{"title":"Perceived impact of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) on lecturers’ performance at Tamale Technical University","authors":"Abdul Rahaman Rashida , Iddrisu Bariham","doi":"10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101754","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The purpose of this mixed methods explanatory sequential study was to examine the perceived impact of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) on the performance of academic staff at Tamale Technical University (TaTU). In all, 60 lecturers were surveyed to yield further questions for interviews to probe those results in more depth. Overall, 4-four Deans of Schools and 4-four Heads of Departments were purposively sampled for the interviews. Mean and standard deviation were employed to analyze the quantitative data which was eventually triangulated with the qualitative data. The study found that CPD opportunities such as workshops, conferences, study leaves, collaborative teaching, action research, and university-based training were available for lecturers. A fair criterion was in place for selecting academic staff for those CPDs. It was also discovered that CPD had equipped lecturers with knowledge and skills to improve the quality of their teaching, research, and publications. However, the challenges militating against the CPD of lecturers in TaTU were inadequate staff and high staff turnover, lack of transfer of learning, lack of flexible learning opportunities, lack of training needs assessment, absence of university policy on training and development, lack of time and resources, and limited support from deans, heads of departments and lecturers. The study recommends regular visits to other universities by lecturers to learn best practices, a unified policy from GTEC to regulate CPD in Ghanaian universities, funding support for CPD in TaTU and the need for training needs assessment before planning CPD for academic staff in TaTU.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":74826,"journal":{"name":"Social sciences & humanities open","volume":"12 ","pages":"Article 101754"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social sciences & humanities open","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291125004826","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The purpose of this mixed methods explanatory sequential study was to examine the perceived impact of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) on the performance of academic staff at Tamale Technical University (TaTU). In all, 60 lecturers were surveyed to yield further questions for interviews to probe those results in more depth. Overall, 4-four Deans of Schools and 4-four Heads of Departments were purposively sampled for the interviews. Mean and standard deviation were employed to analyze the quantitative data which was eventually triangulated with the qualitative data. The study found that CPD opportunities such as workshops, conferences, study leaves, collaborative teaching, action research, and university-based training were available for lecturers. A fair criterion was in place for selecting academic staff for those CPDs. It was also discovered that CPD had equipped lecturers with knowledge and skills to improve the quality of their teaching, research, and publications. However, the challenges militating against the CPD of lecturers in TaTU were inadequate staff and high staff turnover, lack of transfer of learning, lack of flexible learning opportunities, lack of training needs assessment, absence of university policy on training and development, lack of time and resources, and limited support from deans, heads of departments and lecturers. The study recommends regular visits to other universities by lecturers to learn best practices, a unified policy from GTEC to regulate CPD in Ghanaian universities, funding support for CPD in TaTU and the need for training needs assessment before planning CPD for academic staff in TaTU.