Abstract:

We want to make our research as a part of the lessons and exam work we give to part time student in preschool teacher education over a year. At the same time we want to improve our knowledge about children`s physical play. We are teaching a kind of physical education for very young children and deal with themes like motor function and physical play for children in kindergartens. In three years about 240 students have participated in our research.

In this presentation we will focus on student involvement.
The main questions are:
• How can teacher educators involve their students in research projects during their teaching?
• How evaluate the students their own participation in the research project?

Theory:
Although several governmental documents of higher education in Norway emphasizes that students should be involved in the teachers' research work, we so far know few projects that documents such cooperation.

Design and method:
The students used a moment – to moment observation scheme for their observations. This scheme is modified after “The Observational System-Preschool / OSRAC-P” (McIver et al 2009). Every student is involved in preparing and testing the scheme before they start collecting data. All the data are basis for their written exam where they process and discuss relevant data for their research question. The students registry their data in excel and further transferred into SPSS.

References:
[1] Kulbrandstad , L.A. «Det finnes det vel ikke noe forskning på?» Et eksempel på studentinvolvering i forskning. Acta Didactica Norge, Vol3,Nr 1, Art 10
[2] McIver, K. L, Brown,W. H., Pfeiffer,K.Q. A., Dowda M. and Pate, R. R (2009):”Assessing Children's Physical Activity in Their Homes: The Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children–Home.” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2009, 42, 1-16
[3] Oliver, M, Schofield, G. og Kolt, G. S (2007): ”Physical Activity in Preschoolers. Understanding Prevalence and measurement issues”. Sportsmed 2007:37 (12):1045-1070

Keywords:

Studentinvolment in teachers R&D-work, teaching, research, preschool teacher education.