Impact of Pedagogical Training Workshops on Teachers’ Knowledge and Practice: Influence of the Training Design and Participant’s Background

Author(s):

Ana-Inés Renta-Davids(presenting / submitting)Jose-Miguel Jiménez-González Angel-Pio González-Soto Manel Fandos-Garrido Ximena Castaño Juan Haro

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

01. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 11 B, Professional Development Activities - Training Days, Workshops and Research

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-12

17:15-18:45

Room:

B-203

Chair:

Peter Earley

Contribution

Workshops are probably the most frequent activities in professional development programs. These activities may provide opportunities to support the development of academic staff’s teaching knowledge and skills. Currently there is an increasing amount of literature that provides sound theoretical grounds to understand their effects and outcomes in teachers’ knowledge and practice. A literature review reveals that participation in pedagogical training supports university teachers to become more aware of their teaching approach and of their teaching skills (Gibbs & Coffey, 2004; Postareff, Lindblom-Ylänne, & Nevgi, 2007). Despite of its acknowledged importance little is known about the impact on daily teaching practice (Stes, Min-Leliveld, Gijbels, & Van-Petegem, 2010; Lawson, Fazey & Clancy, 2007; Rust, 1998). Different levels of impact were identified in literature review. Most widely spread measures of impact defined impact as a change in teachers’ attitudes, conceptions, knowledge and skills in the first level, a change in practice as transfer of learning to the workplace in the second level, a change in organization as institutional impact in the third level and a change within students regarding their perceptions, study approaches and learning outcomes in the fourth level. Different features of professional development programs were identified as characteristic of effectiveness such as duration, nature and target group of the programs.

In the present research we analyse the impact of pedagogical training workshops in university teacher’s knowledge and practice and how the training design and participant’s background influence impact of training. The framework was based on a review of recent research into the characteristics of effective professional development programs (Cervero, 1984, 1986; Holton, 2000, 2005; Ingvarson, Meiers & Beavis, 2005, Stes et al. 2010;). We defined workshops as a ‘facilitated event’ lasting from eight hours up to forty hours of instruction, for a group of between 10 and 40 higher education teachers, ‘which involves some degree of active participation and interaction’ among participants and instructors (Rust, 1998, p. 73). Our measures of impact were defined as the knowledge that participants have acquired and the introduction of changes in their teaching practice as a consequence of attending workshops. These measures were developed according to the training programs’ goals and its intended changes. Training design was defined as a type of learning activities in which participants were engaged into during workshops and covered a range of learning activities which are describe as ‘passive activities’ such as to listening a lecture and as ‘hands-on’ activities such as design of learning material or student assessment tools. Several measures of participants background were also took into account such as university and non-university teaching experience, teaching and research dedication, job position and knowledge domain background.

Workshops were offered as a part of a professional development training program at a Spanish University between 2010 and 2012. These workshops were intended to enhance academic staff’s teaching knowledge and skills so they were focused on pedagogical knowledge content. They were aligned to institutional goals of teaching quality improvement under the implementation processes of the European Higher Education Area.

Method

A questionnaire was developed to carry out this study. The questionnaire consists of four parts. The first part has 10 items that measure participants’ gained knowledge using a five-point-scale (1=not at all / 5=very much). The second part has 15 items that measure ‘type of learning activity’ engaged into during the course based on a five-point-scale (1=not at all / 5=very much). The third part consist of 10 items that measure introduction of changes in teaching practice with a four-point-scale (1=no change, 2=minimum change, 3=moderate change, 4=significant change). Finally, the fourth part includes individual characteristics (age, type of degree, teaching experience, working conditions, department membership, and name of the course attended). The questionnaire was produced according to the training program’s goals of academic staff’s teaching skills enhancement and was validated by its coordinators. The questionnaire was sent to all participants who had finished a pedagogical training course delivered during 2010 and 2012. In total, 31 courses were included in the sample, with 15 participants in average. The questionnaire was sent by email and 171 responses were received representing a response rate of 28,1%. A quantitative analysis was applied to the data. Correlation and analysis of variance were performed.

Expected Outcomes

Type of learning activity which has higher score is ‘listening-to-a-lecture’, followed by ‘observing a demonstration’, ‘exploration and use of new technology’ and ‘receiving feedback’. Types of activities which have a low score are ‘participating in roleplaying’ and ‘conducting a discussion’. Types of activities were correlated with ‘knowledge acquired’ and ‘introduction of changes’. Types of activities with higher scores, suggesting they are the most frequently use in this workshops, have the lowest correlation with ‘gained of knowledge’ and ‘introduction of changes’. Types of learning activities that have a high correlation with ‘gained of knowledge’ and ‘introductions of changes’ have a low score, these are ‘assessment tools design’, ‘learning activities design’ and ‘assessment of learning’. These learning activities have the common feature to be a hands-on experience and are closely related to teachers’ classroom work. These results suggest that hands-on activities are associated with knowledge and introductions of changes but they are not the ones more frequently used in training. Correlation and partial correlation analysis were carried out between 'type of activity', ‘knowledge acquired’ and ‘introduction of changes’ introducing different measures of participants’ background as control variables. The amount of ‘research-hours’ show a negative significant correlation with introduction of changes.

References

GIBBS G. & COFFEY M. (2004) The Impact of Training of University Teachers on their Teaching Skills, their Approach to Teaching and the Approach to Learning of their Students, Active Learning in Higher Education, 5:87 Postareff, L., Lindblom-Ylänne, S., & Nevgi, A. (2007). The effect of pedagogical training on teaching in higher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 557-571. Stes, Min-Leliveld, Gijbels, & Van-Petegem, 2010; The impact of instructional development in higher education: The state-of-the-art of the research, Educational Research Review, 5, 25-49. Lawson, R.J., Fazey, J.A., & Clancy, D.M. (2007). The impact of a teaching in Higher Education scheme on new lecturers’ personal epistemologies and approaches to teaching. In C. Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning. Oxford, UK: Oxford Centre for Staff Development. RUST, C. (1998) The impact of educational development workshops on teachers’ practice, Internacional Journal for Academic Development, 3, 72-80. CERVERO, R.M & ROTTET, S., (1984) Analyzing the effectiveness of continuing professional education: an exploratory study, Adult Education Quarterly, 34:3, 135-146 CERVERO, R.M., ROTTET, S. & DIMMOCK, K., (1986) Analyzing the effectiveness of continuing professional education at the workplace, Adult Education Quarterly, 36:2, 78-85. Holton, E.F; (2005) Holton's Evaluation Model: New Evidence and Construct Elaborations, Advances in Developing Human Resources, 7, 37-54. Ingvarson, L.; Meiers, M.; & Beavis, A.; (2005) Factors Affecting the Impact of Professional Development Programs On Teachers’ Knowledge, Practice, Student Outcomes &Efficacy, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13(10) Retrieved [date] from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v13n10/. Ho, A.S.P. (2000). A conceptual change approach to staff development: A model for programme design. The International Journal for Academic Development, 5(1), 30–41 LUEDDEKE, G. R., (2003) Professionalising Teaching Practice in Higher Education: A study of disciplinary variation and teaching-scholarship, Studies in Higher Education, 28:2, 213-228