VIETTESOL INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION 2025

Teacher change has been widely considered one of the key drivers of educational innovations. Transformation in teachers’ professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes is believed to enhance classroom practices and subsequently better students’ learning outcomes. Teacher professional development has been strongly encouraged in many contexts worldwide to facilitate teacher change. A robust body of research has focused on teachers’ engagement in professional development and its contribution to teacher change. Research findings generally indicated positive effects of professional development engagement on teacher change. However, there is still a scarcity of studies investigating how the process of teacher change is moderated or mediated by teachers’ differences. This study explored EFL university teachers’ perspectives about the influences of teacher-related factors on their change process following professional development engagement. The participants include 23 teachers who are teaching general English at two universities in the Mekong Delta. The data was collected by a questionnaire with ten five-point Likert scale items and one open-ended question, and analyzed using SPSS 26 software and thematic analysis. The findings indicated that the process of teacher change is strongly influenced by various factors such as teachers’ motivation, commitment, agency, identity, personal traits, educational background, and reflective practice. The results highlight the role of teachers as impactful agents in their transformation after engaging in professional development activities. They imply a need for considering teachers’ variables in designing, deploying, and evaluating teacher professional development programs and teacher change to enhance their effectiveness and sustainability.
Keywords: teacher change, professional development, teacher-related factors, influences, EFL university teachers' perspectives