2.3. Studies on teacher professional development
2.3.1. Studies on teacher professional development in other countries
2.3.1.2. Factors affecting teacher professional development
Previous research findings indicate that teacher learning can be affected by many factors. One affecting factor can be teachers’ professional roadmap, during which teachers may experience success and/ or pain while working with different groups of students and on different tasks (Leithwood, 1992, as cited in Fullan and Hargreaves, 1992). This roadmap plays a certain role in facilitating or inhibiting the teacher learning and development. As reported by the researchers (Huberman, 1988; Sike, Measor, and Woods, 1985; as cited in Fullan and Hargreaves, 1992) on career-cycle development, the degree of commitment might increase or decrease in the later stage;
accordingly, the teachers intentionally make or stop their professional effort respectively. In other words, the degree of commitment, or attitude, can be considered as a factor that affects the process of teacher learning and development. The other authors (Day, 1999; Curtis, 2001, as cited in Bailey, Curtis, & Nunan, 2001; Freeman, 1989) also mention this factor. Curtis (2001) argues that even though teachers are given a development opportunity there is no way for them to grow when they choose to take it for granted or do not appreciate the others’ helps and feedback. Freeman (1989) is with Curtis in that he emphasizes attitude being construed as the link between “intrapersonal dynamics” and “external performance behaviors” (p.23) determines the success of development procedures. Curtis (2001) also mentions trust as an attribute for professional growth; however, the author does not clarify the meaning of this concept. Cranston (2011) shares the view that trust plays a critical role in professional learning community. He follows Bryk and Schneider (2002) to distinguish different conceptions of trust and emphasizes the positive effect of organic trust and relational trust on professional learning (pp.61-62). Specifically, organic trust is “based on the absolute belief in the moral authority of an institution”, all members of which “possess knowledge of the expectations and the behaviors necessary to keep their traditions going and essentially agree on them” (Cranston, 2011, p.61). Relational trust “describes the extent to which there is consonance with respect to each group’s understanding of its and the other group’s expectations and
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obligations” (Cranston, 2011, p.62); in other words, there exist social exchanges among the community members who are willing to discuss for better improvement.
Cranston (2011) emphasizes that relational trust works effectively to promote teachers’ willingness to grow professionally when it is developed around “group norms of safety, risk-taking, and change orientation” (p.70).
Other important factors involve clear goals, content focus, and duration (Borko, 2004;
Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, & Birman, 2002; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman,
& Yoon, 2001; Little, 1982; Penuel, Fishman, Yamaguchi, & Gallagher, 2007, as cited in Bausmith & Barry, 2011). With regard to the goals of professional development activities, Patton et al. (2015) note that the goals should be aligned with teachers’ needs and interests so as to motivate them to actively engage in the activity.
Desimone et al. (2002) and Desimone (2009) view this feature in a broader sense, using the term “coherence” to indicate the consistency of a program’s goals and teachers’ needs as well as the consistency of the goals and the intuitional/ national requirements. Another factor that may promote teachers’ active engagement is the form of professional development. According to Van den Bergh, a professional activity should be “authentic” in the sense that it deals with the real problems within teachers’ practices, whereby teachers’ existing knowledge and beliefs can be activated and linked to the situations for new knowledge construction (p.781).
Desimone et al. (2002), on the other hand, stresses on the structure of the activity rather than the activity itself. She argues that it should be in a reform type as a study group, teacher network, mentoring relationship, committee or task force, internship, individual research project, or teacher research center because the reform type is more likely to involve collective participation and longer duration.
Third, most of the studies stress that context plays a critical role in understanding and designing professional development interventions (e.g. Desimone et al., 2002;
Desimone, 2009; Firestone, Mangin, Martinez, & Polovsky, 2005; Herner-Patnode, 2009; Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen, & Garet, 2008). Different scholars emphasize different dimensions of context. For example, Desimone (2002) and Herner-Patnode
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(2009) point out that such contexts as the culture of the school and the working environment/ characteristics of co-workers need to be taken into account. Kwok (2014) agrees with these two scholars that the school is one dimension of context, but he narrowed it to school administration. Noticeably, two novel dimensions of context involve district leadership or district policy on professional development (Firestone et al., 2005) and the nature of innovation (Kwok, 2014). The innovation in Kwok’s (2014) study refers to the introduction of a new interdisciplinary course to all senior secondary students in Hong Kong. Accordingly, teachers in different disciplines need to work together to be able to teach such a new course; noticeably, those who work in different discipline may possess different “cognitive styles” (Kwok, 2014, p.52), hence possible challenges in teamwork. Whatever context refers to, it is agreed to affect the conduction of professional development activities and the process of teacher learning. A number of studies on in-service teacher learning at workplace have also attempted to investigate the contextual factors that inhibit and facilitate the learning (e.g. Lohman, 2000; Tynjọlọ; 2008).
Lohman (2000) conducted qualitative research on 22 experienced teachers from three schools (one elementary, one junior high and one senior high school). The author found out that four environmental factors can inhibit teacher learning: lack of time for learning, lack of proximity to learning resources (other teachers’ classrooms, department offices, computer technology, and libraries), lack of meaningful rewards for learning (monetary rewards, and recognition), and limited decision-making power in school management. Tynjọlọ (2008), on the other hand, does not only discuss the influence of environmental factors. Rather, she follows Sambrook (2006), dividing the factors affecting work-related learning into three categories: organizational factors, functional factors, and individual factors. Organizational factors refer to the organizational culture and structure, senior managerial support, organization of work, work pressures, tasks, and tasks versus learning orientation. Functional factors pertain to how the role of human resources development is defined and to the general characteristics of organizations. Individual factors are related to managers’ and
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practitioners’ responsibilities for learning, motivation to learn, time, IT skills, and confidence. Moreover, Tynjọlọ (2008) emphasizes the importance of the interaction between the organizational factor and individual factor, which helps to facilitate teacher learning. Agreeing with Billett (2004), she argues, “the nature of individuals’
participation in workplace learning depends both on the extent to which the workplace provides opportunities for such participation and on the extent to which individuals choose to avail themselves to those opportunities” (p.141). In other words, learning opportunities provided by the organization are significant for teacher learning and development, but they can only work well if the teachers are willing to make use of the opportunities in a meaningful way.
Fourth, collaboration, which is repeatedly recommended in various studies as a key to teachers’ achievement (e.g. Brody, & Harder, 2015; Chen, Chen, & Tsai, 2009;
Garbin, Garcia, Ferreira do Amaral, Silva, & Ridruges de Abreu, 2015; Herner- Patnote, 2009; Santacroce-Tejedor, 2011; Williams, 2010), reflects the importance of community and social interactions. Without the cooperation with and the help of the others, human may encounter numerous difficulties in learning and development. Up to now, study group (Herner-Patnode, 2009) and online discussion (Chen et al., 2009;
Garbin et al., 2015; Santacroce-Tejedor, 2011) have been regarded as two of effective tools to enhance collaboration. While Herner-Patnode (2009) emphasizes study group may address the culture of the school and the needs of the teachers so that meaningful learning within a professional community occurs, Garbin et al. (2015) point out that a collaboration tutor has an important role to play in enhancing participants’
collaborative capacity and learning. Mullen and Hutinger (2008) suggest that study group is a professional development format that can be embedded in daily teachers’
work (p.279) as long as they have real commitment to the group and make honest examination of and feedback on teaching practices (Standley, 2011, p.74). However, a study group may fail to support teacher development in case individuals are discouraged by dominant members (Guskey, 2000). Such interventions as timely feedback (on the content as well as collaboration) and evaluation are essential during
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the process. Besides, participant autonomy is another factor that should be prioritized for meaningful collaborative learning; it helps to maintain the participants’
motivation and heighten their self-awareness of the discussed issues (Garbin et al., 2015). Hyslop-Margison (2010) agrees with Garbin et al. (2015) that teacher autonomy is important for teacher development, but this author emphasizes the role of teacher autonomy in enhancing teacher classroom performance.
According to Hyslop-Margison (2010), teacher autonomy refers to “self- determination” and “professional responsibility toward colleagues” (p.3). To clarify the idea of self-determination, Cuypers (1992) emphasizes that “a person can be called autonomous only if he is not alienated from himself, neither on the natural side by physical causes or blind drives nor on the social side by other people’s opinion”
(p.7). In other words, teacher autonomy can help teachers to work non-stop toward their goal without being influenced by both physical and social factors.
Finally, building a model of effective professional development seems to be a desire of many researchers (e.g. Chen et al., 2009; Jao, 2013; Pyửrọlọ, 2014; Solis, Vaughn, Swanson & Mcculley, 2012). For example, Pyửrọlọ (2014) describes how she developed a role-based portfolio to support teachers’ professional development in accordance with the faculty’s demand. She argues that teachers need to take different educational roles in their career life. Specifically, adapting the model by Harden and Crosby (2000), Pyửrọlọ presented twelve roles of medical teachers: lecturer, practical teacher, on-the-job role model, teaching role model, tutor, learning facilitator, assessor of learning, curricular evaluator, course planner, curriculum planner, study guide producer, resource material creator. As a result, it is significant to develop a role-based portfolio to encourage them towards professional development in different roles. The portfolio was developed from 2009 to 2012 with gradually revisions.
During the development process, the author realized that just teachers’ experience was not enough for professional development and that besides the knowledge relevant to each role, reflection and research activities are of significance to the teachers’
development. This view is agreed by a lot of researchers (e.g. Chen et al., 2009; Jao,
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2013; Knights, Meyer & Sampson, 2013; Liu & Zhang, 2014; Zwart et al., 2008, to name but a few) regardless of professional development activities they do research on.
However, it is noticed that all these models are limited to improving teaching knowledge and practices. Among nearly 100 studies reviewed, only ten studies are related to curriculum development, but none of them is directly about teacher learning (Table 2.3).