Terms like "enquiry-oriented" and "research-based" teacher education have been used to describe a general approach to teacher education that emphasizes the development of prospective and practising teachers' knowledge, skills and disposition to adopt an enquiring stance to their work. The inclusion of research in teacher education curricula has gained wide acceptance within the teacher education community. However, little is known about how and what student teachers learn about research, especially amongst those for whom this represents a new area of their learning. This paper presents an alternative approach to describing the process of research in connection with different types of knowledge about research likely to be acquired and developed by student teachers in different modes of involvement in research in formal contexts of instruction. The descriptor may serve as a framework for studies concerned with the involvement of teachers in research or as a pedagogic tool and a guide to the development of teaching and learning activities on research methods courses for teachers.