Uncovering Singapore Teachers’ Motivation to Participate in Professional Development Activities

Abstract

Set against the motivation to enhance Teacher Professional Development (TPD), the question was raised of what makes a teacher want to engage in TPD. While a literature scan has shown numerous studies on TPD that advocate different types of TPD that teachers consider effective, the Singapore literature suffers from a dearth of empirical study to show what motivates a teacher to engage in TPD. Adopting a social psychology framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study seeks to address the research problem through a baseline study and an extended exploration on the factors affecting a teacher's motivation to do TPD. A variety of data collection methods are described to study this. In-depth interview and questionnaire survey will be used to construct the baseline while observations and fieldwork will deepen the exploration and provide the triangulation to data collection, essentially improving the reliability of the study. This paper will report on the findings from the in-depth interviews and elucidate the reasons for teachers taking part in TPD in Singapore.