Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Ethiopian EFL teachers’ beliefs and practice in grammar teaching: From an analysis of culturally grounded belief systems and epistemologies to recommendations for a linguistically informed pedagogy" "Miriam Taverniers" "Department of Linguistics, Jimma University" "This project focuses on EFL in Ethiopian secondary schools, where English is the medium of instruction. It offers: (1) an analysis of teachers’ beliefs and practices with regard to grammar teaching; (2) recommendations for an adapted pedagogy, which starts from existing teachers’ beliefs and is founded in a functional linguistic theory in which ‘meaningful grammar’ plays a central role." "Pre-service teachers, teachers and educational research: a longitudinal study on beliefs, attitudes and participation in educational research as a professionalisation strategy" "Wim Van Dooren" "Instructional Psychology and Technology, Department of Physics and Astronomy" "The importance for teachers to possess a research-oriented attitude, of keeping up to date about and conducting educational research in the context of professional learning is widely described in literature. However, it appears that this is not evidently perceived this way by the entire professional group. In this research we want to investigate which beliefs and attitudes teachers have regarding educational research and how they are formed, from teacher training to the teaching profession. In addition, we want to map the extent to which and in what way educational research finds its place within the professionalisation strategies of teachers. This is a longitudinal study that will have its start in teacher training, in particular within the abbreviated educational master's programs at KU Leuven, within the course Master's Thesis – Educational Research. In the first place, we want to map the beliefs and attitudes of student teachers with regard to educational research. These not only have a major influence on their direct behaviour and performance, but also determine the further consultation and implementation of educational research by teachers in their further educational career. Moreover, we want to find out how these beliefs and attitudes evolve during teaching, what the role of a number of variables is in this and how we can respond to this in teacher training and professionalisation initiatives. The ultimate aim is to contribute to the strengthening of an evidence-based/informed learning culture among teachers." "Students, history teachers and the national past. Research into students' and history teachers' representation of and beliefs about the national past: an exploration regarding context, methodology and strategy." "Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse" "History Research Unit, Leuven, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Kulak Kortrijk Campus, Instructional Psychology and Technology, Cultural History since 1750, Leuven" "Shared knowledge of the past is considered to be important by Western governments since early 19th century. That shared knowledge is meant to serve citizenship and social cohesion (national unity through national identity). History education is thereby considered as an important vehicle. This research project has three main aims: 1) Content-related aim: what are the reference knowledge, basic narratives and beliefs on national history among students and history teachers? 2) Methodological aim: exploration of different approaches in data gathering (essay assignments, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews) and data processing (grounded theory approach with the help of QSR NVivo) 3) Strategic aim: gain know-how with a view to (participation in) international comparative research project applications. Participants in the study are ca 130 undergraduate students (first academic bachelors in history) and 20 history teachers." "Beliefs and practices of prospective history teachers on the relationship between past and present in history education." "Kaat Wils" "Cultural History since 1750, Leuven, Early Modern History (15th-18th Centuries), Leuven, Instructional Psychology and Technology" "Contemporary Western European societies hold differing and partially conflicting expectations towards history education. History education is considered as an autonomous introduction into culture, as a contribution to the formation of critical and democratic cosmopolitans and as an introduction into the scientific discipline of history. Behind these views there are not only differring expectations towards the education in general, but also different ideas about the relationship between past and present. In this project, the central question is how prospective teachers in Flanders deal with the conflicting expectations considering the position of past and present as formulated in the normative texts (curriculum and attainment targets). This research consists of the development, optimization and scientific valorisation of two assessment tools, a questionnaire and a set of performance tasks. Answers will be sought on questions like: what impact has the present on the ideas of prospective history teachers on good history education? Is there a coherence between their ideas and their (novice) practices? Are there differences between students in a professional education bachelor and students from an academic teacher training?" "TEBB: Teachers explicit beliefs on students growing up bilingual - SF2104" "Orhan Agirdag" "Education and Society" "TEBB: Teachers explicit beliefs on students growing up bilingual : a study in four european countries - SF2104" "Exploring the relationship between educational beliefs and the use of ICT in Education" "Department of Educational Studies" "The research literature acknowledged that teachers' beliefs tend to be associated with their specific use of ICT in the classroom. It appears that these bliefs influence to the way ICT is bein used in the context of education. The increasing number of studies that refers to educational beliefs calls for a systematic review about this relationship." "Teaching scientific reasoning and argumentation in secondary psychology education: The role of epistemological beliefs" "Machteld Vandecandelaere" "Instructional Psychology and Technology" "Scientific reasoning and argumentation (SRA) are complex thinking skills and can be defined as the ability to understand and appropriately use scientific concepts, methods, and findings when solving or explaining problems in a specific discipline (Fischer et al., 2014). SRA are highly domain-specific skills, referring to the epistemological nature of the discipline in which SRA are implemented and the (meta)concepts of the discipline (Chinn et al., 2011; Engelmann et al., 2018; Goldman et al., 2018; Kuhn et al., 2000; van Boxtel & van Drie, 2018a). Fostering SRA has been intensively studied in the domains of science education (Engelmann et al., 2016) and history education (van Boxtel & van Drie, 2018b). Consequently, both domains have developed and discussed disciplinary frameworks about the content and approaches of SRA in their curricula and the effects of these approaches. Research on SRA in psychology education is still largely lacking, making psychology an underrepresented discipline in SRA research. Considering that SRA are domain-specific skills (Fischer et al., 2018) and that attention to SRA may help students to cope with the epistemological characteristics of psychological science as an ill- structured and non-paradigmatic discipline (Klopp & Stark, 2022; von Glasersfeld, 2001), it is interesting to further explore SRA in psychology education. Therefore, the current dissertation project aims to explore, understand, and elaborate the challenges of teaching SRA in secondary psychology education. The kind of SRA we focus on is SRA to generate theory-based explanations for core scientific psychological phenomena. To achieve this overall research goal, three studies will be conducted. A first study explores the scene and identifies important issues regarding the teaching of SRA in upper secondary psychology education. Results show that teachers struggle with the epistemological dimension of SRA, referring to the epistemological features that shape SRA in psychology and that are intrinsic to SRA. This is particularly reflected in teachers' reported difficulties in determining assessment criteria for students' SRA. The results further suggest that teachers' epistemological beliefs may be related to these reported difficulties. Therefore, a second study examines the relationship between teachers' epistemological beliefs about psychology as a scientific discipline and teachers' determination and use of assessment criteria for written SRA tasks. A third study examines the effects of an intervention study on teachers' epistemological beliefs and their ability to identify and apply assessment criteria for SRA tasks." "Evaluation of a model for studying the curriculum impact of commercial videogames in the 3rd grade secondary education. Interaction between beliefs, actual behaviour and learning effects" "Department of Educational Studies" "The general goal of this phd project is the measurement of curriculum effects of students (age 15-18) playing video games in a school context. The central aspect is the development and evaluation of a complex padmodel that integrates the curriculum impact of video games, actual player behaviour and the beliefs of learners/players and teachers about video games, and learning with them." "Culturally Diverse Classrooms, Underprepared Teachers? A Mixed-Method Study of Teacher Education for Diversity in Flanders" "Orhan Agirdag" "Faculty of Social Sciences, Education and Society" "Summary This doctoral study focuses on the preparation of teachers for diversity, equity, and social justice in today’s super-diverse societies. Globalization and international migration have created greater ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity within classrooms, particularly in Western European settings. However, the current frameworks of schooling and education, including curriculum design, content, pedagogical practices, and embedded cultural and linguistic norms, are systematically deepening educational inequities for students from diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. In an effort to promote equity for all students, teacher education programs worldwide, as well as those in Flanders, are increasingly integrating diversity, equity, and social justice into their curricula. These efforts aim to equip future teachers with the necessary knowledge (expertise) and challenge their existing biases towards culturally and linguistically diverse students, parents, and communities.This mixed-method study investigates how preservice programs in Flanders integrate diversity, equity, and social justice within their curricula and the impact of these curricular efforts in shaping preservice teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. The study is guided by two main research questions: (1) What knowledge and beliefs do preservice teachers hold regarding cultural and linguistic diversity and how are these related to their preservice curricula? (2) In what ways are diversity and equity integrated within preservice curricula across Flanders, and which approaches are perceived as the most influential in shaping knowledge and beliefs? These two guiding questions have been translated into several specific research objectives, which are addressed across six different empirical chapters.The first three quantitative investigations examined preservice teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity in Flanders. These investigations revealed that, in general, preservice teachers have low levels of diversity knowledge and hold certain biases towards students’ cultures and languages. However, significant differences were observed at the program level, indicating that a higher focus on theoretical courses and improved knowledge and beliefs are indeed linked. There was no association between internships and an increase in knowledge and beliefs. A longitudinal study, chapter 4, delved deeper and demonstrated a significant growth in knowledge and beliefs even within the first year of the program. This study suggests that a combined approach -which integrates diversity within both the general theoretical curriculum and specific diversity courses- plays a crucial role in fostering this change. Collectively, these four empirical studies highlighted the role of preservice curriculum, especially theoretical courses in shaping preservice teachers’ knowledge and beliefs.The final two chapters, therefore, investigated teacher education curricula at two levels: the intended curriculum (curriculum on paper) and the attained curriculum (perceived by students). The analysis of curricular documents and focus group discussions revealed a multifaceted landscape of integrating diversity, equity, and social justice into preservice curricula. Some programs exhibit a clear commitment to these crucial topics, adopt an inclusive approach, and integrate diversity and equity modules from entrance through graduation. This approach fosters knowledge growth and challenges potential biases. Some others, however, adopt a superficial and colorblind approach. These programs may add merely optional courses which often fail to promote diversity knowledge and potentially reinforce pre-existing biases, rather than challenging them.  Overall, the findings from this study emphasize the critical need to move beyond superficial approaches towards a more holistic integration of diversity, equity, and social justice in teacher education. These findings contribute significantly to the ongoing debate on preparing teachers for diversity. The whole research process, from data collection and instrument design to theoretical frameworks and analysis opens new directions for future research and practice." "Performance evaluation as a catalyst for an innovative chinese teacher education program" "Chinese teacher education is under pressure and forced to adopt innovative professional development approaches. In this context also the evaluation approach is questioned. The research problem of the project is therefore: Validation on the theoretical, and empirical base for introducing ""performance assessment"" in teacher education. This reorientation in evaluation builds on theoretical concepts taken from (1) Teacher Thinking Theory (2) innovative teacher education models that build on constructivist approaches (e.g., cognitive apprenticeship), and (3) theoretical assumptions about reliability analysis when multiple evaluators are involved. The following research questions are studied: (1) What is the nature of the evaluation beliefs of teacher educators and student teachers? (2) What is the validity of a comprehensive set of teacher competencies? (3) Under what conditions can performance assessment be adopted as a reliable evaluation appraoch? (4) What is the impact of adopting a performance evaluation approach on teacher beliefs about evaluation? (5) What is the impact of adopting a performance evaluation approach on self-reflective practices of student-teachers?"