Teachers’ response to a challenge to change: A portrait of teacher resilience to a professional development program

Abstract

Teachers’ learning in keeping abreast of groundbreaking instructional techniques is crucial for their continuous development of which the ultimate goal is meaningful learning for students. However, research on the extent teachers respond to the demand to change especially on their assessment practice is limited. This study investigated teachers’ resilience on a new educational innovation on formative assessment which is group oriented. The study engaged a cohort of 100 high school teachers joining a professionalism-related seminar and workshop for the expected change. The data were collected from a set of individual questionnaire. Mowbray’s insight on process of reacting to events was employed to analyse the data projected to describe the teachers’ resilience on an innovative assessment practice. The findings indicated teachers revealed resilience to a certain extent on the innovative assessment practice. The majority were open to the challenge to change; it is the novice teachers who revealed the greatest resilience.