Session Information
11 SES 05.5, General Poster Session NW 11
General Poster Session
Contribution
Since 2017, 59 thousand adults have used the offer to study in continuing vocational education and training programmes in Latvia within the framework of the European Union (EU) Funds adult education project “Improvement of Professional Competence of Employed Persons” with an aim to apply the acquired knowledge and skills in their daily work, increasing competitiveness in the labour market or implementing career development in their profession (website of State Education Development Agency, 2022). In Kurzeme Region, a variety of professional development education programmes are offered both by the leading regional university - the University of Liepaja, and by private training centres.
The educators’ professional competence is one of the determining resources that greatly influences the quality of education in the offered professional development education programmes (Bobkova et al., 2020).
The challenges of the 21st century, including the creation of the global educational environment, makes the competency-based approach a standard in the international system of education (Orazbayeva, 2016, 2669).
The educator of the 21st century must overcome the craft approach based on the reproduction of ready-made offer solutions from both a curriculum and a methodological approach, and nowadays the educator is constantly looking for better ways to work and asking students for their opinion on this ( Zulfakar, 2020, 508).
Within the framework of educators' professional competence, the following competencies have been emphasized:
- Act as a cultural facilitator when carrying out duties (manifests itself as a cultural professional in the role of a cultural interpreter, facilitator and critic);
- Plan and implement teaching and learning situations (in relation to the content of education and the objectives of education);
- Evaluate learning (development, selection and application of different assessment methods);
- Manage how the class operates (organizing and conducting classes);
- Take into account student diversity (implementing the inclusive learning approach, strategies for differentiating teaching practices);
- Support students’ love of learning (cultivating students' desire to learn and fostering the sense of discovery and curiosity);
- Be actively involved as a member of the school team (cooperation);
- Commit to own professional development and to the profession (analysis, evaluation and development of the professional practice aspects);
- Mobilize digital technologies (application of digital resources);
- Act in accordance with the ethical principles of the profession (ethical and responsible conduct) (Reference Framework for Professional Competencies for Teachers, 2021).
Educators' professional competence is closely related to the context, and its main elements are knowledge, skills, attitudes, values (Antera, 2021).
The prerequisites for educators' professional sustainability are linking content with the 21st century skills, collaboration, active learning, feedback and assessment, and teacher professional development (Yue & Ji, 2021) face-to-face and in the virtual environment (Enache, 2021).
Researchers of Latvia have concluded that the creative methods used by educators are diverse and cover both formal and non-formal education (Kronberga, Bite, & Kruzmetra, 2017).
In order to achieve the aim of the research, the teacher competency model concerning pedagogical content knowledge (Hynes, 2007; Hyun Yu, Sun, & Strobel, 2014) has been adapted and structured in 6 dimensions:
- Concept knowledge (refers to the essential content);
- Professional skills;
- Knowledge about different disciplines;
- Pedagogical content knowledge;
- Attitudes;
- Integration with other disciplines.
Aim of the research: Analyse the educators’ professional competence in the implementation of professional continuing education programmes, identify statistically significant correlations among the criteria of educators' professional competence.
The research questions are:
How do the participants of the professional development education programme assess the professional competence of educators?
Is there a statistically significant link between the criteria of adult educators’ professional competence in the implementation of professional development education programmes?
Method
The design of the descriptive correlation study applying the quantitative methods approach has been chosen for the study. The survey sample comprises 151 respondents from Latvia from the following professional development education programmes: Small business organization (12 respondents), Digital marketing in business (4 respondents), Basics of e-commerce in business (10 respondents), Starting a business in commerce (5 respondents), Telemechanics and logistics (logistics employee) (31 respondents), Accounting and finance (40 respondents), Administrative and secretarial services (filing clerk) (8 respondents), Risk management in commerce (1 respondent), Practical accounting (5 respondents), Tourism services (10 respondents), Development of tourism products (10 respondents) and Project management (14 respondents). As a result of the theoretical analysis, the criteria and indicators of educators’ professional competence have been identified, which have been applied in the development of the questionnaire. • Interest in the curriculum initiated by the educator; • Introduction to requirements, programme content and evaluation criteria; • Applied teaching methods; • Recent industry developments and challenges; • Internet resources; • Novelty; • Communication; • Time management etc. An online survey has been administered by applying a questionnaire containing a 3-point Likert scale (1=agree, 2=somehow agree, 3=disagree), in which substantive issues have been assessed. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the test reliability examination indicates good internal consistency (α=81). The results of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test on the non-compliance of the empirical distribution with the normal one (p=.000) have determined the application of non-parametric methods for the secondary data acquisition. Empirical data processing methods using SPSS software to provide quantitative data processing methods: • Descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode); • Spearman’ correlation analysis for determination of relationships between indicators.
Expected Outcomes
The results of the research show that the assessment of educators' professional competence in professional development education programmes is high (Mean=1.35; Me=1; Mo=1). The results of Spearman's correlation analysis show that there is a close correlation among several criteria of educators' professional competence in the implementation of professional development programmes: The interest initiated by adult educators in the curriculum to be acquired statistically significantly correlate with the information provided on the requirements for the curriculum, the content of the curriculum and the evaluation criteria (r=.49, p<.001), as well as the teaching methods applied by adult educators (r=.57, p<.001). In addition, there is a statistically significant relation between the recommendations of adult educators in the application of additional resources and the avoidance of duplication of curriculum content (r=.50, p<.001) - the more diverse the offer of additional educational resources, the less likely it is that there will be duplication with the content of another curriculum. The digital environment is a powerful resource for lifelong learning. Internet resources offer a wide range of opportunities for the acquisition of the programme content and skills improvement, and they are useful tools for the knowledge transfer, media literacy development and critical thinking improvement in order to coordinate and compare one's knowledge with the competence of industry experts- educators. Recent industry developments and challenges relate to the objectivity of information available and the intensity of information flow, as well as to the continuity of teaching and learning for both educators and students. It is important that the latest achievements in the field depend on both fundamental and applied scientific discoveries, and the educators’ competence includes not only their knowledge and ability to integrate them into the educational process, but also their own proactive involvement in research. Novelty in the pedagogical activity is an important component both in the context of the applied methodological tools and techniques and in the development of the content of the subject that corresponds to the changing challenges and solutions of the technological, social and humanitarian paradigms of the age. Educators' professional competence is an important resource in the implementation of professional development education programmes in the dialogue and synergy with learners.
References
1.Antera, S. (2021). Professional Competence of Vocational Teachers: a Conceptual Review. Vocations and Learning, 14, 459–479. 2.Hynes, M. M. (2007). Developing Middle School Engineering Teachers: Toward Expertise in Engineering Subject Matter and Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Permanent URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10427/35355. Department of Education records (UA071), Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University, Medford, MA. Retrieved Feb. 12, 2012 from Tufts Digital Library, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10427/35355 3.Bobkova, A., Melnychuk, O., Melnychuk, O., Melnychuk, M., & Pypiak, M. (2020). Development of Professional Competency of Teachers as the Maintenance of Academic Goodwill. SOCIETY. INTEGRATION. EDUCATION. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference. Volume I, May 22th-23th, 56-66. 4.Enache, M.K. (2021). E-Learning as an Alternative Solution for Sustainable Lifelong Education. Economics and Applied Informatics, 27(1), 47-51. 5.Hyun Yu, J., Sun, J., & Strobel, Y. (2014). A Conceptual K-6 Teacher Competency Model for Teaching Engineering. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 56, 243 – 252. 6.Kronberga, G., Bite, D., & Kruzmetra, Z. (2017). CREATIVE LEARNING METHODS IN PRACTICE: EXPERIENCE OF LATVIAN EDUCATORS. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference “ECONOMIC SCIENCE FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT” No 46 Jelgava, LLU ESAF, 27-28 April 2017, pp. 77-83. 7.Orazbayeva, K.O. (2016). Professional Competence of Teachers in the Age of Globalization. International Journal of Environmental & Science Education, 11(9), 2659-2672. 8.REFERENCE FRAMEWORK FOR PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES For Teachers (2021). Retrieved from https://cdn-contenu.quebec.ca/cdn-contenu/adm/min/education/publications-adm/devenir-enseignant/reference_framework_professional_competencies_teacher.pdf?1611584651 9.Zulfakar (2020). Competence of Teachers as Professional Educators. International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 7, 508-516. 10.UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers, 2018, Unesco. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/MAC/Downloads/265721eng.pdf 11.Yue, X., & Ji, R. (2021). Teacher Professional Competencies in Education for Sustainable Development. In: Sustainable Organizations - Models, Applications, and New Perspectives. Edited by Jose C. Sánchez-García and Brizeida Hernández-Sánchez. Open access peer-reviewed chapter. Retrieved from Retrieved https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/74195
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