Scientifically designed teacher education: Teacher educators’ perceptions in Finland and Norway

Abstract

This paper investigatesteacher educators’ perceptions of scientificallydesigned teacher education in Fin-landandNorwayand asksthe followingresearch questions:How do teacher educators in Finlandand Norway perceive scientificallydesigned teacher education?How do theyperceive teacher education re-garding the research-led, research-tutored, research-based,and research-oriented dimensions? The study is comparative and uses a quantitative methodological approach based on a questionnaire survey administered to teacher educators inthree departments of teacher education, two in Norway and one in Finland. The findings indicate overall positive and quite similar perceptions between thetwocountries. Despite the sim-ilarities,there weredifferences,particularlyin the dimension concerning teacher-focused activities and in the research-tutored dimension. Furthermore, teacher educators’ perceptions weremore varied among theNorwegian teacher educators, compared to the Finnish respondents.