Post-doctoral assistant at the research group 'Language, learning, innovation', within the Department of Educational Sciences, Ghent University.

iris.vansteelandt@ugent.be   |  +32 (0)9 264 86 64 (secretariat)

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 Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Gent

Teaching reading/reading education

Reading motivation

Continuing professional development

I obtained my PhD in 2020 with my dissertation “Beginning teachers’ reading attitude and motivation: A study into the evolution from teacher training to entrance in the teaching profession and into the impact of a teacher professionalization program ”. Two research lines were central in this dissertation. A first research line addressed pre-service teachers’ reading attitude. In view of providing a state of the art of pre-service teachers’ reading attitude at the start of pre-service teacher education and furthermore of its development until graduation, this line focused on measuring pre-service teachers’ affective and conative reading attitude components and their relationship with reading behavior, perceived reading ability and reading promotive behavior. Within this research line, we aimed at profiling pre-service teachers’ affective and conative reading attitude components, by examining the occurrence of pre-service teachers’ reading attitude profiles at the start of teacher education and the stability and change of these profiles throughout teacher education. Furthermore, we focused on the relationship between these profiles and pre-service teachers’ reading behavior, perceived reading ability and near graduation also their reading promotive behavior. A second research line focused on fostering beginning primary school teachers’ reading motivation and self-efficacy regarding promoting reading motivation and supporting them in fostering their students’ reading motivation by means of a researcher-developed continuing professional development program. This research line more specifically aimed at studying the impact of a year-long continuing professional development program on beginning primary school teachers’ reading motivation and self-efficacy regarding reading motivation promotion.

Publications and conferences