Teacher-Centered Professional Development: Identifying Needs, Designing Programs, and Evaluating Engagement (Case of the International Arab Baccalaureate)

For the past five years, Lebanon's education sector has faced many external challenges that vary in nature from political to economic. These challenges have led to a shift of students from the public to the private sector and increased the demand for international education programs. Subsequently, this has also increased the demand for professional development programs to accommodate the consequences of this shift. In this study, the researcher identified the characteristics of an effective professional development program from the teachers' perspective. The researcher also studied the level of the teachers’ engagement in these programs if they were given the chance to take part in the design. The study is divided into three parts. The first part is pre-implementation. The researcher used mixed methods simultaneously to collect data on the characteristics of an effective professional development program. The second part is about the design of the program. The researcher implemented the documentation review technique to plan for the program. The third part includes the post-implementation, where the researcher used mixed methods sequentially to collect data about the level of engagement and feedback on the administered program. The findings show that the content, delivery method, and complementary follow-up program, such as coaching, are important factors in designing an effective professional development program. Moreover, the teachers’ background and educational level seem not to have an impact on the level of engagement; however, the years of experience have little impact. Keywords: professional development, adult learning, teacher engagement, teacher-centered approach, training effectiveness, in-service training, program design DOI: 10.7176/JEP/17-3-06 Publication date: March 28th 2026