Professional growth and development : systems of employee development for teachers

This study researched constraints to teachers' professional growth and development which influence teacher turnover. Constraints were targeted as areas for school change in order to retain good, younger teachers.

Thirty-eight teachers in eight East Tennessee public secondary schools participated in the study. Schools and teachers were identified and selected by a method of multistage cluster sampling. A questionnaire was developed through a process of progressive modification to present teachers with a plan for their professional growth and development. The plan represented an ideal "system of employee development" for teachers.

The questionnaire elicited teachers' perceptions of the extent to which ideas in the plan are not being carried out for teachers in their local school environments. Only eleven out of fifty—six ideas were perceived as not being carried out in at least five schools. Ideas pertained to (a) Needs of Individual Teachers, (b) Training, (c) Partnerships in Policy Development, and (d) Administrative Support in the forms of Financial Resources and Time.

Interviews elicited constraints to the carrying out of the eleven ideas. Constraints included: (a) divisive informal social structures; (b) the non-existence of training; (c) conditions of inservice; (d) administrative perspectives, politics, and a lack of support with financial resources; and (e) administrative control over time and workload.

The following were found to constrain teachers' professional growth and development and to influence teacher turnover: (a) politically motivated and regulative district or system administrations which control teachers' opportunity and reward for professional growth and development; (b) politically motivated, unsupportive building administrations; (c) a general lack of intellectualism in schools; (d) divisive informal social structures; and (e) workload and the infringement of the job on personal time.

The analysis of data was largely descriptive. Some nonparametric inferential tests (a) supported an argument for school change at the local level, (b) satisfactorily upheld the multistage sampling procedure for homogeneity within school clusters, and (c) further validated the process of data collection. Inservice and planning periods were identified as two structures for change. Changes have implications for policy-making regarding staff development. Determining how these structures should be revamped is a matter for applied research.