A Rasch Model Analysis on Designing Needs-Based Teacher Professional Development Programs

Abstract

Teacher professional development programs (TPDs) have always become an interesting topic of discussions in the body of teachers' professionalism literature. Over a decade of the Teachers and Lecturers Act enactment in Indonesia, professional development (PD) programs yielding teachers who possess pedagogical, professional, personality, and social competences as insisted by the Act remain questioned. This study aims at analysing teachers' needs-based PD programs and validating the used needs analysis instrument in a Rasch Measurement Model. Fifty-five teachers representing each sub-district in Pesisir Barat district, Lampung, Indonesia were involved in a focused group discussion guided by an instrument for PD needs analysis. The instrument was developed on four factors; PD Participation, PD impacts, PD needs, and PD frequencies, and then validated by using Rasch Measurement Model for the reliability, validity, variable map, as well as persons and items analysis report. The findings suggest the necessity to consider teachers PD experience, impact, needs, as well as modes of professional activities in designing PD programs.