Primary School Teachers’ Opinions on Professional Development (Professional Development Model Proposal)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide a model for effective professional development by taking the opinions of the primary school teachers on professional development. Grounded theories and techniques which are qualitative research methods have used in the research. Twenty primary school teachers from a district, Küçükçekmece, Istanbul participated in the study, and the data were collected through interview. To reach the model, firstly, the opinions of the participants about the concept of professional development, the processes of providing professional development and the characteristics of effective professional development were taken. The opinions about the idea of professional development are in three sub-categories: change, experience, and burnout; views on the processes of ensuring professional development are in four sub-categories: physical conditions, technology, academic resource, and training process and opinions on the characteristics of effective professional development are being convenience to the needs, right of choice, appropriate content selection, development strategy, active learning environment, and cooperation. In the light of these results, effective professional development model categories are feeling a need, goal setting, planning, development process, and evaluation respectively and these categories constitute a cycle in itself. It was concluded that there should be support and monitoring activities to ensure coordination between the main categories and teacher(s).