Being a part of a larger research, this study focuses on the Czech and Russian educational systems in terms of Continuous Professional Development (CPD). It is a secondary data analysis which draws a comparison between Czech and Russian teachers and puts an enlarged interpretation of the results on lower-secondary school teachers’ professional development and teachers’ experiences from the OCED’s Teaching and learning International Survey (TALIS 2018). 

The Czech Republic and Russia have been determined on comparison for quite a number of reasons. Firstly, the need for a more highly educated work force is stimulating policy‐makers in both countries to expand access to schooling and enhance its quality. The governments have enacted policies that require teachers have opportunities to update not only their pedagogical content knowledge but social pedagogical knowledge as well (Shulman, 1987). Another noteworthy reason is that the comparative analysis of the Czech Republic and Russia highlights the similarities and differences in professional development in the light of the national contexts and this acknowledgment may help establish if these distinguishing characteristics reflect on CPD and effect its’ features.

The aim of this analysis is to provide and compare general information on CPD as perceived by lower-secondary school teachers in the Czech Republic and Russia in terms of its content, form, impact on teaching practices and to review what types of CPD are crucial for teachers in order to promote, sustain teachers' CPD and keep them up to date as “teachers are called upon not only to acquire new knowledge and skills but also to develop them continuously” (Teachers’ professional development 2010:12). The research also seeks to uncover the better CPD system of the two and promote dissemination to the less well performing one.

The following questions will help to address these research objectives:

1. What induction programmes and mentoring activities were available to lower-secondary school teachers?
2. What CPD was undertaken by teachers in the year prior to the TALIS 2018 survey?
3. What support did schools provide teachers undertaking CPD activities?
4. What were the characteristics of CPD activities that teachers felt had the greatest positive impact upon their practices?
5. What CPD did teachers say that they need?
6. What did teachers perceive to be the greatest barriers to receiving more CPD?

The conceptual framework for the evaluation of issues of professional development (PD) is seen in three specific domains of PD: needs for PD, support for PD, and barrier to PD participation (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD 2013). Teachers’ PD would become more effective and teachers would learn best when PD addresses their various needs (Darling-Hammond et al. 2009). This research investigates if PD needs vary largely among Czech and Russian teachers and whether teaching experience matters.

Empirical studies have suggested that compensation is critical for supporting teachers’ opportunities to learn, particularly outside their contract hours (Appova and Arbaugh 2018). Drawing on data from 600 teachers, Monahan (1996) found that teachers’ incentives involved college tuition reimbursement, paid professional days, and on-site in-service sessions. There is a need to examine the differences between teachers in both countries regarding incentives in PD.

Personal and contextual factors have been found to influence teachers’ participation in PD (Kwakman 2003), including professional attitudes and learning support from schools. Studies have shown that time, financial considerations, travel time/distance, and family commitment are major obstacles for PD participation (Monahan 1996, Lind 2007). In this study, barriers related to PD participation have been examined.

All the data were derived from the TALIS 2018 teacher questionnaire but only questions 19-28 devoted to CPD of lower-secondary school teachers were incorporated in the study. TALIS 2018 applied online data collection method for achieving the goals of the survey of monitoring and comparing education systems in terms of the conditions of teaching and learning. Information is gathered via self-administrated online questionnaires (main data collection mode) and paper questionnaires (substitute or fall-back mode). The sample design for TALIS 2018 was a stratified systematic sample, with the school sampling probability proportional to the estimated number teachers within each school. Samples were drawn using a two-stage sampling process. In the first stage a sample of schools was drawn, and in the second stage a sample of teachers was drawn within each selected school. Thus, the representative samples for the main data collection consist of approximately 200 schools per country and 20 teachers within each school. The nominal international sample size is set at 4 000 teachers. To ensure that the samples are not biased by non-response, TALIS 2018 required a minimum overall participation rate of 75% of teachers for each participating education system with a minimum response rate of 75% of sampled schools and each included school attaining a minimum response rate of 50%. (OCED 2018 Framework) Though there has been some recent criticism of a sample survey approach in the literature (Gorard, 2016), “statistical models that account for the inherent multilevel (system, school, teacher) structure of the TALIS data provide a useful means of understanding and explaining differences within and across schools and within and across countries” (0CED 2018: 16 Framework). In large surveys such as TALIS, sampling variation is relatively small. In order to achieve the analysis objectives, the quantitative methods were employed. As it is a secondary data analysis, “it offers the prospect of having access to good-quality data for a tiny fraction of the resources involved in carrying out a data-collection exercise yourself” (Bryman p.312). In order to perform high-quality data analysis and ensure the best results, a computer software package that supports the management of quantitative date: International Business Machines Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS), the International Database (IDB) Analyzer and EXCEL software was used. Thus, data were entered by the researcher into Microsoft Excel and then analyzed using SPSS and IDB Analyzer.

The study of CPD has identified both differences and similarities between the two countries. Thus, the analysis revealed that 61,5% of teachers in the Czech Republic and 67,3% of teachers in Russia don’t have access to formal and informal induction programmes. This high non-participation rate is remarkably similar in both countries and must be a source of some concern as it is considered an important type of support to teachers who are either new to the profession or new to the school. The countries don’t differ much on some types of CPD undertaken and it is evident that participation rates are fairly consistently high across the following activities such as courses and seminars (about 80%), reading professional literature (86%) and peer observation (75% in Russian and 45% in the Czech Republic). The countries very significantly with respect to online courses, participation in networks and observation visits to other schools (about 70% in Russia and 20% in the Czech Republic). The research revealed that Russian teachers reported a significant higher level of needs in CPD, especially in “knowledge and understanding of my subject field”, “knowledge of the curriculum”, ‘student assessment practices” and “teaching cross-cultural skills”. The factors that encourage and motivate teachers towards CPD and those that act as barriers in participating are similar in both countries. The main obstacle is that CPD conflicts with the schedule” as well as the lack of time because of the family responsibilities. The school management plays a major role in providing support and encouraging a culture of professional learning. However, teachers need to be encouraged to take ownership of their professional development and consider it as a personal responsibility rather than a professional obligation. They should be involved in identifying their professional development needs and constantly reflect on their practice.

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