School professionals’ attitudes to professional development in a networked context: developing the model of ‘believers, seekers and sceptics’

Abstract

This paper argues that school professionals’ attitudes to continuing professional development (CPD) fall into identifiable types, which influence their involvement with CPD. In order to consider appropriate support for staff to take up relevant CPD, this paper aims to identify what these attitudes are. To this end, a model developed as an outcome of a Wellcome Trust funded project is applied to the experiences of school professionals in a networked CPD context. The Wellcome Trust model presents four categories—believers, seekers, agnostics and sceptics—according to their attitudes to CPD. This study extends it with a further, fifth, category; that of ‘providers’. Whilst the original model suggests that professionals’ uptake of CPD is primarily dependent on their individual attitude, this paper argues that attitude is a more complex product of professional attitude and other factors, such as access to, relevance and variety of CPD. Through the additional lens provided by other CPD models used in the literature, this paper offers insights into possible ways forward in providing appropriate support for effective CPD in a networked context.

Acknowledgements

The Learning Networks Research Project was funded by Liverpool City of Learning. The authors would like to thank all the participating schools and professionals who contributed to the data collection. Special thanks go to Professor Diana Burton, Professor Anne Campbell, Susan Ainslie and Erica Jones for their contribution to the project as the members of the Liverpool Professional Partnership Research Group and to Amanda Atkinson for administrative support.