Finnish teacher educators’ preferences for their professional development–quantitative exploration

Abstract

Education makes a difference and teacher educators are an important part of that circle. However, there is very little research done in Finland on teacher educators’ professional development. The main purpose of this study was to develop and test the psychometric properties of three scales that measure the components of teacher educators’ professional development, namely (a) developmental needs, (b) preferred ways of fulfiling those needs and (c) hindrances to fulfiling developmental needs. The differences between different occupational groups were also discussed. The survey was distributed in May 2019 to all eight Finnish universities that offer teacher education. The final sample size was 354. Using scale development techniques, we succeeded in generating items to all three inventories. We also tested the psychometric properties and the construct validity of the inventories. Our study revealed that teacher educators are not a homogenous group. Different occupational groups have different professional development interests.