Exploring the Teacher Professional Development Activities: Perspectives of Nigerian High School Teachers

Abstract

The quality of education is central to the Sustainable National Development that can be attained by any country. Hence, the professional development of teachers is critical to classroom practices in the education system. Teachers attend various professional development activities every year to improve their classroom practices. The aim of the study was to establish teachers’ perspectives on professional development activities. The study adopted an interpretive qualitative approach to explore teachers' views on the phenomenon. The study engaged three heads of departments in semi-structured interviews and five teachers in a focus group interview to explore teachers’ lived experiences of professional development. The study employed andragogy as the theoretical framework to understand teachers' views on workshops, subject association meetings, conferences and other professional development activities they attended. Thematic analysis of the data was carried out systematically to generate themes from the findings. Teachers did not regularly attend annual professional development activities. The contents of the professional development activities did not adequately address teachers’ needs for dynamics in the classroom. It is therefore recommended that teachers’ classroom practices be assessed by their heads of departments, vice principals/principals or subject specialists to determine how their classroom practices could be enhanced. The frequency of professional development activities for teachers should be increased every year, to improve their classroom practices.