the rationale for requiring a researchbased dissertation is that teachers are expected to be able to have a holistic view of teaching and learning process and be able to engage in continuous professional development in their career as a teacher traditional teacherpreparation programmes too often treat good pedagogy as generic assuming that good questioning skills for example are equally applicable to all subjects because teacher education in finland is a shared responsibility between the teacher education faculty and the academic subject faculty there is substantial attention to subjectspecific pedagogy for prospective primary as well as uppergrade teachers