The importance of building teachers’ intrinsic control into the design of professional development (PD) programmes

Professional development (PD) programmes take a wide variety of forms. Lloyd and Davis (2018) present a model to map the diversity of PD programmes based on the extent to which intrinsic control of learning was afforded to the teachers by the PD. In this study, Lloyd and Davis’s model was applied to map two different PD programmes. Both programmes aimed to achieve similar outcomes, they ran over a similar timeframe of 2 years, and both were targeted at early career teachers (ECTs). Yet, despite these similarities, the ECTs mapped the programmes differently onto the model, and the extent to which the programme outcomes were achieved also varied. The degree to which ECTs considered that the PD afforded them a sense of control and an influence over the direction of their learning was found to be associated with the extent to which the intended programme outcomes were met. Building in an optimal balance of autonomy supportive opportunities into PD programmes is likely to be an important feature of their success.