Research question and aim:

The presentation is based on a qualitative study focusing on how teachers perceive their participation in further education. We examine teachers who have taken further education in the vocational programme subjects of food and catering (abbreviated to FC) and technology and industrial production (abbreviated to TIP). The aim was to improve our understanding of how the teachers experience the further education studies and how useful they find them to be in the practice field. Our main research question was: How do the teachers of the FC and TIP programme subjects experience their participation in the further education studies?

Theoretical framework:

In Norway, formal competence development among teachers has changed over the last five or six years (Hagen & Nyen, 2009). Hagen and Nyen refer to how teachers basically have high formal competence. Teachers are also a professional group participating to a high degree in training and education compared to the rest of the national workforce, including professional groups with higher education. This applies not least to formal further education, even if there has been no increase in recent years. The Scottish school researcher McMahon et al. (2007) points out that further education with practice-oriented research activities and content that integrates the implementation of own action research in own teaching appear to be particularly fertile. Parise & Spillane's (2010) study shows that teachers appreciate formal further education if it is connected directly to teaching in school. Precisely the fact that the further education is so closely linked to and relevant for their own working day appears to lead teachers to find that the time they invest is well spent. In a study carried out in OECD countries (TALIS, 2009) Norwegian respondents state that qualification programmes and research activities have the most importance for their professional development. In their study of courses given to 118 teachers of mathematics and natural science with the exploratory method as the educational tool, the American researchers Buczynski and Hansen (2010) found that their learning also has an impact on the learning of pupils.

Hagen and Nyen (2009) refer to qualitative analyses of what characterizes good teachers. They show that good teachers have the ability to increase their competence by cooperating with other teachers while they assume responsibility for their own professional development. Hammerness et al. (2005) call this "adaptive expertise", which means the ability to learn something from others on a continuing basis.

References: Buczynski, S., & Hansen, C.B. (2010). Impact of professional development on teacher practice: uncovering connections. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(3), 599-607. Hagen, A., & Nyen, T. (2009) Kompetanseutvikling for lærere [Developing competence for teachers]. Utdanning 2009 læringsutbytte og kompetanse [learning outcome and competence] (s. 149-165). Oslo/Kongsvinger: Statistisk Sentralbyrå. Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., Bransford, J., Berliner, D., Cochran-Smith, M., McDonald, M., & Zeichner, K. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In L. Darling-Hammond, & J. Bransford (ed.). Preparing teachers for a changing world. What teachers should learn and be able to do (p. 358-389). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. McMahon, M., Reeves, J., Devlin, A., Simpson, J., & Jaap, A. (2007) Evaluating the impact of Chartered Teacher in Scotland: the views of Chartered Teachers. Project Report. General Teaching Council Scotland, Edinburgh. Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological Research Methods. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. OECD, Utdanningsdirektoratet, & NIFUSTEP (2009). OECDs internasjonale studie av undervisning og læring. http://www.udir.no/upload/Rapporter/TALIS-2008/TALIS08_sammendrag.pdf. Lastet ned 6. juni 2011.[International study og teaching and learning]. Parise, L.M., & Spillane, J.P. (2010). Teacher learning and instructional change: How formal and on-the-job learning opportunities predict change in elementary school teachers' practice. The Elementary School Journal, 110(3), 323-346. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.