Are networking opportunities and professional learning communities the game-changers for teacher capacity building?

This study aimed to prioritize the key success factors influencing the professional development of elementary school teachers in the Department of Education Region VIII, addressing the absence of a context specific and empirically grounded prioritization framework. Although prior studies have identified various factors affecting teacher professional development, most examine these elements descriptively and provide limited guidance on how they should be strategically prioritized in practice. This study contributes to the literature by introducing a decision oriented framework that applies the fuzzy Best–Worst Method (FBWM) to systematically determine the relative importance of professional development factors within an educational leadership context. Using FBWM within a multi criteria decision making approach, fifteen professional development success factors were evaluated based on expert judgment. Data were obtained from nine highly qualified Principal IV practitioners holding doctoral degrees who provided pairwise fuzzy comparisons to establish relative importance and consistency. The results identified administrative support, professional learning communities, continuous professional learning, evaluation and feedback mechanisms, and access to resources as the most influential drivers of effective professional development. Factors such as cultural competence training, research engagement, and customized development plans received lower priority, indicating areas requiring strategic strengthening. By translating conceptual professional development constructs into quantifiable priority weights, the study offers a structured decision support tool for education leaders and contributes to more evidence informed professional development planning in elementary education systems.