The Formation of Research Competence of Future Teachers in the Context of Master’s Training: Theories and Concepts

The article analyses the theoretical foundations for the formation of research competence of future teachers in the context of Master’s training. The relevance of the study is determined by transformational processes in higher education aimed at modernising teacher preparation, integrating the educational and scientific components and ensuring alignment with contemporary societal challenges. The study is conceptual and analytical in design: it draws on the methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison, systematisation, interpretive analysis and projection, applied to a source base of seventeen peer-reviewed publications selected against explicit criteria of relevance and accessibility. It is demonstrated that the development of research competence must rely on a system of complementary theories and concepts, each of which reveals a distinct dimension of this complex process. Constructivist theory emphasises the active, activitybased nature of cognition and the development of research skills; the theory of self-regulated learning focuses on metacognitive mechanisms for managing one’s own research activity; theories of scientific thinking and critical analysis define the epistemological norms of research rationality and intellectual honesty. The concepts of experiential and problem-based learning propose didactic formats that ensure the authenticity of the educational process and foster critical thinking, collaboration and autonomy. Sociocultural theory highlights the role of the scientific community, academic supervision and scaffolding in the researcher’s development, while transformative learning theory explains the reconfiguration of the professional worldview that culminates in the emergence of the teacher-researcher. The discussion situates this framework against recent longitudinal evidence, which corroborates the proposed integration while indicating that the affective and motivational dimension of research competence remains insufficiently accounted for.