Teachers' Perceptions of the Effects of In‐Service Education

Abstract

Thirteen years ago, Euan Henderson observed that into the effectiveness of in-service training is disappointingly scanty (Henderson, 1976). Since then there have been a large number of investigations into in-service provision and into teachers' professional development and careers. However, relatively few of these studies have focused on the effects of in-service education and training (INSET) on teachers, schools or children. It is also the case that research on INSET rarely builds on or incorporates other studies. There is, therefore, still relatively little information about the effects of INSET and no body of empirically or theoretically generalisable knowledge of its effectiveness. Examples of studies of in-service conducted since the mid1970s include the work of Henderson himself. Besides publishing an influential book (Henderson, 1978) in which he delineates different approaches to the evaluation of INSET, Henderson has undertaken several investigations of its outcomes, particularly on teachers' attitudes (Henderson, 1975). In addition, he has reported on the effects on teachers of at least one of the Open University's post-experience courses (Henderson, 1977). Other writers who have engaged in similar work include Bell (1981) whose evaluations draw extensively on the responses by course members to post-session evaluation sheets. Smith (1975) has incorporated a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods in his study of the influence of primary INSET on teachers' work. Similarly, Baker and Sikora's (1982) evaluation of school-focused INSET in four LEAs relies on a diverse range of methods to elicit data on its impact at the level of the school. Dienye (1987), by contrast, uses a preand post-test to assess the success of a course designed to increase teachers' understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge. More recently, Evans and Hopkins (1988) have examined, using a variety of methods, the influence of 'school climate' and teachers' 'psychological state' on the utilisation of educational knowledge derived from INSET. While these are only a few of the studies to have emerged over the period we are considering, a search through the British Journal of Inservice Education, the main channel in the UK for the dissemination of evaluations of INSET, reveals very little 163