In-service courses

The current study investigates the feasibility of implementing EFL teachers' Individual Development Planning at Iranian public schools. It further explores the underlying reasons for the (imp) possibility of practicing this program and seeks the teachers' suggestions to improve the schools' condition. To this end, data were collected from 180 EFL teachers using a researcher-made questionnaire and a follow-up semi-structured interview. The results of one-sample t-tests revealed a slight possibility following the interviews which indicated 14 underlying reasons for the insufficient grounds at public schools. Participating teachers also argued that equipping a room with necessary technological tools, allocating monetary resources, assigning specific teachers time to practice IDP, taking advantage of head teachers, changing the school administration delegation, and performing advocating cultural acts can provide a ground for IDP implementation. The findings demonstrate the necessity of creating changes by policymakers, school principals, and EFL teachers so that they can all benefit from this program.

The present research was conducted with the aim of measuring the effectiveness of face to face and virtual in-service training of elementary school teachers in Birjand city based on the Kirkpatrick model and comparing them. The current research method is a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test type. The statistical population of this research includes all primary school teachers of Birjand city who have participated in in-service and virtual courses in the academic year 2023-2024. Using available sampling, 45 teachers participating in face-to-face courses and 45 teachers participating in virtual courses were selected. In the first level, i.e. reaction, participants' opinions were collected in two stages (the beginning of the courses and the end of the courses). The tool used at this level was a researcher-made questionnaire. The second level, i.e. learning, was conducted using a researcher-made test of 19 questions and was performed as a pre-test and post-test. In the third level, i.e. behavior, data was collected 5 months after the end of the courses using the teachers' self-evaluation form and the teachers' evaluation form by their managers. The results of the inter-subject effects test to compare the reaction level components in the post-test stage and the f value obtained for all components are significant at the alpha level of 0.05. The F value obtained in the results of covariance analysis for comparing learning scores in the post-test stage is 26.563. The value of the t statistic and the value of the significance level for comparing the scores of the behavior level show that there is no difference in the variance between the two groups of face-to-face and virtual education The findings of the research show that face-to-face and virtual in-service courses are effective in the levels of reaction, learning and behavior, and there is a significant difference between the effectiveness of face-to-face and virtual courses; So that the obtained averages show that face-to-face training can have a significant effect compared to virtual training in these three levels.