INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT AND WOMEN COLLEGE TEACHERS PARTICIPATION IN CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AT PUBLIC SECTOR COLLEGES

Abstract

The study is entitled, “Institutional Support and Women College Teacher’s Participation in Continuous Professional Development at Public Sector Colleges” Institutional support is widely recognized as a determinant of teacher’s engagement in professional development. This study investigated the institutional support and its relationship with participation of Women College teachers in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities of the public sector colleges located in Punjab (Pakistan). The technique adopted was a quantitative survey using cross sectional design. A stratified random sampling was used to carry out sampling from 300 female teachers of various colleges in the Divisions of Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur. Washington University's Five-Level Model of Professional Development (1986) was utilized to develop a structured questionnaire. The SPSS software was used to calculate descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and linear regression. The overall level of institutional supports was found moderate (M = 3.21, SD= 0.74). There was a strong positive association between institutional support and CPD participation (r = .61, p < .001). Regression analysis showed that institutional support explained 37% of the variance (R² = .37, F = 86.4, p < .001) in the participation in CPD. Administrative encouragement, flexible scheduling, and resource availability were the top predictors. The results have illustrated the need for structural institutional support for women teachers to allow meaningful access to professional learning. In order to foster gender-inclusive inclusive, participatory CPD cultures, policy changes and institutional commitments will be needed to take place in public colleges.