Continuous professional development and its perceived impact on teacher professional practice: an exploratory-sequential analysis

Abstract

Teacher professional development for teachers has gained prominence for its role in maintaining and enhancing teacher knowledge and skills required for teachers’ professional practise. This study explored Continuous Professional Development and its perceived impact on teacher professional practise in Ghana. The study adopted a mixed methods approach utilizing an exploratory sequential design. Using multiple sampling techniques, 1 training officer, 3 headteachers and 435 pre-tertiary teachers participated in the study. Data was collected using interview and questionnaire. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (ANOVA and MANOVA) were utilised to analyse all research questions and hypotheses. The study revealed that pre-tertiary teachers conceptualised professional development as formal CPD initiatives spearheaded by schools and governing institutions with no clear structure and organised periodically. The study also revealed that most CPD initiatives available to pre-tertiary teachers were high in teacher passivity, focused heavily on addressing issues relating to content areas and impacted teachers’ professional practise in terms of their knowledge and skills more than teacher efficacy. No difference was found in CPD activities based on school category. Also, no difference was found in perceived impact of existing CPD on teacher professional practise based on teaching experience. It was recommended that pre-tertiary teachers and GES shift from the traditional model of CPD for teacher learning to more collaborative and informal systems which should be recognised as mandatory components of teachers’ professional development.