Shared Voices of Indonesian Teacher-Educators from Virtual Research-Workshop-Series: Reflections on Covid-19 Pandemic Driven Professional Development

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore the perceptions and experiences of Teacher-Educators (TEs) who participated in virtual research-workshop-series as professional development programs. Six TEs, three from natural science and three from social science, participated in a nine-month virtual research workshop series organized by the faculty. In the frame of a case study, the data were gathered from in-depth interviews and a set of questions. The findings revealed that TEs had sufficient research knowledge as they were able to identify good quality of research, read relevant reading research, and signified the importance of research as part of their professional identity. Completion of other tasks, lack of research motivation and collegiality, shortage of research skills and competencies including how to read academic articles due to vocabulary and sentence construction hindered them from conducting research. The workshop has facilitated the TEs autonomy, research skills and competencies, research collaboration, and goal-orientation. The PD program strengthened their research motivation and engagement that scaffold positive insights into their self-research awareness. Moreover, all TEs were able to complete their papers and submit them to reputable journals.