Pedagogical Development programmes in Higher Education. What works for whom and under which circumstances?
Project introduction and background information
Higher Education is changing rapidly, therefore efforts have been targeted towards raising the esteem of teaching. Higher Education institutes have developed pedagogical training (programmes) and put more pressure on teachers to follow pedagogical training or pedagogical development programmes (PDP). This requires much financial and time investment for both teachers and universities. However, previous research has focused mostly on self-perceived effects of teachers, sometimes supplemented with the perspective of students, without explaining how this was related to the characteristics of the pedagogical trainings.
Objective and expected outcomes
In this proposed PhD research we aim to gain more insight into the relationship between characteristics of Pedagogical Development Programmes (PDP) and the effects on teachers’ knowledge, skills and attitudes, their behaviour and changes in the classroom, and investigate under which circumstances and by which mechanisms these effects occur. In the proposed study, the Dutch University Teaching Qualification (UTQ) programme will serve as exemplary case.
Results and learnings
The first study is a systematic review, it explores what is known about the relationships between characteristics of pedagogical development programmes (PDP) in higher education, context characteristics within which PDPs take place, and teacher development outcomes. Although more research is needed, this review resulted in an overview of indicated relationship between characteristics of PDPs and teacher development outcomes. See the article A systematic review to explore how characteristics of pedagogical development programmes in higher education are related to teacher development outcomes for more details.
In a next study ten teachers who are participating in the Wageningen UTQ programme are followed during participation in the programme. In this multiple case study we aim to gain insight how university teachers develop during a longitudinal pedagogical development programme, thereby focussing on the individual development of teachers, the differences among teachers and which PDP-characteristics do influence the development of teachers. In this study a longitudinal research design is used that measure various developmental outcomes at different points in time. The Interconnected Model of Change (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) will be used to typify the development of the teachers.
In the last study, a survey study, we aim to gain insight into teachers’ learning experiences within the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ). More specific, what type of collaboration activities within the UTQ activities does stimulate what type of teacher development? This survey study will focus on UTQ-participants of the 4 technical universities in the Netherlands.