Analysis on the Constituents and Characteristics of Boundary Crossings in a Professional Development Program

Abstract

An increasing emphasis is put on teacher participation in the professional development programs and in these programs teachers experience changes in their roles and communities of affiliation as they become a participant, or sometimes become a facilitator even in the scaling-up process. Teachers continuously cross back and forth between the boundaries of communities, cooperate with other participants and create new resources with the given materials through the course of the program, and potentially bring changes to their own instructional practices. There has been various research regarding professional development programs but most are on suggesting or developing a research-designed program via theoretical exploration and analysis on the results of the programs. Research related to the experience of PD programs are mostly based on participants survey answers collected before and after the PD programs or the experience of researchers being involved as a program developer. Despite the experience of teachers in a PD program is an important research topic regarding the development of PD programs, studies that explores the constituents or characteristics of boundary crossings by qualitative analysis on this has not been carried out. This study looked into the professional development program on the 2015 National Reform Curriculum as a case study and interviewed the professional development program developers and participants who are teachers. The interviews were voice recorded and transcribed. Then the professional development program resources and interview transcripts were analyzed to explore the case in two scopes: the constituents of boundary encounters by looking at what the boundary elements, when, and why they appear in each boundary encounters and the characteristics of the boundary elements. Through qualitative content analysis, this research explores the experiences of teachers who are professional development program developers and participants in order to identify how and when the boundaries occur and what their characteristics are. The addressed research questions in this thesis are (1) What are the constituents of the boundary encounters in the 2015 National Reform Curriculum professional development program project? and (2) What are the characteristics of boundary elements in the 2015 National Reform Curriculum professional development program project? The results of this study showed that the boundary encounters occur when there is an evidence of disparity between people of different delegations. The two different boundary encounters in this case were at the different phases in the course of project. The constituents of each boundary encounters were different according the aims of negotiations in each of the boundary encounters. They are seen as a place for developing and improving meanings than barriers of discontinuities. Yet in both, boundary practices were carried out in order to form mutual understanding among the different boundary brokers, and concretization and contextualization of knowledge was done as a result of the understanding and negotiation process. Then the characteristics of boundary crossings were identified and explained in terms of the boundary elements that constitutes the boundaries. The characteristics of boundary brokers were categorized as comprehending, reflecting, negotiable, and motivating. Comprehending is reading texts and understanding ideas. Boundary objects were identified in forms of either a medium of boundary crossing and its outcome via the boundary practices. The characteristics were induced as providing or transforming according to the purposes. Boundary practices such as the dominant form of group discussions in meetings was imperative while others were attempting. In this study, it was evident that teachers participate in professional development programs with different goals and purposes according to their original affiliating community. The research results deduced from quantitative analysis presented an overview of constituents and characteristics of boundary crossings that appear in the course of developing and realizing a professional development program. Teachers who take part in professional development programs would be able to practically and effectively use the opportunity by strategically positioning themselves and finding their roles by reacting spontaneously than passively to the situations of crossing between the boundaries of two or more communities.