Professional development and pedagogy of university teachers in Bangladesh: An exploratory study

Abstract

Quality is a problem in higher education, even at both public and private universities in Bangladesh. The quality of teaching depends on the quality of the teachers which, in turn, depends, to some extent, on the quality of their professional development. The objectives of the study were to identify the current status of professional development scopes, to analyze the needs for professional development, to explore pedagogical practices, to ascertain the technological skills and requirements of teachers at universities and finally to propose a Professional Development and Pedagogy (PDP) program model. Therefore, the study integrated both qualitative and quantitative approaches based on social constructivism paradigm to explore the research questions. Triangulation approach has been employed to ensure the validity of data. Purposive and stratified sampling techniques have been followed in sample selection. The total sample size was 540 consisting of teachers (159), students (360) and university education management (21) which had been selected from 5 public universities. Questionnaire, Interview (semi-structure), Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and classroom observation (36) techniques were used for primary data collection. The study found that there were very limited scopes available for professional development of university teachers in Bangladesh. The study indicated that the teachers were proficient on content knowledge but they were unable to assimilate the content from pedagogical perspective. They usually used the traditional teaching methods in a large size classroom because of their lass understanding of the pedagogy. Data also indicated that ICT infrastructure was not available in all classrooms for integrating in teaching practices. The majority teachers have had limited ICT skills resulting less effective teaching learning. Thus, the study identified a strong need of providing PDP program for positive change of teachers’ attitude and practices in the classroom. Finally, the study recommended a PDP program model for the university teachers to be used in future.