Teachers’ professional development needs: a critical analysis of TALIS through structural equation modelling

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper aims to contribute to TALIS corpus of critical research literature by exploring teachers’ voice through structural equation modelling, to challenge teachers’ professional development needs based on TALIS 2018. 153,674 teachers from 48 countries were included in the analysis. Shaped by TALIS technical framework and instrumental conception of teaching and the role of teachers, teachers’ professional development needs were grouped into three dimensions: what to teach (content, pedagogical and curricular knowledge), how to teach (teaching and assessment knowledge) and who to teach (contextual knowledge). To allow for a more holistic understanding of teaching and learning and teachers’ development, we propose re-thinking TALIS 2024 conceptual framework, to move forward from technical questions about teaching and effectiveness. Transformative pedagogies might be better aligned with the current school reality and might be considered as a new framework to update TALIS survey, and embrace teachers’ professional development needs, and related plans, from an expanded perspective.