Title: The Intersection of Teacher Education, Education Policy, and Education Research
Description: This dissertation explored the intersection of teacher education, education research and education policy through interviews among stakeholders of teacher education from Oman and the Philippines (i.e., teacher educators, policymakers, student teachers, and in-service teachers) and document analysis of various education policies and documents using a grounded theory approach. The dissertation is composed of three studies: the first two are qualitative studies and the third a mixed methods study. Each study has its own abstract, introduction, review of related literature, methods, results, discussions, implications, and references section. The first study is a qualitative study that explored the perceived characteristics of an ideal teacher among various stakeholders, looking at similarities and differences of perceptions among stakeholders and across countries. The researcher used a combination of a/r/tography, metaphor and inductive coding to analyze qualitative interview data. Findings suggest that even though there were universal characteristics sought for in ideal teachers, there were still cultural variances in how various cultures perceived their “ideal teacher.” The second study is a qualitative study that explored the perceptions of education policy among stakeholders and investigated if there was a difference in how stakeholders interpreted specific education policies as compared to what was indicated in official education policies.

Findings suggest that these negative perceptions were rooted from misinterpretation and mis-implementation of the said education policies. The third study is a mixed methods study that explored the association between educational research usage and other demographic factors and how research was used and perceived by stakeholders. The researcher used data collected from a demographic survey and a structured open-ended interview. Qualitative data was analyzed using analytic coding while quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-Square test. Findings suggest that majority of the stakeholders use education research, however the frequency and purpose is affected by the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders. Statistical results showed that there were significant association between frequency of usage and age, educational attainment, years of experience, profession and country. Implications for the various stakeholders and teacher education programs based on the results of the three studies are discussed in the last chapter of this dissertation.