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This chapter reviews some of the important factors in the professional development of teachers of young children. It discusses how important teacher quality is for student outcomes. The chapter also discusses the many factors that go into the development of quality teachers. This chapter also introduces the history of the Early Childhood Educator Professional Development program financed through grants from the United States Department of Education. This program has focused on creating state of the art professional development programs across many U.S. contexts.

Global focus on reforming teachers has resulted in the inclusion of multiple survey questions about teachers’ professional learning activities in large-scale international studies. A cross-national analysis of these survey data will likely enhance our understanding and inform the future direction regarding teacher professional development policy and practice. Yet we do not know whether these surveys measure the key features and their contextual factors of teachers’ professional learning activities to allow a systematic cross-national analysis. Based on international and U.S. literature, I develop a conceptual model of teachers’ professional learning activities in global context and analyze relevant survey items used in three major international studies – TIMSS, PIRLS, and TALIS. I conclude the chapter with a discussion of the coverage of these survey items and a direction for improving data collections of teachers’ professional learning activities in large-scale international studies.

In this chapter, three educators recount experiences of professional development from different perspectives in order to examine the intersection of teacher knowledge and subject matter in the areas of science and mathematics education. Professional development projects are productive avenues for exploring this phenomenon. We share stories of experience from professional develop projects of teachers who were situated in different places on the professional knowledge landscape: one elementary school teacher, one teacher educator, and one mathematics educator. From these various vantage points, the relationship between mathematics and science content knowledge and teacher knowledge holds different complexities and complications. Issues related to balancing teacher knowledge with content knowledge in professional development emerge. Based on the stories of experience and the analysis of the narratives, deliberation of curriculum is seen to be a valuable concept when engaging in professional development with teachers. Further, Pragmatic Intellectual Space is proposed for productive approaches to professional development.

The faculties are crucial to education. They should have enough training facilities and be encouraged to actively contribute to high-quality education and successful learning. Faculty engagement and development activities should be explored and included in learning organizations and employee engagement in India. This paper aims to describe higher education as a learning organization. The research will also assess how faculty development programs affect faculty engagement behaviors in these institutions and if professional development mediates this effect, which has not been previously examined.

This study was conducted with quantitative data collected from 267 faculties through reliable and validated adapted questionnaires. Semistructured interviews were conducted with heads and professor-level faculties to gain insights into faculty development and engagement. Partial least squares structural equation modeling technique (PLS-SEM 3.3.6 version) was used to test the conceptually drafted model.

Faculty professional development programs shown to improve higher education faculty engagement and professional progress. The studies also showed that higher education institutions must prioritize faculty development to become learning organizations. Professional development reduced the direct effects of faculty development program (FDP) on faculty engagement. This suggests that professional growth mediates the research.

This research emphasizes and professional development to boost teacher involvement in B-Schools. Management must design faculty development programs to construct professional development and learning organizations, according to the results. Developing and writing rules that encourage faculty engagement in such internal and external programs would also enhance their academic and administrative abilities and assist higher education institutions become learning organizations.

The study is one of the few to examine the impact of faculty development programs and professional development on faculty engagement in higher education institutions, particularly B-Schools, and its competitive mediating role.

The purpose of this study is to explore how the phenomenon of academic professional development looks through the eyes of graduate students navigating the increasing complexity of postgraduate careers. This study pays particular attention to how current students navigate the interplay between their beliefs, intentions and behaviors when it comes to making choices regarding their engagement in professional development.

This is a qualitative study, based on a phenomenological analysis of seven in-depth interviews with advanced PhD students from the earth sciences college at a large, public, research-intensive university located in the mid-Atlantic area of the USA (Penn State).

Framed in the Theory of Planned Behavior, the findings of this study suggest that the interviewees varied across all aspects of Theory of Planned Behavior: in their beliefs about valued career paths, in their convergence or divergence from the departmental or institutional norms they perceived and in their sense of control over their career pathways. They all shared, however, a strong desire to successfully navigate the widening array of possibilities to achieve a range of personal and professional goals, but they often lacked the ability to align those intentions with actions related to professional development.

This study suggests that institutions may wish to rethink their positionality in the professional development of graduate students, moving away from centralized models of direct support and towards more indirect, informal and co-created means of exerting influence and building community.

A significant research base has increasingly shown that one of the most important factors affecting student achievement in second language classrooms is the teacher. Consequently, over the recent decades, much attention has been paid to teacher-related variables in research. Nevertheless, few studies have dealt with the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy, metacognitive awareness and their professional development in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL). As such, the objective of this study is to test a path analysis model of the variables and specifically to examine the hypothesis that metacognitive awareness mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and professional development.

A quantitative correlational design was utilized to validate the research hypothesis. Then, data from 200 EFL teachers who were selected through available sampling was obtained using three questionnaires, namely metacognitive inventory by Cem Balcikanli, self-efficacy scale by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy and teachers' professional development inventory by Soodmand Afshar et al. The Pearson correlation coefficient of self-efficacy (r = 757, p < 0.000) revealed a significant positive relationship with metacognitive awareness, and the Pearson correlation coefficient of metacognitive awareness (r = 0.848, p < 0.000) showed a significant positive relationship with professional development.

The results showed the hypothetical model of the relationship among the research variables as well as verifying the mediator role of metacognitive awareness by multiple regression and path analysis. Then, the implications of metacognitive awareness, self-efficacy and professional development were put forward.

The majority of research on teacher professional development has focused appropriately on its relationship with components such as management training, teacher practice, reflective practice and academic achievement. In this line of research, the investigation of the potential links among self-efficacy, professional development and metacognitive awareness as interacting variables is scarce. More substantially, no prior exploration has been conducted concerning the mediating effect of metacognitive awareness in association with English teachers' self-efficacy and professional development.

Drawing from attitude-behavioral intentions correspondence and target similarity, the aim of this paper is to examine the role of target-specific satisfaction facets in the relationship between factors related to professional development and older nurses' intention to remain with their organization.

In this longitudinal panel study, 422 hospital-employed registered nurses aged 45 to 64 completed a questionnaire (T1) and a second questionnaire (T2) a year later. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized model.

Availability of training and development practices targeted to older nurses at T1 was linked to intention to remain with the organization at T2 through T1 satisfaction with professional development opportunities and T2 satisfaction with the organization as a whole. Job challenge at T1 was related to intention to remain through T1 satisfaction with the job itself and T2 satisfaction with the organization.

The occupation-specific sample may limit the generalizability of the findings.

Organizations need to ensure that older nurses have the opportunity to upgrade their current job skills, to acquire new skills, to be adequately trained on the use of new technology, and to support professional development through release time, tuition reimbursement, and education leaves. Attention also needs to be directed towards job design and ensuring older nurses' jobs fully utilize their skills and expertise.

The findings demonstrate that target-specific facets of satisfaction are an important underlying mechanism linking professional development factors and older nurses' intention to remain. Organizational satisfaction, an under-researched construct, played an especially prominent role in this process.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of gender on attitude towards the use of social media for continuing professional development among academic librarians in Ogun State, Nigeria.

Descriptive survey design was used for the study. Research instrument used was questionnaire where 79 copies were administered to academic librarians, using total enumeration sampling technique. Five universities in Ogun State, Nigeria were selected for the study. The data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as percentage, frequency, mean, Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and t-test for data analysis. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, version 19) was used to run the analysis.

The study revealed that WhatsApp (75.0 per cent) is the most frequently used social media for continuing professional development among academic librarians. Attitude towards the use of social media for continuing professional development among academic librarians is positive. There is no statistically significant gender difference in attitude towards the use of social media for continuing professional development (t = 0.097, df = 54 and p > 0.05). There is significant moderate positive relationship between attitude towards social media use and frequency of use of social media (r = 0.439; p < 0.05).

The study was necessary to identify gender difference in attitude towards the use of social media for continuing professional development by academic librarians in Ogun State, Nigeria.

This paper aims to investigate the practices of a well-established professional development committee (PDC) at an academic library to reveal the development of effective professional development programs with various themes and the diversified delivering formats and the assessment of library employees’ training needs and the effectiveness of professional development programs with Needs Assessment Surveys and Program Follow-up Employee Opinion Surveys. Professional development programs are widely adopted in academic libraries to support the professional growth of library employees and improve the quality of library services. Developing, promoting and administering professional development programs are main responsibilities of the PDC.

The study is based upon the PDC’s recent practices since 2011. The Needs Assessment Surveys (in 2012 and 2013) are conducted electronically, so are the Opinion Surveys since 2013 which are formerly conducted in paper.

The well-planned professional development program themes with special designed delivery formats have demonstrated their effectiveness through high attendance of each professional development event. The positive results and high compliments from both Need Assessment Surveys and Opinion Surveys also endorse their values to employee’s professional growth.

This paper classifies various professional development program ideas into six program themes and three special delivery formats, and each is presented with intention, planning and organization. This paper also provides details of using different Need Assessment Surveys and Opinion Surveys for evaluation, which is also lacked in published literature.

The world is shaped by an education system that reinforces unsustainable thinking and practice. Efforts to transform our societies must thus prioritise the education of educators – building their understanding of sustainability and their ability to transform curriculum and wider learning opportunities. The purpose of this paper is to focus on university educators and critically review the professional development and policy landscape challenges that influence their effective engagement with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The paper is informed by a pan-European collaboration involving 33 countries that identified emerging scholarship and practice in this area and assessed the lessons learned from ESD professional development initiatives. It sets the context for a special issue titled “Professional Development in Higher Education for Sustainable Development” that draws together a collection of articles focusing on professional development of university educators across the world.

This paper provides a critical review of existing practice, international policy frameworks and literature relating to ESD, professional development and higher education. It examines innovative initiatives worldwide that seek to improve the capability of educators in higher education to integrate ESD into academic practice at individual, disciplinary and institutional levels. A rigorous process of selection was applied and overseen by an international expert group. This ensured that the initiatives sought educational change in ESD, and not simply the embedding of content about sustainability into learning opportunities. It also assured that the initiatives had a clear and intentional professional learning process to underpin the engagement of participants with ESD.

ESD has grown in visibility and status worldwide, with a clear increase in activity in higher education. The sector is viewed as a significant force for change in societies, through the education provision it offers to future professionals and leaders in all sectors. However, universities currently lack capacity to integrate ESD effectively into mainstream teaching practices and the training they provide for academic staff or to integrate ESD into their institutional teaching and learning priorities. Many ESD activities remain focused on teaching issues arising in sustainable development research and delivering specialist modules or courses in sustainability. Very few countries and institutions have significant staff development programmes to enhance the ESD competences of university educators and build their academic leadership capabilities for ESD. The contributions to this special issue show the need for greater understanding of the multi-level task of integrating ESD into professional development activities, not just for individual impact in the classroom but to advance institutional change and decisively influence the teaching and learning discourse of higher education.

There are few research studies and documented activities on ESD professional development in higher education available in the literature. This paper attempts to explore what ESD professional development involves and describes its complexity within the higher education sector. The special issue provides a collection of innovative research and practical initiatives that can help those involved in education and learning to develop ESD as a priority for future university innovative pathways.