EdD Student blog: Kathryn Taylor

I have recently passed my EdD at the IoE with my thesis entitled “Developing an ecological analytical framework for the exploration of teachers’ lived experiences of professional development and professional learning in five UK secondary schools.” I have had a very good experience of the EdD. Through the taught elements, I gained essential research skills and valuable insight into both the programme and my field of study. From my IFS to upgrade to my final thesis, my supervisors, Professor Norbert Pachler and Dr Jo Fraser-Pearce supported me with the right mix of robust rigour, helpful direction and professional generosity that I needed to build my academic skills and confidence to step up to the demands of the course. I always trusted that their advice was in my best interests, and that they would ensure that I would be ready when I faced my viva panel.

My study explores teachers’ often troubled relationships with in-school Professional Development (PD). As a result, even effective teaching and learning strategies are only superficially accepted before being abandoned. I explored relationships between school cultures and teachers’ acceptance of PD associated with changes to their professional knowledge and skills over time; Professional Learning (PL). Research evidence suggests that PD does not reliably translate into PL, and that strong PL is associated with positive teacher perceptions of certain cultural dimensions: agency, efficacy, logistics, collegiality, trust, resilience, reflection and reflexivity, and professional autonomy (Gray and Summers, 2015; Lee and Lee, 2018). Using a phenomenographic analysis of these term’s use in the relevant literature, I have developed a framework and survey instrument to enrich understanding of teachers’ lived experiences of their school cultures. Resulting data offers a proxy for teachers’ openness to PD events and capacity for PL. I argue that leaders should develop an honest and nuanced understanding of how teachers experience their school environment. Only then can plans to design and implement bespoke, meaningful PD be realised.

My full study is available here: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208734/