Options
Teachers' perceptions of professional development
Author
Yip, Eugene Tuck Meng
Supervisor
Soucie, Daniel
Abstract
Professional development for teachers has taken on a new sense of importance and urgency in the light of rapid and wide-scale educational reforms in Singapore. The need to continually upgrade teachers' knowledge, skills and abilities has been more pressing. Given the impact of teachers' quality on the outcome of student learning and hence the success of the entire educational enterprise, professional development as the key to enhancing the quality of teachers and teaching must only deserve greater attention from all interested parties, including policy-makers, administrators, educators and researchers. Some concrete measures have been recently implemented to address the critical issue of growing professional development needs among Singapore teachers. However, there is a lack of study and literature on this area in the local context, especially with regard to teachers' perceptions of their professional development. Therefore, this research was initiated to explore how teachers perceive various aspects of professional development and to gain a better understanding of the condition of teacher professional development in the Singapore educational context.
The study first examined teachers' perceptions of professional development by considering how they perceive its importance and ownership of their individual professional development process. Secondly, it considered how teachers perceive the organizational elements of professional development in terms of planning, needs assessment and support. Thirdly, it sought teachers' views on the major barriers to professional development. Finally, the study investigated the relationship of several demographic characteristics of teachers, including gender, age, years of teaching experience, and school type, with their perceptions of professional development. The subjects were 180 teachers from 15 secondary schools in Singapore. A questionnaire developed for the purpose of this research was used to measure teachers' perceptions of professional development.
Findings showed that teachers generally perceive professional development to be important and acknowledge that they own their individual professional development process. Teachers more senior in age and teachers from schools that had implemented the Training Roadmap reported a stronger sense of importance for professional development. However, the majority of teachers perceived needs assessment for professional development in their schools poorly. Specifically, the lack of systematic needs identification process, neglected of teachers' personal needs and lack of guidance for teachers' self-assessment were reported as major weaknesses. Furthermore, most teachers felt that there was inadequate teacher participation in the planning of professional development and that priority was not clearly communicated to them. Generally, teachers perceived that resources in terms of time, relief manpower and funding to support professional development were insufficient. Teachers also reported that the lack of time, poor timing of professional development programs and lack of relevant programs were the significant barriers to their professional development.
These findings provided a better understanding on the problems teachers face in their professional development and have important implications for policy-makers and school leaders in the management of professional development. In addition, the findings provided useful directions for follow-up studies on the issues identified here as well as future researches on the expansive and challenging field of professional development.
The study first examined teachers' perceptions of professional development by considering how they perceive its importance and ownership of their individual professional development process. Secondly, it considered how teachers perceive the organizational elements of professional development in terms of planning, needs assessment and support. Thirdly, it sought teachers' views on the major barriers to professional development. Finally, the study investigated the relationship of several demographic characteristics of teachers, including gender, age, years of teaching experience, and school type, with their perceptions of professional development. The subjects were 180 teachers from 15 secondary schools in Singapore. A questionnaire developed for the purpose of this research was used to measure teachers' perceptions of professional development.
Findings showed that teachers generally perceive professional development to be important and acknowledge that they own their individual professional development process. Teachers more senior in age and teachers from schools that had implemented the Training Roadmap reported a stronger sense of importance for professional development. However, the majority of teachers perceived needs assessment for professional development in their schools poorly. Specifically, the lack of systematic needs identification process, neglected of teachers' personal needs and lack of guidance for teachers' self-assessment were reported as major weaknesses. Furthermore, most teachers felt that there was inadequate teacher participation in the planning of professional development and that priority was not clearly communicated to them. Generally, teachers perceived that resources in terms of time, relief manpower and funding to support professional development were insufficient. Teachers also reported that the lack of time, poor timing of professional development programs and lack of relevant programs were the significant barriers to their professional development.
These findings provided a better understanding on the problems teachers face in their professional development and have important implications for policy-makers and school leaders in the management of professional development. In addition, the findings provided useful directions for follow-up studies on the issues identified here as well as future researches on the expansive and challenging field of professional development.
Date Issued
1998
Call Number
LB1775 Yip
Date Submitted
1998