The Impact of Study Abroad on Teachers' Changes in Characteristics and Performance

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Teacher education: Diversity, participation and motivation

Proposal

Relevance
The SDG4 sets the goal of equitable and quality primary and secondary education with relevant and effective learning outcome, strategies include equitable resource allocation across the socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged schools (UNESCO, 2015). It is called to increase the supply of qualified teacher through teacher training, strategies cover reviewing, analyzing and improving the quality of teacher training (UNESCO, 2015).

The students from more developed and less-developed areas of China shows the regional difference in English learning outcomes (Hu, 2003). The infrastructural resources including professional training and competence of teachers are identified as one contributing factor (Hu, 2003).

The study abroad is an important but less frequently used approach for teacher training (Woodland, 2021). As one way to improve the quality of teacher training, Ministry of Education of China supports English teachers to study abroad (Wang, 2014). The study abroad programs for English teachers from less-developed Western area of China were launched to promote teachers’ professional development (Li & Edwards, 2013, 2014).

This study investigates the effectiveness of teacher training conducted abroad, how does it lead to the changes of teachers in characteristics of motivation, language skill, teaching repertoire, and intercultural competence and the further changes of teaching performance in teaching content and pedagogy aspects.

Theoretical Framework
Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2005) suggest a four-level model to evaluate training program and improve performance, from participants’ satisfaction, learning outcome from training, changes in on-the-job behavior, and the results caused by behavior changes.

On the basis of Kirkpatrick model, Guskey (2000) proposes a five-level model for education specifically. It covers the same levels of reaction, learning outcome of participants, but check the organization support and change before moving to the level of participants’ use of new knowledge and skills acquired, the final level of result is translated into the critical goal of education, the student learning outcomes.

Huber (2011) suggests three levels of impact can be identified from these models, changes of participants' characteristics, changes of participants' performance, and changes in the areas of application, this study explore the changes in characteristics and performance of teachers.

Method and Data
The mixed methods are adopted to collect data from the English teachers in secondary schools of less-developed area of China with study abroad experiences. The quantitative data are from questionnaire and analyzed for frequency of changes in teachers’ characteristics and performance, and then regressed to check causal effects between study abroad experiences and changes in characteristics. The qualitative data are from in-depth interviews and categorized into themes to explain the dynamic of changes in two levels.

Contribution
The study abroad of undergraduate students are extensively researched, limitedly for experienced teachers (Wang, 2014). Even study abroad programs for in-service training of Chinese teachers are many, the published research is scarce (Li & Edward, 2013). The effectiveness of teacher training is explored more about domestic program, limited for overseas program. This study contributes the empirical evidence in impact of study abroad on in-service teachers from China, and effectiveness of in-service training conducted abroad.

Author

• Yan Deng, Waseda University Gsaps