Teacher Students' MA ThesesA Gateway to Analytic Thinking About Teaching? A Case Study of Finnish Primary School Teachers

Finnish teacher education has been higher academic education since 1979. Thus, all primary school teachers graduate as Masters and they conduct an MA thesis. For this research 23 teachers were interviewed in order to determine their conceptions of reflection, teacher research and their future research intentions. These teacher students worked besides studying and they used their own work as a foundation for their MA thesis research. The teachers who participated in this research reflected both personally and collectively. According to the teachers, teacher research has benefits for the teacher, and for the pupils, the parents, the working community, as well as the wider society. As teacher students learn to engage in researching teaching, they are able to think about teaching analytically.