(1837) THE IMPACT OF TEACHER'S IN-SERVICE TRAINING: CONTRIBUTIONS TO AN EVALUATION MODEL

摘要

This paper aims to contribute to reflexion concerning impact of the continuing VET on development of trainers’ professional skills and on improvement of their training practices. Measuring and understanding impact of the continuing VET on development of trainers’ skills is essential for improving quality of the continuing VET of trainers. The impact of continuing VET of trainers on their training practices, training organization and improvement of their trainee’s learning is not well known in Portugal. This situation is essentially due to fact that assessment of impacts of the continuing VET on trainers’ practices is rarely carried out in a systematic way. Assessment normally carried out in the training Organisations which provides continuing VET for trainers is almost always based on assessment of trainers’ satisfaction in terms of contents and methodologies of training, trainer’s performance and functioning of their Training Organizations, without considering the impact on their trainee′s learning. Therefore, how continuing VET of trainers contributes to improving their performance and, consequently, to improvement of their trainee’s learning is not well known and, consequently, the return of the public investment made in the development of trainers’ skills is not well known as well. Given the relevance of understanding the impact of the continuing VET of trainers on development of their training skills for improving the quality of the initial and continuing vocational VET, it was considered important to study the evaluation strategies and models for assessing the impact of continuing VET on trainers’ practices. In this perspective, the study on which this communication is based, was designed with the purpose of contributing to the scientific knowledge of the impact of the continuing VET on the development of trainers’ professional skills, on improvement of their training practices and on the improvement of their trainees’ learning. The study, theoretically framed by evaluation training models proposed by Stufflebeam (1971), Kirkpatrick (1978), Guskey (2000) and Killion (2008), aims to contribute to construction of a reliable evaluation strategy to assess the impacts of the continuing VET of trainers. The study will be conducted under the activity of the continuing VET of trainers offered by training organisations. The research methodology to be used in the study will be based on the post-positivist research paradigm complemented by an approach of phenomenological nature. The study will begin by analysing existing evaluation models that will serve as a basis for the design of a new model to assess the impact of continuing VET of trainers that will be tested to estimate its potential for generalization to professional development programs for trainers of Continuing VET in Portugal. In this perspective, it is expected that the results of the study may contribute to definition of strategies for assessing the impact of continuing VET in the development of professional skills of trainers and in the improvement of their training practices and, consequently, on the training organization and on their trainees’ learning. The present paper focuses mainly on the analysis of the various models of impact evaluation of the trainer’s continuing VET and on the proposed model that has been developed based on the models above referred.