SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING DIMENSIONS AND IN-SERVICE GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS IN ALBANIA Cover Image

SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING DIMENSIONS AND IN-SERVICE GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS IN ALBANIA
SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING DIMENSIONS AND IN-SERVICE GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS IN ALBANIA

Author(s): Jostina Dhimitri, Sidorela Bardhoshi, Merita Koka Karaguni
Subject(s): Education, Geography, Regional studies
Published by: University of Tetova
Keywords: in service geography teachers; dimension; professional development; curricular geography content; technology use; pedagogical issues

Summary/Abstract: The teacher`s professional development is an important part of professional life. In Albania, during continuing education in-service teachers use various forms of education such as through internal school development, training by training agencies accredited by MASR, attending short and long-term courses, counseling, and professional networks. Our study aims to observe and analyze the implementation of self-directed learning as an individual and professional form of professional development of teachers. This form of education was observed in a group of 60 teachers of geography and history-geography profile, randomly sampled with snowball sampling technique. Teachers are employed in the pre-university system and their educational institutions are in both urban and rural areas. They have different experiences concerning years in education. This study examined the impacts of self-directed learning in three main dimensions: on technology use, on pedagogical issues, and on curricular geography content. The study shows a slightly positive correlation between teaching experience and time spent on self-directed learning. The results indicated that teachers are focused "sometimes" and "often" in all three dimensions of self-directed learning. Statistical processing indicated a moderate relationship between teachers who trained themselves for curriculum content and didactic issues and vice versa. The observation instrument was a questionnaire designed with open and closed questions. In their structuring, we used the Likert scale (5 levels) and the data collected by it were processed in the SPSS program. Some statistical analyses are undertaken through the results in frequency, cross-tabulation, and correlation. Other processing was performed with NLP, Sentiment Analysis to help study to address the main issues of three self-directed learning dimensions. The impact of the study is valid for teachers of geography and history-geography profile, learning inspectors and specialists, headteachers other interested actors in the field of education.

  • Issue Year: 3/2021
  • Issue No: 5-6
  • Page Range: 30-38
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English