The Interrelation between teachers’ sense of professional agency and perceived professional recognition: five-year follow-up study of Finnish teachers

Abstract

Teachers’ engagement in active learning from and within their professional community is highly dependent on the support they receive from their colleagues. In this study we examined teachers’ sense of agency in the professional community and its relationship with received professional recognition over a five-year follow-up. The sample comprised 2310 Finnish comprehensive schoolteachers who responded to a survey in 2011 and 2016. The results showed that the teachers’ sense of agency in the professional community in terms of the reported engagement in transformative practice, collective efficacy, positive interdependency, mutual agreement and active help seeking, was strong and somewhat stable over time. The professional recognition they received from colleagues contributed to the teacher’s sense of professional agency in the professional community, enhancing their motivation, efficacy beliefs and skills to learn in the professional community. The study contributes to the research on teacher learning by showing that active learning within the professional community can be enhanced through professional recognition.