DOMINIC W. MASSARO, editor
University of California, Santa Cruz

Going the Distance: Qualitative, Longitudinal Research in Teacher Education

Case Studies of Teacher Development: An In-Depth Look at How Thinking About Pedagogy Develops Over Time
By Barbara B. Levin. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2003. 309 pp. Paper, $29.95.

Teacher educators typically know little about the long-term effects of their work. Although courses of study may be designed for teacher development and longevity, knowledge about how pedagogical preparation is or is not sustained over a teacher's career is marginal at best. Teacher preparation programs, historically underfunded and understaffed, generally develop without the aid of a systematic, longitudinal, and locally generated research base. Most rely on published reports depicting high-quality programs that may or may not be applicable to the home institution. Academic cultures are such that little value is placed on extended institutional research because tenure- and promotion-seeking faculty prefer short-term projects with rapid into print time. The absence of a native research base that moves beyond anecdote and assertion creates a gap between what we do and what we know about what we do, a breach that undermines claims of program success and, ultimately, the utility of pedagogical preparation. To fill this void, teacher educators and their advocates respond to attacks on the value of their programs by citing research conducted by others in different institutions, attempting to illustrate their value (Berliner, 2002; Darling-Hammond & Youngs, 2002). This debate, raging at shrill levels in educational journals, has provided more heat than light with respect to the quality of particular programs.