Determining guidelines for professional development: a qualitative study.

Abstract

To improve the quality of education in South Africa it is imperative to focus on the professional development (PD) of teachers. The study addressed the following research questions: What are the lived experiences of teachers of their professional development (PD) and what are the guidelines for facilitating the professional development of teachers? A qualitative study was done among Education Management postgraduate students enrolled at the University of South Africa. Naïve sketches were used as a data collection method to obtain descriptions related to the research questions. The paper describes participants’ perceptions of private, official and school–based programmes, their views on the facilitators of PD programmes, the content and focus of PD programmes, the time and duration of PD programmes, and guidelines for the effective implementation of PD. As regards the guidelines for implementing PD, the following aspects receives attention: sharing of knowledge/skills acquired at PD programmes, feedback and monitoring of teachers’ development, the role of leadership in the effective implementation of PD and individual teachers’ contributions to PD.