Professional Development and Learning of In-Service Teachers at Different Career Stages in China: A Teacher Knowledge Building Perspective

It is held in consensus worldwide that targeted professional development and learning (PDL) approaches should be provided for in-service teachers at different career stages. This research aims to add to the paucity of research that explores what PDL approaches are best suited for in-service teachers at different career stages. By integrating personal and environmental factors encompassing working years, government certification, teachers’ honorary reputations, and leadership positions, this study proposes a three-career-stage division of in-service teachers in China: beginning teachers, experienced teachers, and expert teachers. In examining the main question of what PDL approaches are best suited for in-service teachers at three career stages, various contextual factors need to be considered: firstly, discovering what various stakeholders such as government, teacher educators, and in-service teachers, perceive to be the best PDL approaches for that purpose; secondly, discovering which of these work to that effect. These main points are critically investigated by looking at two research questions: Research Question 1: What PDL approaches are best suited for in-service teachers at three career stages according to the perceptions of the stakeholders, including government, teacher educators, and in-service teachers? Research Question 2: How are these PDL approaches that are thought to be best suited for in-service teachers at three career stages by the stakeholders effective? The methodology, a two-stage qualitative study, was used to address the research questions. The first stage combined interview data with document analysis to answer Research Question 1. All the data from various sources were critically analysed and then pieced together to determine what PDL approaches were thought by all the stakeholders to be best suited for in-service teachers at three career stages. To address Research Question 2, the second stage was to explore how these identified PDL approaches were effective. This study adopted the perspective of teacher knowledge building (TKB) to investigate the effectiveness of identified PDL approaches through teachers' self-reported knowledge changes. This research conceptualises that TKB is a process wherein teachers build new knowledge through the continuous, dynamic, multi-faceted, multi-layered interaction and dialogue among theoretical, practical, explicit, and tacit knowledge through the action of problem solving. However, the TKB processes at various stages may show different characteristics concerning approaches, mechanisms, and facilitating conditions. It is the hypothetical conception that this research attempts to confirm. The results indicate that the identified PDL approaches are suitable for beginning teachers, experienced teachers, and expert teachers respectively because they could promote TKB when properly designed to provide high-quality facilitating conditions. The similarities and differences in the approaches, mechanisms, and facilitating conditions to knowledge building of teachers at different career stages were reported and discussed. A composite model was then developed to present TKB at all three career stages based on cross-case analysis. This research provides promising approaches for designing effective PDL approaches for various stages of in-service teachers, and expands the knowledge base concerning TKB, practical knowledge, and learning sciences.