The language used in education shapes policy, practice, and perceptions. Edge’s series asks, What's in a Word? and scrutinises the impact of the terminology we commonly employ.
As a phrase, professional development is innocuous. Its importance is widely acknowledged in policy, research and practice and it is generally seen as an essential part of educators’ working lives. However, within the two words ‘professional development’ are multiple meanings and ambiguities which obscure fundamental assumptions about the role of educators. Each part of ‘professional development’ has varied meanings, and its vagueness is compounded when the two words are combined. This lack of shared understanding may contribute to educators’ sustained dissatisfaction about their professional development, such as the Education Endowment Foundation’s findings that 31% of 16-19 teachers felt their professional development didn’t meet their needs and a further 21% were ambivalent about its value. In this edition of What’s in a Word, we consider these meanings and how their underlying assumptions influence the professional development experienced by educators.
Professional is often used to describe what it means to be an educator. Commentators regularly insist that educators must be treated as professionals, and new policies and approaches can be criticised for reducing educators’ professionalism. However, although ‘professional’ can be associated with individual expertise and autonomy, it can also suggest regulation, standardisation and alignment with sector-wide expectations. The OECD reported in 2017 that a key step in improving teachers’ careers globally would be for more countries to move teaching from a ‘semi-profession’ to a ‘true profession’, so that it is seen as having the same value as law, medicine and engineering. A profession, as described by the OECD, possesses a specialised body of knowledge and skills, has a prolonged training period and experiences a high level of public trust and confidence. Professionals are involved in making decisions in accordance with the most valid knowledge available and have relative freedom from direct on-the-job supervision. By contrast, members of semi-professions have less autonomy in decision-making and are subject to more administrative surveillance or control.
If we take these ideas about specialised professional knowledge and skills as the basis for professionalism, we arrive at a justification of the need for professional development. In education, the importance of prolonged training is recognised, but professionalism is not achieved only through this; it is maintained through a commitment to ongoing professional development. However, development also encompasses several meanings when used in ‘professional development’: as an activity or a process to participate in, or as an outcome of those activities. In the first sense, development is a concrete and observable event: professional development can be scheduled or attended. In comparison, the second meaning of professional development is as a continuing process of improvement or learning. This ongoing growth is a possible, but not inevitable, consequence of participating in a professional development event.
We see these different meanings in the range of terminology used. Events are referred to as continuing professional development (CPD), training or continuing education. Other terms, like professional learning and professional growth, reflect ideas around the process of change. Yet others, such as continuing professional development and learning (CPDL), bridge the meanings. This lack of consistent language reflects how a lack of clarity can play out in practice. Some research-based models helpfully articulate these overlapping meanings of professional development. Proposing a spectrum of CPD models, Kennedy categorises professional development events from transmission to transformation, with the latter including teachers’ reflection on their professional growth. Other models describe the complexity of professional development. For example, Clarke and Hollingsworth’s interconnected model underlines the ways in which educators’ experiences and beliefs interact with their learning. Considering whether educators have opportunities for professional development as an event is substantially different from considering whether they have opportunities for professional development as learning.
It is easy to keep a record of what activities educators have access to or have attended, but much harder to understand what has changed in educators’ professional knowledge and skills, beliefs and dispositions. Combining these ideas about professional development with the meanings of professional leads to similar conclusions. For example, if professional means adherence to a set of agreed standards, and professional development means an event, then we can regulate professional development activities into a series of training exercises. These may enable organisers to meet accountability measures, but risk suggesting a lack of trust in educators’ ability to understand and respond to their own learning needs. On the other hand, if professional means autonomy and trust, and development means ongoing learning, then professional development becomes a transformative process through which educators build up their own knowledge, and that of the sector, through individualised exploration and deepening understanding of their practice.
Both forms of professional development, and others positioned between these extremes, serve a purpose in our education system. However, each carries a different, usually implicit, meaning about what we expect from our educators and how they should be supported throughout their careers.
Therefore, when planning, designing, leading or participating in professional development, we must be careful to establish what we mean by these words. In doing so, we provide clarity of purpose and realistic expectations, and offer professional development that meets the needs of educators.
Written by
Emily Perry, Professor of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University and Eleanor Hotham, Senior Research Associate, Manchester Metropolitan University
Emily Perry is a Professor of Education specialising in teacher professional development. She leads research and evaluation studies of professional development, particularly its leadership, and delivers initiatives that strengthen professional development design, delivery and quality assurance. Her work supports policy and practice by improving our understanding of professional development leadership.
Eleanor Hotham is a Senior Research Associate, whose research centres on teacher professional development, curriculum design, and evidence mobilisation. She is passionate about education and childhood and works to support evidence development and synthesis that builds positive outcomes across the sector.