PhD research by teachers to close the gap between research and educational practice

Science teachers in secondary schools do not often use scientific results in order to improve their education. This illustrates the so-called theory-practice-gap between the community of educational scientists and. educational professionals. Teachers doing PhD research might be able to bridge this gap. Relatively little is known yet whether and how this works. We studied a PhD program for science teachers and the possibilities for these teachers to bridge the aforementioned gap. From the perspective of boundaries between different communities of practice, we studied whether the science teachers experienced boundaries between the two communities and whether they succeeded in bridging the gap between both communities. In order to do so, 16 science teacher-researchers were interviewed. Indeed, the teachers-researchers experienced boundaries and frictions between the two communities. Most of the teacher-researchers found their ways to decrease the gap between both communities, especially by brokering.