Determinants of Teachers' Professional Skills Development in The Private Universities of Bangladesh

AbstractUniversity teachers’ professional development programs directly affect the quality of education and teaching in universities and tertiary-level education. This was a cross-sectional study and the participants of the study comprised 96 instructors from 6 different private universities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The data were collected via a semi structured interview form which was developed by the researcher. The obtained data were analysed using frequency distribution, cross-tabulation, co-relation, and association. The results revealed an association between respondents’ years of teaching experience and monthly income. The majority (83%) of respondents had no research training, followed by technology operating training (20%), scientific writing training (80%), personal quality improvement training (60%), and computer and internet use training (34%) (χ2 =24.60, DF= 7, p =.05). The policy of the university authority regarding professional skills development seemed to be dissatisfactory to a majority of respondents (χ2 =29.55, DF= 9, p =.002). Lack of participation in professional development activities (90%), not enough encouragement from the university authorities to participate in professional development activities (75%), lack of sharing common values related to professional development activities among colleagues (40%), lack of staff agreement on common values about student learning and teaching at university (45%) and high cost of travel expenses to participate in professional development activities in foreign countries were determined as the common barriers to university teachers’ professional skills development. It was also found out that career-oriented professional development activities could directly enhance the teachers' professional and personal growth, which might positively impact university development.Keywords: Professional development, private university instructors, skills development, common values