High School Science Teachers’ Professional Development Experiences in the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore public high school teachers’ professional development (PD) experiences in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, using (SWOT) analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Using a mixed-methods approach with an exploratory sequential design, the study population comprised 150 male and female science teachers from the Al Ain Education Office participating in two phases. The first phase involved semi-structured interviews with a subset of the science teachers (N = 20) and the second phase involved a questionnaire survey completed by a larger subset of the total participants (N = 150). The findings revealed the following strengths in teachers’ PD: improved knowledge and skills; new discoveries; different methods of experimentation; and the opportunity for technology integration. Some weaknesses and areas identified for improvement included language barriers, theory-heavy activities, a lack of contextual relevance, the amount of time involved, high teaching loads, school support, and the difficulties associated with specific content and contexts. Based on the findings of the present study, the author recommends a model of continuous professional development (CPD) that can be adapted both to the varied needs of individual schools and the needs of the subject, content, and context. Also, using digital platforms for training and exchanging expertise and experience, as well as adopting best practices, would be advantageous.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional development
• science teachers
• swot analysis
• united arab emirates

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).