Teachers’ professional learning practices in the workplace: experiences of primary school teachers in Ethiopia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Teachers’ professional learning in the workplace is of great interest, for it is believed to positively impact the quality of teaching and learning. To this end, this qualitative case study explored the lived experiences of teachers involved in workplace professional learning (WPL) practices in Ethiopian primary schools. Guided by the constructivist paradigm, data were collected via in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and document review. The findings from the study disclosed that WPL practices of teachers were highly prescriptive, and it was driven by the schools’ learning needs over the needs of individual teachers. The teachers are less autonomous to decide on the focus of their learning needs. This, in turn, has resulted in discontinuous professional learning practice partly because of the disparity between the school’s learning needs and those of the teachers’ needs.