Arnoud Evers

Toward a Model of Explaining Teachers’ Innovative Behavior A Literature Review

Innovative behavior can be described as a process in which new ideas are generated, created, developed, applied, promoted, realized, and modified by employees to benefit role performance. Various reasons, such as rapid technological and social changes in society, underline the necessity for innovative behavior of employees and certainly of teachers. However, little research has been conducted that explores teacher innovative behavior and which factors influence this behavior or what effects can be achieved through such behavior. In this systematic literature review, we develop a preliminary model of factors that enhance innovative behavior in educational organizations. Similar to findings of studies in other human behavior fields, self-efficacy plays an important role as well as a variety of individual and environmental factors. Based on this review, we urge for more systematic research on teacher innovative behavior to enhance the future quality of education.

An organizational and task perspective model aimed at enhancing teachers' professional development and occupational expertise

Currently, many countries, including the Netherlands, are “plagued” by severe, both quantitative and qualitative, teacher shortages that are even expected to increase in the years to come. Teachers’ occupational development, therefore, has become an important issue on the research agenda of the respective countries. It is essential to develop more thorough insights that enable human resource management (HRM) and human resource development (HRD) professionals in schools to take strategic decisions in developing teachers’ professional development (TPD) and occupational expertise (OE). The aim of these strategic decisions is to cope effectively with shortages in this occupational sector. In this contribution, we propose a model that focuses on the influence of organizational and task factors on TPD which, in turn, is assumed to enhance OE. We will thoroughly discuss the so-called TPD & OE model, and its implications for research and HRD practice.

The design and validation of an instrument to measure teachers' professional development at work

ABSTRACT After graduation, it is essential for teachers to continue working on their professional development since they need to be prepared for the requirements of tomorrows knowledge- and technology-based society, a more varied student and pupil population creating new responsibilities, and higher social expectations from schools and the society as a whole. Although attention for teachers’ professional development at work is increasing, the availability of valid survey instruments that measure their participation in professional development at work is still limited. Based on a literature review, such an instrument was designed. This 21-item self-report measure, using a 4-point rating scale, makes an inventory of teachers’ participation in activities contributing to professional development. The purpose of the instrument is to make teachers, school leaders and other stakeholders aware of whether, and to what degree, teachers engage in learning at work. This is important because ultimately the quality of education depends on it. A survey was administered in 9 Dutch primary schools and 15 Dutch secondary schools. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed a six-factor structure, and augments earlier findings in the field. The reliabilities of the six subscales were sufficient to good.

Job Demands, Job Resources, and Flexible Competence: The Mediating Role of Teachers’ Professional Development at Work

Building upon previous research that focused on the relationships between job demands, job resources, and employee psychological well-being, this longitudinal research makes a unique contribution by relating job demands and job resources to teachers’ professional development (TPD) at work and flexible competence, the latter being a key factor in teachers’ career development. This study was carried out among 211 teachers working in primary and secondary education in the Netherlands. TPD at work appeared to be related to flexible competence and proved to be a mediator between job resources, on the one hand, and flexible competence, on the other hand. Job resources positively enhanced TPD at work and in turn were related to flexible competence. Moreover, a direct negative relationship between job demands and flexible competence was found.

Organisational and task factors influencing teachers’ professional development at work

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate organisational (cultural and relational) and task factors which potentially enhance teachers’ professional development at work (TPD at Work). The development of lifelong learning competencies and, consequently, the careers of teachers, has become a permanent issue on the agenda of schools worldwide. The workplace is also increasingly regarded as the place to develop these competencies. Design/methodology/approach – A model incorporating the relationships between organisational and task factors as predictor variables and TPD at Work as the dependent variable, is presented and empirically tested by a quantitative (survey research) method. Findings – The study results indicated that learning climate, social support from one’s immediate supervisor, social support from close colleagues and learning value of the function can act as important job resources for TPD at Work. Work pressure and emotional demands, on the other hand, appeared to act as job demands ...

Competence and Professional Expertise

Theoretical and empirical controversies exist about the understanding and potentials of the concepts of competence and professional expertise. In this chapter, both concepts will be thoroughly conceptualised and discussed. Competence and professional expertise are important as all professionals need to possess a high degree of competence or expertise in their specific job domain, to enable their own career development and to stimulate laypersons of their own profession to have faith in their professional approach. In addition to this conceptualisation, different stages of competence or professional expertise will be discussed. As competence and professional expertise are interpreted to have the same meaning, the remainder of the chapter will focus on professional expertise. It is not only essential to discuss what is being learned, that is, professional expertise, but also how one is learning, which is defined in this chapter as professional (expertise) development of employees. Therefore, the chapter will continue with defining professional (expertise) development. Specific attention will be paid to the teaching profession, where professional (expertise) development is more important than ever. Because a difficult question for working organisations is which organisational conditions are significant for the further development of professional expertise of their employees, this chapter will end with a helpful overview of these ones that have proven to have predictive validity in this regard.

How to keep teachers healthy and growing: the influence of job demands and resources

Education depends on high-quality teachers who are committed to professional development and do not get burned out. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how job demands and resources can affect the health and cognitive development of teachers using the Demand-Induced Strain Compensation model.,A cross-sectional sample of 120 teachers in vocational education was used to investigate the proposed relationships and hypotheses with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression method.,In terms of teacher health and development, significant main effects were found for several predictors. Autonomy was significantly and negatively related to emotional exhaustion. Autonomy, emotional supervisor and colleague support were significantly and positively related to teachers’ development. However, little support was found for matching hypotheses, suggesting that matching demands and resources do not offer more explanatory power for occupation outcomes than other types of interaction effects.,More powerful analyses techniques like structural equation modeling could be used in future research with a larger sample size. A second limitation is common method variance.,Schools in vocational education should provide sufficient job resources, such as autonomy and emotional support, but possibly also put a limit on teacher task variety.,Job demands and resources have until now mainly been related to negative outcomes such as poor health and ill-being, while the relationship with learning has also been hypothesized and is therefore meaningful to examine. In addition, it was investigated whether interaction effects of matching demands and resources, better explain these outcomes.