“NOVICE AND EXPERIENCED TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS SELF-INITIATED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AND POSSIBLE HINDERING FACTORS”
“NOVICE AND EXPERIENCED TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS SELF-INITIATED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AND POSSIBLE HINDERING FACTORS”

Author : Gamze SARIYILDIZ
Number of pages : 248-260

Abstract

This study aims to determine the perceptions of the English language teachers in Turkey towards self-initiated professional development, professional development activities and some possible factors that can hinder professional development of them as well as comparing the perceptions of novice and experienced teachers towards these three issues. For this purpose, a questionnaire was adopted and administered to 70 English language instructors. Among them, 34 teachers are experienced and 36 are novice teachers having experience of teaching less than 3 years. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-test. The findings of this study revealed that most of the teachers agreed on the aspects of self-initiated professional development. However, there are few differences between the perceptions of novice and experienced teachers towards this issue like teachers’ taking the action for their own professional development and keeping themselves updated with changes in ELT. As for the professional activities, most of them nearly agreed on the importance of these activities except for some differences between the novice and experienced teachers in terms of observation of classroom events by heads and administrators, action research and following research literature on own field, peer observation and in-service training like workshops and seminars. Lastly, as to the possible factors which may hinder their professional development, these teachers were found mostly agree on these factors’ importance. However, the perceptions of novice and experienced teachers in this issue differed in some factors like personal financial problems, excessive work load, lack of self-motivation and institutional support for professional development, and educational background. It is suggested that another study could be conducted through interviews to get a wider picture of the issue.

Keywords

self- initiated professional development, novice and experienced teachers

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