Education Commons^™

Changing Perceptions About Professional Development: An Action Research Study Using Andragogy For Educators’ Professional Development, Cynthia L. Pina

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

Traditional professional development for teachers provides time to gain knowledge about classroom content, skills to effectively teach, and the possibility to improve student learning. The problem is teachers’ dissatisfaction with the design of professional development. Research indicates that teachers participate in professional development, but it is ineffective, irrelevant, and makes teachers feel undervalued as professionals. The purpose of this study is to improve teachers’ perceptions about traditional professional development. This study is based on seminal research by Malcolm Knowles’ andragogy, an adult learning framework. This study is driven by three research questions to determine how the andragogy framework improved teachers’ …