Notions of the final thesis as “research-based” and “profession-oriented”

The case of Norway

Abstract

In this article, we explore how expectations of the final thesis being “research-based” and “profession-oriented” is interpreted by different stakeholders in Norwegian teacher education programmes. Due to national curriculum regulations and guidelines, the final thesis in Norwegian teacher education is expected to integrate profession-oriented and research-based competencies. However, as the concepts are not further defined or specified, teacher education programmes are left with a great deal of discretion to decide how a research-based and  profession-oriented final thesis might look. By using interview data from a national evaluation of the final thesis in Norwegian teacher education institutions, we investigate how the objectives of the final thesis being both research-based and profession-oriented are pursued in four teacher education programmes, that is, two primary and lower secondary school education, one early childhood education and one vocational education. Our findings show that the four cases differ in terms of their approach to the concept of research-based. Moreover, we find that the concept of profession-oriented often seems to be linked to thematic and methodological aspects of the thesis, as several of the interviewees seem to believe that some topics and methodological approaches are more relevant for profession-oriented theses than others.