The study of key barriers to the teacher's professional development

Teachers are the most important factor in enhancing the quality of students’ learning, so, their professional development and identification of barriers in this regard is of high importance. This study was conducted to identify barriers to professional development of teachers. According to the research aims, it was an applied study and according to the method, it was a mixed methods research. The data was collected using a semi-structured interview and a researcher-made questionnaire, extracted from the interview. The interview participants were selected through purposeful snowball method (N=31) from among educational experts. Also, the questionnaire participants consisted of 159 primary school teachers of Tehran who participated in the in-service training classes in 1394-95 academic year. They were selected through stratified sampling method. In the qualitative pase of study, the technique of content analysis and in the quantitative phase of the study, factor analysis, Man Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Friedman tests were used. The results showed that the identified markers are related to the specified dimensions, and the barriers were divided into the "individual", "structural", "economical" and "technological" ones. Also, the identified markers showed an acceptable measure of factors. The structural barrier was the most effective one to the professional development of teachers. Professional development of teachers was the most effective structural barrier. Low quality of in-service training, weakness of programs to increase people's sense of cooperation, inadequate equipment and training facilities and inappropriate payment system had the highest rating. According to the findings, identification of barriers to the professional development of teachers and planning to solve them should be considered as one of the priorities of the educational organizations’ programs.