Improving Professional Practice through Practice-Based Research: VaKE (Values and Knowledge Education) in University-Based Teacher Education

Evidence suggests that in the professional education of teachers the moral goals are currently a neglected topic in favor of the subject matter and knowledge. The constructivist instructional approach V a KE (Values and Knowledge Education) addresses this problem by combining the moral and epistemic goals through the discussion of moral dilemmas. The main research question of this practice-based study was whether teacher educators can improve their instructional practice by using V a KE. We describe an empirical study of a teacher educator who used V a KE in order to (i) facilitate pre-service teachers to solve moral conflicts which they are faced with in their workplace learning and to (ii) increase the moral climate in his course. 58 pre-service teachers who formed two classes participated in the study. The study consisted of three research phases: In the first research phase the types of the pre-service teachers’ moral conflicts were examined. In the second research phase the most frequent types of moral conflicts were used as a basis for an explorative quasi-experimental pre-posttest study. This study investigated the effects of V a KE compared to a traditional case-analysis approach with regard to the pre-service teachers’ application of discourse-oriented actions for conflict resolution. In the third phase, a case study method was used comprising a random sample of seven pre-service teachers chosen from each class to investigate the perceived learning climate during the intervention. The results indicate that V a KE provides the possibility to combine the moral and epistemic goals of the professional education of teachers.