Kindergarten Teachers’ Perceptions on in-service Training and Impact on Classroom Practice

Abstract

Professional development of teachers has become an essential condition in today's knowledge-based society to sustain the quality of teaching. One of the major goal of the Romanian education system is regarding high quality of teacher professional development programs that should enhance their competences and use of new curricular approaches to facilitate successful practice. It is well-known the axis that improving teachers would improve the teaching and learning in school, which in turn would improve the quality of education at national level. But various factors might contribute to ineffectiveness of teacher professional development, like ethical, structural, cultural, economical, policy or personal issues. Purpose of study concerns on a study that investigated kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of their in-service followed training programs, and impact on the professional development process and classroom practice. The qualitative instrument chosen to carry out the research was a structured questionnaire, on-line applied on 84 kindergarten teachers. In qualitative terms, data regarding the perceptions on professional development perspectives of teachers from kindergarten were structured on five issues categories of activities considered to be necessary for teacher training programs, actors that influence the level of teacher professional development, types of activities based on training programs followed that may influence the classroom practice, the level of teacher training programs focused on specific aspects of educational practice, and aspects that might influence the teacher's educational practice. Findings show that there is a significant difference between beginners and newly qualified teachers’ perception and those with more than 10 years experience; in the sense that the former focuses more on the visibility and status to the profession, while the second category focuses its approach on professionalization.