Continual Professional Development for school teachers: A qualitative inquiry into factors affecting engagement at one university.

Abstract

This thesis examines what influences teachers when they engage with, or disengage from CPD at one U.K. University that is a major provider of teachers` CPD. The research has been carried out with the aim of informing the management and development of CPD programmes. The views of head teachers, teachers and local authority education specialists were captured during eleven interviews and two focus groups. Participant observation data was collected over a period of four years between 2006 and 2010.

Whilst the initial incentive was to understand the relationship between CPD and professional identity among this group, what came out of my data was that teachers were seeing CPD as an oppressive form of professional discourse. The thesis thus theorises these teachers` thoughts by drawing on critical counter-hegemonic ideas, such as but not limited to those represented in the work of Michel Foucault.

The inquiry concludes that the ways in which these teachers perceive power has an influence on the ways in which they engage in CPD and that this is closely entwined with how they view their professional identity. The thesis suggests that if universities are to play a significant role in the professional development of teachers, firstly they need to understand these influences and address such feelings. Secondly they need to embrace ways of working with schools and head teachers that acknowledges this understanding.

Citation

(2014). Continual Professional Development for school teachers: A qualitative inquiry into factors affecting engagement at one university