Different patterns in teachers’ intentions concerning research integration: A different perspective on critical thinking

Paper part of the invited symposium of the Flemish Forum for Educational Research (VFO): Critical thinking and research integration: A fruitful marriage? Retrieved April 18, 2014, from http://www.aera.net/repositoryno isbnResearch conceptions are thought to have a powerful influence on teachers’ practices with respect to integration of research in teaching. However, specific relationships between teachers’ research conceptions and research integration practices have not been fully documented. This paper focuses on teachers’ contextualized research conceptions as a mediator between teachers’ general research conceptions and teaching practices. Contextualized research conceptions are teachers’ interpretations of their general research conceptions, taking into account their teaching context. In particular, the paper focuses on teachers’ contextualized research conceptions of ‘Critical Thinking’ (CT), as this is a prominent attribute of teachers’ general research conceptions. Participants were 79 teachers from five teaching-intensive institutions in higher education. From their teaching context, teachers interpreted CT in four different manners: (1) Critical attitude towards oneself, (2) Critical attitude towards information, (3) Conscious of the perspective of others, and (4) Able to handle uncertainty. This diversity in interpretations of CT highlights the difficulties in finding relationships between teachers’ general research conceptions and research integration practices when a general definition of CT is started from and teachers’ contextualized understanding of CTs are not includedstatus: publishe