The usefulness of educational research for trainee teachers' learning

In this paper the authors argue that subject-related educational research c an play an important role in trainee teachers' learning since it provides a disciplined perspective from which trainees can derive new ideas and under standings related to their own developing practice as well as a critical ba sis from which to formulate, examine and justify their views through refere nce to a wider, collective pool of experience. However, the authors strongl y argue that research will only contribute usefully to trainees' learning p rovided certain fundamental principles governing the inclusion of research within the structure of the training course as a whole are applied. In the first section of the paper the authors define ten necessary principles whic h determine the conditions for successful use of research-based ideas in tr ainees' learning. Research-based ideas introduced on a training course, it is argued, must be seen by trainees, and subject mentors, to have a signifi cant practical relevance with regard to classroom practice. The ideas and a rguments must be carefully selected and strategically integrated within a c ourse and must elicit informed critical evaluation. The second half of the paper consists of two illustrative examples of how these principles are app lied in the integration of two research-based ideas ('inductive grammar tea ching' and 'Interpretations of History') on the Modern Foreign Languages an d History PGCE courses at the University of Cambridge School of Education.