Tajuk

Teachers’ conception on continuing professional development and their involvement in communities of practice as a platform for their professional improvement. 


Summary

This study aims to explore teachers’ conception of professional developement and their engagement in any informal learning networks or communities in or outside their current schools. It is also aimed to gain understanding on how participation in such collaborative sharing activities helped teachers to develop professionally. Research participants will invovle 500 teachers from three states; Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Putrajaya. For the data generation, this study will employ both quantitative and qualitative approach. Two tools for data generation will be a set od questionnaire ans one-to-one interview. Data will be analysed based on the phase of data generation; which starts with descriptive and infereital statistics, followed by thematic analysis. 


Background of the study 

The Malaysian Ministry of Education has made a large effort to upgrade the teaching profession in the country by amending the structure and content of teachers’ continuing professional development. Basically, two main types of professional development for teachers in Malaysia are in the form of pre-service and in-service (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2008). However, there are ongoing debates on the effectiveness of teachers’ professional development in Malaysia. It is often considered to be ineffective because in-service training is usually mandated, in that the courses are developed by ‘experts’ at the top – either at the Ministry of Education or at the State Education Department (Kader, 2008; Malakolunthu, 2007). Sometimes this training is not perceived by teachers as adding value or being productive, since it does not originate from the teachers’ needs (Mior Shahruddin, 2008; Lee, 2007) and the same content is taught to all participants (a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach) without regard for their backgrounds, taking place in isolated settings away from real classroom situations (Kader, 2008; Leng, 2007). Therefore, it is suggested that teachers’ professional development should not be restricted to the individual level alone, but it should be more flexible and open to interactions with teachers from other schools so that teachers have more opportunities for their needs to be fulfilled (Waheed et al., 2011).

According to Malaysia Education Report 2013-2025 however, the Ministry is upgrading the quality of teachers’ continuous professional development (CPD) from 2013 (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2012). Within this plan, teachers will receive greater support to achieve their full potential through an individualised CPD programme. It will use a network of peers including teacher coaches, senior teachers and principals to share best practices. The training will allow teachers to continuously build their skill levels against each of the competencies expected of a teacher. Teachers will have access to more school-based professional development opportunities and will participate in constructive feedback discussions and dialogue that focus not on learning and development, so that areas for improvement can become areas of strength (Ministry of Education, 2012). These new approaches for teachers’ CPD (more school-based approach, constructive feedback discussions and learning through teachers’ network) are actually part of the characteristics of communities of practice (Wenger et al, 2002) who explain the concept of learning within communities as ‘groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis’ (p. 4). Although this new approach is technically effective for the improvement of teachers’ CPD, the concern now is whether teachers are ready to negotiate their conception of CPD and to engage themselves in collaborative sharing activities and giving and receiving feedback among peers in their learning communities.

Teachers’ conception on their CPD approaches and willingness to effectively engage in their CPD are highlighted in Khalid’s (2013) study, who emphasised that, although teachers agreed that their involvement in communities or other networks in  and outside their current schools as significant source for improving their practices, their conception of CPD was merely in the form of formal approach, e.g., training, workshops and seminars. In other words, collaborative sharing activities with other teachers are not valued as part of their CPD. As teachers see their CPD takes a form of formal training alone, any approach that emphasises on collaborative sharing activities might not be successfully implemented as Day et al. (2004) stress that the way teachers involve in any innovation of new policy is very much related to how they value their CPD.

This study will measure the aspects of teachers’ conception of CPD, their involvement in informal CPD such as communities of practice (CoPs) and the extent to which their participation in CoPs served as a platform for their professional development. As in Khalid’s (2013) research, the participants were limited to 16 participants, this study will involve larger number of teachers and will employ both qualitative and quantitative approach.


Objectives

1. To study teachers’ conception on continuing professional development (which takes on formal as well as informal approach).
2. To examine teachers’ involvement in any formal or informal communities of practice in or outside their schools.
3. To explore teachers’ view and acceptance towards collaborative sharing activities with other teachers from other schools as part of their continuing professional development approach. 

Methodology

i. Research Approach:
This study employs a mixture of quantitative and qualitative approaches which aims to gain understanding of how teachers conceptualize their CPD and their current involvement in any informal learning communities in and outside their schools.

ii. Sampling
Research participants will be teachers teaching in secondary schools in three states – Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Selangor. As stated in the current statistics, the overall number of secondary school teachers in these states are 69,660 and based on Krecjie and Morgan’s (1970) calculation, the suggested sample size is 382. However, to avoid a lower return of questionnaire, 500 teachers will be selected, using stratifed random sampling. The stratification will be based on: (a) type of schools (fully-residential, cluster, religious and daily schools), (b) departments in schools (language, science, technical as well as humanity), and (c) gender.
For qualitative approach, teachers will be selected from the same sample, however the critieria for the selection will be decided after the first phase of data collection (questionnnaire) is completed, where the key points that need for further investigation are determined.

iii. Data generation methods
Data will be generated through a set of questionnaire and also in depth one-to-one interviews with the participants.

iv. Data analysis
  • There will be two phases of analysis. The analysis of quantitative data will involve descriptive as well as inferential statistical analysis ( ANOVA, MANOVA & and correlation). The tool for analysis will be SPSS software
  • Qualitative data will involve thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The tool for analysis will be Atlas.ti software. Details on data analysis is shown below:

Research questions 

  1. What is the level of teachers’ participation in any formal and informal communities of practice?
  2. What are teachers’ conceptions in their professional development
  3. How did teachers’ participation in other communities of practice in their schools helped them in their practices
  4. To study the factors affecting teachers’ views in collaborative sharing activities with teachers from other schools
  5. Why did teachers had certain view in collaborative sharing activities with teachers from other schools
  6. What hindered or encouraged collaborative sharing activities with teachers from other schools?

Hypotheses

Ho1 There is no difference between teachers from different teaching years of experience in terms of their participation in any communities of practice
Ho2 There is no difference between teachers teaching different subjects in terms of their participation in any communities of practiceHo3 There is no difference between teachers with different roles in schools in terms of their participation in any communities of practice
Ho4 There is no difference between teachers with different personal identities in terms of their participation in any communities of practice 
Ho5 There is no difference between teachers from different teaching years of experience in the way they value collaborative sharing activities with other teachers from different schools in enhancing their effectiveness 
Ho6 There is no difference between teaching different subjects in the way they value collaborative sharing activities with other teachers from different schools in enhancing their effectiveness
Ho7 There is no difference between teachers with different roles in schools in the way they value collaborative sharing activities with other teachers from different school in enhancing their
Ho8 There is no difference between teachers with different personal identities in the way they value collaborative sharing activities with other teachers from different school in enhancing their conception in their professional development

References:

  1. Harris, A., & Jones, M. (2010). Professional learning communities and system improvement. Improving Schools. 13 (2), 172-181. 
  2. Kader, B. K. A. (2008). Malaysia’s experience in training teachers to use ICT. ICT in Teacher Education: Case studies from the Asia Pacific Region, 61-66. Bangkok: UNESCO Publication. 
  3. Khalid (2013). Understanding teachers’ identities in relation to professional development and their participation in online communities of practice in Malaysian Smart Schools. Unpublished doctoral thesis. The University of Nottingham. 
  4. Lee. K. W. (2007). ESL teacher professional development and curriculum innovation: the case of the Malaysian smart schools (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK. 
  5. Leng, T. H. (2007). Continual professional development of teachers: A smart strategy for excellence in the classroom. Paper presented at Research Seminar Batu Lintang Teacher Education Institute, 2007. 
  6. Malakolunthu, S. (1997). Teacher professional development: Perceptions and practices in Malaysia. Paper presented at the 46th Comparative International Education Society Conference, Mexico City, Mexico. 
  7. Ministry of Education Malaysia (2008). Taklimat Pengurusan Peruntukan LDP ke Sekolah Tahun 2008. 
  8. Ministry of Education Malaysia (2012). Malaysia Education Blue Print 2013 – 2025. September 2012. 
  9. Mior Shahruddin, A. (2008, March). School improvement in Malaysia: Development, issues and challenges. Paper presented that the Third International Conference on Principalship and School Management, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 
  10. OECD (2009). Overview of country results in TALIS: Malaysia. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Retrieved from: http://www.oecd.org/. 
  11. Stoll, L., & Louis, K. (2007). Professional Learning Communities. Maidenhead: Open University Press. 
  12. Waheed, H., Salami, A. B., & Ahmed Dahlan, A. R. (2011). Collaborative web-based teacher professional development system: A new direction for teacher professional development in Malaysia. The Special Issue on Behavioural and Social Science, 1 (7), 208-216. 
  13. Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization 7 (2), 225–246. 
  14. Wenger, E., McDermont, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice. Boston: Harvard University Business School Press.