Investigating the Longer-Term Impact of a Professional Development Program: A Five-Year Follow-Up Qualitative Study

Authors

Susan Kerwin-Boudreau, Champlain College-St. LambertFollow

Abstract

Do changes in perspectives on teaching and learning that teachers experience in a professional development (PD) program persist over time? How might they evolve? In this article the author first summarizes the results of her original two-year qualitative study of Quebec CEGEP (college) teachers’ perspectives on teaching and learning within a PD program. She then describes the results of a follow-up qualitative study that she conducted with the same teachers five years later. Teacher interviews were coded using the constant comparative method (Maykut & Morehouse, 1994). Three major conceptual themes emerged: teachers reported engaging (outside of teaching), innovating (within teaching) and evolving (professionally and personally). Threads that appeared in the original study re-emerged in the follow-up data. Monitoring the longer-term impact of PD programs can shed valuable light on the on-going process of teacher development.

Keywords

teaching in higher education, teacher professional development, long-term impact, professional growth, identity development, constant comparative method

Author Bio(s)

Susan Kerwin-Boudreau (PhD, McGill University) has over four decades of teaching experience as a professor of Psychology and Methodology at Champlain College, Saint-Lambert, Quebec. She also teaches professional development courses for college teachers at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec. Her manuscript, The Professional Development of College Teachers, was published by Mellen Press in 2010. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to the author by email at: boudreau@crcmail.net.

Publication Date

5-3-2021

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4399

Recommended APA Citation

Kerwin-Boudreau, S. (2021). Investigating the Longer-Term Impact of a Professional Development Program: A Five-Year Follow-Up Qualitative Study. The Qualitative Report, 26(5), 1383-1400. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4399