An investigation of the continuous professional development activities of secondary school teachers in Kwazulu-Natal in relation to their job demands and resources.

Abstract

Teaching is a demanding profession, and teachers report high levels of strain as a result of high job demands. The concern exists that job demands may also affect the engagement of in-service teachers in Professional Development activities. Previous research (e.g., Job Demands-Resources Model, Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) postulates that high job demands may indeed be associated with increased strain levels, which may further affect the individual and the organisation. However, resources could counteract the effects of job demands reducing their non-beneficial impact on the strain and potentially allowing employees to remain motivated and engaged. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities, job demands, and teachers' job resources. First, the study aimed to discover what types of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities teachers engage in and how long and how often they engage in these activities. Second, levels of job demands and resources of teachers were investigated. Third, it was assessed how job demands and resources link with teacher CPD activities by conducting a set of hierarchical regression analyses. A quantitative study was conducted based on responses from 123 respondents from a range of secondary schools in the Pinetown and Umlazi districts of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The descriptive findings indicate that teachers do engage in several Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities. Respondents predominantly engage in workshops, and they read material on classroom management or their subjects. Teachers face moderate to high levels of job demands (i.e., disruptions by learners, workload, cognitive, and emotional demands). At the same time, they seem to experience moderate to high levels of resources (i.e., support from colleagues, support from management, and having a healthy social community at work). Results from hierarchical regression analyses showed that demands are negatively associated with CPD engagement and job resources are somewhat positively related to the CPD engagement of teachers. This study is relevant for practice; it assesses levels of job demands of teachers in schools in two districts in KwaZulu-Natal as well as their resources. This study also assists in making aware which Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities respondents engage in and which other CPD activities are less frequented. Based on these results, the opportunity exists to design targeted interventions to increase the CPD engagement of teachers in their respective contexts.