Research Approaches and Methodological Framework in the Research of Future Teachers

More recently, in social sciences, especially in pedagogy, different research experiences imply different research styles and philosophical approaches that need to be known before conducting research. This paper gives an overview of different research approaches and scientific paradigms within which it is possible to create and direct a personal research project (or research). The aim and purpose of the paper is to explore various research approaches and methodological frameworks that are reflected in the representation of certain scientific paradigms, the presence of qualitative and quantitative methodology and various research techniques used by future teachers in their research. For this reason, 159 graduate theses of students of teacher study, which were publicly defended from January 2015 to December 2017, were explored. Insight into students' graduate theses gives the following results: out of the total number of graduate papers (159), 132 (83%) has a research part. Furthermore, the scientific field predominantly used in the research is social science (36.47%), and within it the field of pedagogy (46.55%). According to the type of research, dominant are empirical, fundamental, transversal and research of the present. Of all the research paradigms investigated, the most prominent is the positivist (60.6%), and then the constructivist (17.43%) and post-positivist (15.91%) paradigm. Applied research dominate (78%), while development research (5%) is still insufficiently represented and recognized by students.