Stimulating teachers’ continuous professional development in the Netherlands

Abstract

Planned Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in the past and current international initiatves are frequently based on an implicit deficiency assumption or gap-based model. This study answered the research question “To what extent can teachers be triggered to participate in CPD following a sequential, gap-based model and what is the relation with personal and psychological factors?” Specifically, the influence of personal and psychological factors on three phases of teacher CPD according to the I-Change model (awareness of the need for CPD, motivation to take part in CPD and taking action) was studied. The analysis of 119 questionnaires showed that not all teachers participate in all three phases. Surprisingly, few teachers had a performance gap and even a smaller number had the motivation to improve. The results showed that teachers with high scores on Core Self Evaluations (CSE) were less likely to become aware of or formulate a CPD goal than teachers with lower CSE scores.