms is less well studied. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching algorithms. Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with seven computer science (CS) teachers in upper secondary education...

(97 words) This study explores professional identity tensions of early-career teachers (ECTs) in Dutch secondary education during their first two years of induction. Digital journals show that the tensions shift from doubts about the individual’s role as a teacher to balancing work and private life. Tensions have a higher impact in the second induc...

To ease the transition to university, preparation in secondary school is often seen as a first step. This study investigated longitudinal relationships between teacher practices in secondary education (i.e., emotional support, autonomy support, and student-centred teacher practices) and first-year students’ academic achievement and social and emoti...

This study explored the content and nature of teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of their students. The knowledge and perceptions of seven Dutch secondary school teachers regarding the same 33 students in one second-year school class were studied. Each teacher was invited to tell (in 60 s per student) how he/she perceived and what he/she knew abou...

In the context of education, ‘presence’—a state of alert awareness, receptivity and connectedness to what is happening in class—is related to depth of insight into the situation, and to more opportunities for action. Presence is mainly conceptualized in philosophical and theoretical terms and idealistic accounts. This study aims to gain understandi...

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study among 50 secondary school students from 10 schools in the Netherlands, aiming to understand how they experience ‘presence’ – being fully (with one’s entire being) engaged in the here-and-now – in class. Although presence was a non-regular experience, students experienced it as personally relevan...

This systematic literature review focuses on digital reading in a second or foreign language. The reviewed literature (N = 31, published between 2008 and 2020) revealed several characteristics of second language digital reading environments, tasks, and readers. First, characteristics of digital environments were availability and choice of authentic...

Although the importance of critical thinking skills for students when they enter university is widely endorsed, previous research has shown that incoming students show great variation in levels of critical thinking skills. The pre-university track of secondary education plays a major role in preparing students to think critically at university. The...

Although adolescent creativity development is a promising area of research in the field, there is still much to be known with respect to the factors involved in adolescent creativity development and the role of the social context herein. The purpose of this systematic review study was to identify and summarize factors associated with enhancing or i...

Background and Context Although context-based teaching and learning has been investigated extensively in science education, little is known regarding the use of contexts for teaching CS in secondary education. Objective The aim of this study was to examine the characteristics of contexts suitable for teaching algorithms and to investigate teachers...

This study explores a school leaders’ perspective on teacher professional agency. Tensions may arise when teachers feel hindered in their professional agency and try to negotiate their ‘space’ with other stakeholders (colleagues, students, management). School leaders are expected to empower and support teachers, but how do they perceive teachers’ a...

Five student teachers’ professional identities, formed during their Islamic teacher education program, were examined. Narrative methodology revealed the formation of an ambiguous epistemic orientation to teaching during their education’s first three years. The pedagogical and socio-cultural context of teacher education program and a lack of previou...

This article uses the concept of expansive learning from activity theory as a lens to understand learning in and beyond hybrid or third spaces in teacher education. In so-called “Learning Studios,” student teachers, experienced teachers and teacher educators learned through exploratory activities, leading to new insights, “familiarized knowledge” a...

Learning to apply fundamental algorithmic concepts in a variety of contexts is a challenge in secondary computer science education. The aim of this ongoing study is to investigate what recontextualization strategies students use and specifically how students recognize what algorithmic concepts they can use in given situations. A card sorting task w...

Teacher leadership is often connected to experienced teachers as it is assumed that a certain level of knowledge and experience is needed. Informal teacher leadership, however, can also be expected from beginning teachers. The aim of this study is to study beginning teachers’ opportunities for enacting leadership. Twelve pairs, consisting of one sc...

This paper compares three types of dialogues as reflective tools in placement learning: supervisory dialogues (mentor to student-teacher), peer dialogues (student teacher to student teacher) and self-dialogues (student teachers to themselves). Forty-four Dutch student teachers utilised the procedure of guided reflection to talk about their teaching...

Teachers participating in curricular reforms, especially reforms based on constructivism, are expected to bring about change in their teaching approach. This is often a difficult, complex and intensive process, and demands a radical reculturing of the classroom. This is also the case for social constructivist reforms in chemistry education, which a...

This study gains insight into impact of professional identity tensions in terms of affective appraisal and behavioral response. Data consisted of 126 semi-structured reflective journals from early career teachers collected during one school year. Affective appraisals were ‘low’ (no impact on daily functioning, short occurrence), ‘moderate’ (reasona...

This article explores which tensions teachers experience during one year of participation in a professional learning community (PLC). Tensions are more or less temporal negative feelings of stress, loss of self-efficacy or anxiety caused by conflicting personal features and workplace affordances. A qualitative study including two semi-structured in...

This study presents an in-depth inquiry into teachers’ beliefs about a language awareness approach to secondary school foreign language education. The study aims to deepen our insight into (the differences in) teachers’ beliefs about language awareness and facilitate the discussion about including language awareness in foreign language curricula. T...

In context-based education, authentic situations ('contexts') are used as starting points for learning content matter ('concepts'). In this way, contexts provide significance and meaning to the concepts taught. The context-based approach has been investigated extensively in the field of science education. Context-based education has the potential t...

Building on research indicating the dynamic, interactive and often transformative nature of identity formation, a course was designed for Dutch university student teachers. The primary course goal was to learn to ‘teach for creativity’. ‘Teach as you Preach’ was the dominant pedagogical approach, aiming to also foster student teachers’ identity for...

The goal of this study was to examine differences in university success between first-year students by analyzing three domains simultaneously: students’ academic achievement, critical thinking disposition, and social–emotional adjustment to university life. Participants were 307 students who completed an online questionnaire. Latent class cluster a...

The predictors of first-year student success received much attention in educational practice and theory. However, first-year student success can be defined in various ways. By studying different theoretical research strands, we developed a conceptual framework consisting of three domains of first-year student success, namely students' academic achi...

Teacher research is expected to bridge the gap between educational research and educational practice on the one hand and to improve the quality of education on the other hand. The impact of teacher research on school development is however limited. One of the reasons may be the lack of professional space teachers experience to achieve agency and co...

Professional learning communities (PLC’s) are increasingly used to enhance professional development of teachers and school improvement. This assumes that teachers experience professional space in their schools. This article therefore used semi-structured interviews to reveal how 18 teachers perceived their professional space for professional develo...

Teacher research is expected to bridge the gap between educational research and educational practice on the one hand and to improve the quality of education on the other hand. The impact of teacher research on school development is however limited. One of the reasons may be the lack of professional space teachers experience to achieve agency and co...

Samenvatting Creativiteitsontwikkeling staat hoog op de onderwijsagenda. De stap naar gerichte creativiteitsontwikkeling in het primair en voortgezet onderwijs wordt echter in Nederland en ook elders nog nauwelijks systematisch gemaakt. Dit artikel betoogt dat deze aarzeling onder meer te begrij-pen is vanuit wat creativiteitsontwikkeling in schole...

A new challenge for primary and secondary education in the Netherlands and elsewhere is to cultivate students' creativity. Despite teachers' support for this goal, actual practice often falls far short. This hesitation can be understood from what it actually means to start on teaching for creativity in today's schools. This article puts forward the...

This chapter is about the development of teachers. In this chapter, I will be paying special attention to those processes that cannot be characterized as showing “steady” or even “straightforward” development and thus processes that are less predictable than usual; processes that frequently fluctuate (i.e., go up and down); and processes that somet...

Reflection in action research is a complicated matter because of the many domains of reflection and most significantly, the lack of understanding of these domains of reflection in action research and how these are supported. In this paper, we propose a framework based on four domains of reflection, namely, scientific, artistic, moral and technical...

Reflection in action research is a complex matter, as is action research itself. In recent years, complexity science has regularly been called upon in order to more thoroughly understand the complexity of action research. The present article investigates the benefits that complexity science may yield for reflection in action research. This article...

Being adaptive to the individual novice teacher is considered a condition for effective teacher mentoring. The aims of this study are therefore to explore (1) mentoring activities through which mentors intend to adapt to the individual novice teacher and (2) characteristics of adaptive mentors. Information was collected through on-site, post-mentor...

Student teachers often experience difficulties in relating theories taught in teacher education institutes to the actual teaching practice. In this study, we present a guided reflection procedure that aims to support student teachers in developingknowledgebased ontheir practical experiences and linking this with research-generated knowledge. Twenty...

This study describes an evaluation of a theory-based trajectory for professional development called FeTiP (Feedback-Theory into Practice) that aims to have an observable effect on teacher classroom behavior. FeTiP is a multicomponent trajectory for professional development and combines several types of interventions. Its goal is to help teachers ex...

Research on student teacher learning has identified development of a professional identity as an inevitable focus in teacher education. Accordingly, many teacher education programs have come to include attention for the development of student teachers' professional identities, but not much research has been done on the (effects of) pedagogies that...

Several researchers have suggested the importance of being responsive to students' needs in research supervision. Adapting support strategies to students' needs in light of the goals of a task is referred to as adaptivity. In the present study, the practice of adaptivity is explored by interviewing expert thesis supervisors about diagnosing student...

This interview study, including seven case studies of mentor teachers in primary education, explores the possibilities and challenges these mentor teachers perceive when they (sequentially and simultaneously) combine the teacher and mentor roles. Mentor teachers perceive two challenges while simultaneously performing both roles in the same classroo...

Teacher feedback has mainly been described from the point of view of cognitive psychology. We aim to add to the body of knowledge on teacher feedback by considering the perspective of positive psychology. We describe possible consequences of two concerns of positive psychology: (1) the importance of (positive) emotions and (2) character strengths....

Context-based curriculum reforms in chemistry education are thought to bring greater diversity to the ways in which chemistry teachers organize their teaching. First and foremost, students are expected to perceive this diversity. However, empirical research on how students perceive their teacher's teaching in context-based chemistry classrooms, and...

Despite the importance of goals in educational theories, goals in master's thesis projects are rarely investigated. Therefore, this study explores how goals play a role in master's thesis supervision in terms of: defining the goals (up-component); locating where the student stands in relation to the goals (back-component); and how the student can m...

Student teachers' resistance to teacher education is often understood as a lack of quality of the student teacher and/or the internship, and is expected to impede learning. In this study we suggest that resistance is interactive in nature, and can potentially have constructive outcomes. We engaged in a cross-case analysis of the resistance of two s...

In this study we introduce a guided reflection procedure that aims to support student teachers in developing knowledge based on their practical experiences and by linking this with theoretical knowledge. Student teachers (n=22) with varying prior teaching experiences carried out the guided reflection procedure at a university in Estonia. In an empi...

Deliberate practice is increasingly recognised as necessary for professional development. This paper sets out to explore in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, our results highlight the different way...

Research supervision can be investigated from social–emotional and cognitive perspectives, but most studies include only one perspective. This study aims to understand the interplay between a social–emotional (supervisor–student relationship) and cognitive (feedback) perspective on the outcomes of master's thesis supervision in specific, by investi...

Õpetaja praktilise teadmise sisusse ja olemusse süüvimine aitab paremini mõista õpetamise keerukust ning võimaldab algajal õpetajal arendada oma teadmisi pedagoogika ja õpetaja praktilise töö vahelistest seostest. Seetõttu on õpetaja praktiline teadmine õpetajatöö alusteadmiste asendamatu osa. Samas on õpetaja praktilise teadmise uurimine näidanud,...

University teachers in teacher education programmes are increasingly expected to combine teaching and research, in spite of widespread recognition of the differences between these epistemic practices. This study questions how the (dis)continuities university teachers encounter, when engaging in a collateral transition between research and teaching,...

One of the tasks of postgraduate education is to develop students' conceptions and skills necessary for lifelong learning in their profession. Therefore, this study aimed at identifying students' development in self-regulated learning throughout a postgraduate teacher education programme. A longitudinal design with three measurement occasions was a...

A growing body of research has investigated student perceptions of written feedback in higher education coursework, but few studies have considered feedback perceptions in one-on-one and face-to-face contexts such as master’s thesis projects. In this article, student perceptions of feedback are explored in the context of the supervision of master’s...

The studies considered in this review of research on teachers’ professional identity until 2004 can be divided into three categories: (a) studies in which the focus was on teachers’ professional identity formation; (b) studies in which the focus was on the identification of characteristics of teachers’ professional identity; and (c) studies in whic...

This contribution focuses on the connection between Scharmer's Theory U and individual coaching. How can Theory U be used in coaching for supporting transformational learning in coachees? First, the authors present an approach called Core Reflection. In this approach, Theory U is linked to specific levels of reflection and awareness, described by t...

Enhancing effectiveness of teacher education programmes and increasing attractiveness of the teaching profession become increasingly important given large teacher shortages and high numbers of teacher attrition.

To be effective, feedback should be goal-related. In order to better understand goal-related feedback in Master’s thesis projects, the present study explores the goals of supervisors and students in supervision dyads and similarities and differences within and between these dyads. Twelve supervisors and students were interviewed, and their goals we...

Contributing to the growing amount of literature on learning–enhancing feedback, this article attempts to distinguish between progress feedback and discrepancy feedback. Building on relevant literature drawn from psychology, we propose the use of a ratio of 3:1, positive:negative feedback. We analyzed contiguous 10 min blocks of classroom interacti...

In this study, questions in context-based and traditional chemistry textbooks were analysed from two perspectives that are at the heart of chemistry curricula reforms: a content perspective and a learning activities perspective. To analyse these textbook questions, we developed an instrument for each perspective. In total, 971 textbook questions we...

Meaning-oriented learning and deliberate practice may be expected to promote student teachers’ continuous professional development. We interviewed twelve expert teacher educators to explore their understanding of these concepts, as well as pedagogies to stimulate them in teacher education. The experts understood deliberate practice in two ways: an...

In recent attempts to address the notion of teacher identity, scholars have stressed how identity is dynamically evolving, intrinsically related to others, and consists of multiple identities. Though these postmodern characterizations represent radically new perceptions of identity, they are not extensively discussed in relation to previous assumpt...

This study focuses on the question of why student teachers stay in teaching even after a profound ‘practice shock,’ i.e., a shock that in itself seems to characterize the complex and emotionally challenging first year of student teaching. Using a line drawing technique, the study investigates student teachers’ views of their first year of teaching...

One of my biology student teachers two years ago, Roeland, age 25, was teaching three groups of pupils at a secondary school. He had signed up for teacher education because he could not find his ‘dream’ job – being a university teacher – and following the teacher education programme seemed to be ‘not a big waste of time’ because in his plans he als...

Master's thesis supervision is a complex task given the two-fold goal of the thesis (learning and assessment). An important aspect of supervision is the supervisor–student relationship. This quantitative study (N = 401) investigates how perceptions of the supervisor–student relationship are related to three dependent variables: final grade, perceiv...