What do we know so far about the research-teaching nexus in Initial Teacher Training? Findings from a systematic review

Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Programmes comprise campus-based teaching sessions and school practice. This article carries out a systematic review from the context of Initial Teacher Education programmes in Higher Education, using the term ‘nexus’ to summarise the various ways research is integrated into campus-based teaching, and the various forms of research-informed teaching in school placement within ITE programmes. The review focused on empirical studies, written in either English or Spanish between 2015 to 2022, that report on this nexus—17 articles written in English met all the inclusion criteria, but none written in Spanish. The nexus is manifested on three levels: the intended level (related to courses), the implemented level (concerning campus-based teaching), and the impact level (among pre-service teachers). The nexus appears on the intended level through how courses and associated focal points for pedagogical practice are engineered and systematically designed to integrate research and teaching. On the implemented level, the nexus emerges in teacher educators’ emphasis on epistemic connections between research and current school practice, and this highlights the identities of teacher educators and their professional development needs. On the impact level, the nexus means achieving harmony between, on the one hand, what pre-service teachers have learnt from researching and, on the other, real social contexts—cognitively, affectively and self-efficaciously. Discussion of these results provides a working definition of the research-teaching nexus: for both teacher educators and pre-service teachers to use the products and processes of research to enhance the effectiveness of teaching, either in campus-teaching or school placement practice.