Summary: | 博士 === 國立政治大學 === 教育學系 === 107 === The purpose of this study was to understand the teaching obstacles faced by vocational college teachers in China, to develop a scale for investigating teaching obstacles in vocational colleges, and to design professional development courses for vocational college teachers in order to help them cope with teaching obstacles. In order to achieve the above objectives, this study implemented three related sub-studies.
In Study 1, 12 teachers from vocational colleges were studied. Through interviews, it was found that vocational college teachers in China mainly faced the teaching obstacles in subject-mattered knowledge and skills, teaching practice, student traits, and external support. As to the teacher development courses, vocational college teachers put forward a number of requirements for the content and the implementation of the courses.
Based on the findings of Study 1, Study 2 developed the “Vocational College Teaching Obstacles Scale,” which was verified by exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and internal consistency analysis. The results indicated that the scale had desirable reliability and validity. This scale can be used initially to assess the perception of vocational college teachers about their obstacles faced in teaching.
Study 3 designed and implemented a professional development course for vocational college teachers, which was called "Teaching Improvement and Teacher Development Workshop." At the end of the course, the “Vocational College Teaching Obstacles Scale,” developed in Study 2 was used to assess the extent to which the workshop helped the participants cope with their teaching obstacles. The qualitative results obtained through interviews were used to explain the results obtained by the scale use.
The findings contribute to the knowledge and educational practices of college teacher development. Combining the findings of the above three sub-studies, this study provides suggestions for further studies and directions for policymakers and teacher development staff to design effective vocational college teacher development programs in China.
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