Epistemic agency of teachers in higher professional education

Teachers in higher professional education need epistemic agency to deal with complex issues in educational practice. Within this project, seven university of applied sciences collaboratively explore how to support these teachers in developing and applying their epistemic agency within the context of daily teaching practice – both individually and within teams.

Objective

This project aims to provide insights into perceptions on epistemic agency and help teachers within higher professional education to develop epistemic agency within the context of their own daily teaching practice, both in actionable knowledge as well as educational innovation. We aim to develop a shared understanding regarding the importance of epistemic agency within daily teaching practice and contribute to effective professionalization.

Results

This exploratory research identifies questions and issues from practice, thereby providing insights into what is needed to support higher professional education teachers in developing epistemic agency in service of their teaching practice.

Impact on education

Strengthening epistemic agency of higher professional education teachers contributes to future-proof higher education. Epistemic agency helps for both teachers’ own professional development as well as developing their education. Teachers can deal with complex issues in their teaching practice by determining where (actionable) knowledge is missing, creating the missing knowledge with appropriate thoroughness and making the results useful for specific professional situations. In that way, teachers are important for both educational innovation as professional development of students.

Duration

01 September 2022 - 31 August 2024

Approach

The method ‘circling around your research’ will be used to organize stakeholder session that will help to elucidate questions from practice and help to work towards future collaboration within this theme.

Would you like to collaborate or do you have any questions?

Belinda Ommering

  • Researcher
  • Research group: Research Competence

Related research groups

Collaboration with knowledge partners

This project is a collaboration between Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Avans University of Applied Sciences, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, Hogeschool Leiden, NHL Stenden and Windesheim.