Teachers’ experience of autonomy through their engagement with FrogAsia’s advocate programme

Abstract

In 2016, FrogAsia set up the Advocate Programme to promote the usage of Frog VLE among teachers in the classroom across Malaysia. In an environment where most teacher professional development (PD) programmes are compulsory and linked to the government, the Advocate Programme somehow managed to gather teachers to maintain a learning community of teacher advocates without obvious enforcement by any authority figure. Grounded by the Self-Determination Theory, this study sought to explore the autonomy support the teachers’ experience in their engagement with the Advocate Programme. A case study was conducted, where one-on-one semi-structured interviews were carried out with six Gold Advocate teachers to explore their experience of choices within their activities. Twelve supports were identified from the responses of the Gold Advocates. Of those, seven were considered to satisfy their autonomy needs. These seven supports were inferred to be the important factors behind the Gold Advocates’ voluntary engagement with the programme. Teachers’ experiences of autonomy are important for their motivation to engage in PD. Environments that support such experiences should be considered in the development and implementation of PD programmes.