Teachers' Individual Efforts for Professional Development

Abstract

This research study entitled Teachers’ Individual Efforts for Professional Development aims at identifying teachers’ perceptions on professional development and analyzing the role of teachers’ own efforts for professional development. I collected the data from both the primary and secondary sources for the study. I selected twenty secondary level schools of Kathmandu valley using purposive non-random sampling procedure. Forty English teachers from the schools were selected as the sample. I followed the mixed research design for the study to find out sample perceptions on professional development. Hence, analysis and interpretation of data is done through the application of statistical approach and content analysis under descriptive approach. This study concludes that the teachers have positive perceptions on professional development. On the basis of the responses attained, it was found that the teachers were aware of own professional development. It was also found that they were making their own efforts to be developed professionally. For example, it was found that teachers develop the possible and necessary instructional materials that are not in their schools. It was also found that they agreed on taking the responsibilities of supervision and mentoring for their professional promotion. Most of the teachers opined that they were always aware about learners’ problems, difficulties and learning styles. Similarly, they believed that they evaluated their own teaching in reflective way to be improved themselves. Finally, the study indicated that teachers’ cognitive processing influences their behavior and that such processing may lessen the effectiveness of professional development. This research work has five different chapters. The first chapter deals with introduction which contains information to introduce background of the study. Similarly, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, and delimitations of the study and operational definition of the key terms are also included in this chapter. The second chapter incorporates the sub-topics such as review of related theoretical and empirical literature, implications of the review for the study, theoretical / conceptual framework under the main topic ‘review of related literature and conceptual framework’. Containing the main topic ‘methods and procedures of the study’ includes the sub-topics like design of the study, population and sample of the study, sampling procedure, data collection tools, data collection procedures and data analysis and interpretation procedure. Likewise, chapter four contains results and discussions. And chapter five consists of summary, conclusion and implications. The final section ends with references and appendices used in the research.