Synthesising research in education: A case study of getting it wrong

Conclusion

I have shown that Kagan’s claims for support of generalisations about lack of change in student teachers’ pre-existing beliefs and images, about the irrelevance of university courses in supplying inadequate procedural knowledge, and about the importance of dissonance between novices and their co-operating teachers are largely unfounded in the studies she attempted to synthesise. To that extent, at least, it seems that the learning-to-teach research that she reviewed does not add up in the ways she claimed. It is, therefore, difficult to see a basis for deriving a model of professional development emerging from such erroneous pictures as the ones she presented.

There are no disclaimers that excuse the degree of error and misrepresentation to be found in Kagan’s synthesis. The question now is: What effect will these and other misrepresentations have upon the beliefs and practices of future researchers in this field? Perhaps even more alarming,: What effect will they have upon policy makers, some of whom might relish the idea that the role of university courses in preservice teacher education is ineffective and perhaps even deleterious?