Exploring Experienced and Novice Teachers’ Perceptions about Professional Development Activities

Teachers from the beginning of their career face with various kinds of students and institutions, which may result in an inevitable struggle to comply with all these challenges. Professional development programs (PDP) seem to be one of the ways for maintaining a high standard of teaching and retaining a high-quality teacher staff. The first aim of this study is to investigate which PDP (e.g. courses/workshops, education conferences or seminars, qualification program) might be much more beneficial for the teachers. The second aim is to investigate whether there are differences in the perception of PDP from the perspective of novice and experienced language teachers. For these purposes, a questionnaire adapted from Teaching and Learning International Survey (OECD, 2010) and focused group interviews were administered to English teachers. The quantitative data gathered from the questionnaire were analyzed through SPSS. Mean scores and frequencies were calculated for all quantitative responses. Also, t-test was used to measure the differences between responses of novice and experienced teachers. The qualitative data extracted from the interviews were analyzed through content analysis. The results show that both novice and experienced teachers benefited from professional development activities, but differed in the type. Also their perceptions about professional development activities did seem different between two groups of teachers. This study may serve as a tool and inspiration for future research in this field.