Teachers’ Attitudes towards Mandatory and Optional Professional Development Programmes in the Republic of Serbia

This study focuses on teachers’ professional development practices in the Republic of Serbia, presenting the results obtained from questionnaires of mixed research conducted to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards different forms of professional development programmes, how often teachers participate in them, and why. The results show a high degree of correlation between their positive attitudes and the frequency of participation when teachers are externally motivated, and no correlation if they self-direct their professional development. The research draws attention to the need to re-examine the existing teacher professional development policies considering the needs of teachers and their teaching practices.

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