Promoting teacher's professional development

Abstract

The goal of the study is to contribute to the understanding of teachers' professional development. This is done by focussing on teachers' informal learning, conceptualized as reflection and feedback asking. A survey study with data from 456 teachers and instructors from a College for Secondary Vocational Educational and Training was used to investigate which individual factors (self-efficacy and learning goal orientation) and organisational factors (transformational leadership) explain teachers' informal learning. As expected, positive relationships between selfefficacy and learning goal orientation, on the one hand, and reflection and feedback asking, on the other hand, were found. In addition, the expected mediating effects of learning goal orientation in the relationships between selfefficacy and reflection and feedback asking were found. Furthermore, the expected positive relationships between transformational leadership and professional development could be confirmed for feedback asking. Finally, as expected, learning goal orientation moderated the relationship between transformational leadership, on the one hand, and reflection and feedback asking, on the other hand. The results offer insights into the relationships between individual and situational factors with respect to teachers' informal learning.