Teacher professional development trends: Perspectives of teachers and principals in Kosovo

Rexhep Krasniqi
Independent researcher, Prishtina, Kosovo

Teachers enhance their professional competencies, knowledge, and performance by attending various professional development activities, whose main goal is to assist them in helping students to achieve better results. The effectiveness of such events depends on matching the professional development to teachers' needs, experience, and objectives. This research investigates teacher professional development (TPD) trends in Kosovo and the impact of the attended activities on teachers' professional practices. It employed a mixed-methods approach with data from 518 teachers and eight principals of 24 primary and lower secondary schools in Kosovo. The quantitative and qualitative findings show that training sessions and workshops are the most frequently utilised methods of TPD in Kosovo. Participation in other formats is negligible as teachers are mainly interested in the programs carrying credits necessary for the renewal of their licenses. While teachers assessed the attended events as considerably helpful, principals tended to complain about the training facilitators and the lack of monitoring. The research recommends that Kosovar teachers should start accessing other TPD formats since the current offerings are incompatible with the contemporary methods. Further research is recommended as such studies are scarce in this research context.
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Author: Dr Rexhep Krasniqi is an independent researcher. His research focuses on educational leadership, teacher education, teacher professional development methods, and education policies. He earned his PhD degree from the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education, thesis entitled, Exploring the role of the principal in the teacher professional development. http://pefprints.pef.uni-lj.si/7078/ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6407-4215 Email: rexhep.krasniqi@gmail.com Please cite as: Krasniqi, R. (2022). Teacher professional development trends: Perspectives of teachers and principals in Kosovo. Issues in Educational Research, 32(4), 1467-1485. http://www.iier.org.au/iier32/krasniqi.pdf