Teacher educators’ experiences of research: ‘my time goes on chalk face survival’

In 2021 we began a research project*, looking at the experiences of academics working in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England, and the survey and follow-up interviews continue annually, with our latest survey closing at the end of September 2024. The survey covers many aspects of work in ITE, including workload, experiences of Ofsted and accreditation, the future of ITE and career intentions (Wood & Quickfall, 2024). At the 2023 Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) conference in Leeds, Professor Linda La Velle set us the challenge of finding out how academics in ITE were experiencing research, and particularly their own research activity. We love a challenge, so this year we included this statement; ‘I have enough time to undertake research, knowledge exchange and/or scholarship in 2023/24’, and asked participants to respond using a Likert scale in addition to the opportunity to leave a comment.