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Подготовка педагогов
УДК 378
ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКОЕ ОБОСНОВАНИЕ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОГО РАЗВИТИЯ
ПЕДАГОГОВ В СФЕРЕ ТУРИЗМА И ГОСТЕПРИИМСТВА
(НА ПРИМЕРЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ В УНИВЕРСИТЕТЕ САНЬЯ (КИТАЙ)
Цзин Генг1
'Статья написана в рамках реализации Проекта «Совершенствование практики преподавания в системе высшего образования в России и Китае» Программы «ЭРАЗМУС+»
Аннотация. Развитие туризма мирового класса в Китае способствовало скачку туристической сферы на острове Хайнань. Развитие сети отелей в городе Саньи, спровоцировало спрос на квалифицированных специалистов в области туризма и гостиничного сервиса. Автором проведено исследование состояния подготовки специалистов разного уровня (колледж, университет) и выявлена необходимость переподготовки преподавателей университета в данной сфере, с тем, чтобы достаточно быстро произошла ассимиляция новых знаний и были реструктурированы программы профессиональной подготовки будущих специалистов в сфере туризма и сервиса. Автором проведен компаративный анализ методов профессионального развития преподавателей университетов, изучены потребности в профессиональном развитии педагогов. Проведенное автором эмпирическое исследование продемонстрировало значимость академического развития педагогов. Определена необходимость академических и профессиональных колобораций в целях соответствия уровня развития педагогов требованиям индустрии туризма.
Ключевые слова: сфера туризма и сервиса, подготовка специалистов, переподготовка педагогов, профессиональное развитие.
TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY TEACHERS' PERCEPTION
OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT-A CASE STUDY AT
UNIVERSITY OF SANYA (CHINA)
Jing Geng1
'The article is written within the Capacity Building Project «Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education in RUSSIA and CHINA» (ENTEP). ERASMUS+ Programme
Abstract. This study explored tourism and hospitality teachers' perception on professional development at University of Sanya in Sanya City, Hainan Province, China. Based on a questionnaire, the teachers rated the importance of 18 approaches when considering their professional development. It has found that approaches of promoting their academic development are more important than those of advancing practical skill development. The interactions and supervision with students, the core responsibilities of teachers, are not valued. External training resources are more trusted by members than internal training activities.
Keywords: professional development; tourism and hospitality teachers; importance investigation, University of Sanya.
Introduction. On December 31, 2009, China's State Council announced its plans for Hainan Province-the only tropical island in China and the country's largest Special Economic Zone to elevate it into a world-class international tourism destination by 2020. This announcement contributed to a surge on Hainan's tourism development. In 2017, Hainan's total tourism revenue was RMB 81.199 billion, up 215.2 percent compared to the year of 2010 [ 1]. Many leading international and domestic hotels have established a presence in Hainan. As the only tropical city in China and the second largest city in Hainan,
Sanya, for example, has now surpassed Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to become the city with the densest luxury hotels. By the end of 2017, there were 59 five-star hotels (including hotels according to the five-star standards but not yet to be ranked) and 54 four-star hotels (including hotels according to the four-star standards but not yet to be ranked) in Sanya. The income of the third industry in Sanya is RMB 35.64 billion, of which tourism industry is in a leading position, contributed 76.5% to Sanya's GDP [2]. In 2016 - 2017, there were 110 thousand employees worked in over 2000 tourism businesses in Sanya,
which was up to 22.5% of Sanya's residential employed population [3].
Universities and Colleges play an important role in training and providing qualified employees for tourism job market. University of Sanya was the first comprehensive undergraduate education organization in Sanya, which was founded in 2004. It has 16 schools, offering 68 undergraduate majors (including programs). The tourism management school and the international hospitality management school both provide students with theoretical education and practical training knowledge which matches the needs of the tourism sectors. There are 1123 and 993 fulltime students in two schools, respectively.
The speed and quality of tourism development are requiring university teachers to assimilate new knowledge and skills and restructure their curricula to creatively meet and serve industry demands. However, many teachers across China have not had exposure to real-world hospitality operations or opportunities to network with industry professionals and academic experts. The same phenomenon also exists in the University of Sanya. Young teachers under 35 years old, in rank of lecturers or assistant lecturers accounted for the majority. Because of the multiple roles such as manager of instruction, caring person, expert learner and cultural and civic person that the university teachers should play [4], they need to constantly update knowledge (such as: the subject matter itself and knowledge about how to teach it, curricular knowledge, knowledge about the educational sciences, psychology, assessment etc.), learn craft skills (such as lesson planning, using technologies, managing students and groups etc) and develop professional disposition (such as essential values and attitudes, beliefs and commitment) [5]. The professional development which ultimately results in improvement in students' performance is thus an important aspect in the life of a teacher [6].
As a leader of China's private university, in order to help teachers develop their professional competences, the University of Sanya committed to innovation in education reform. A series of programs have been applied to promote teachers' professional development. For example, at the international hospitality management school, teachers have been encouraged to internship at hotels, which help to learn about hotel operations and network with hotel leaders. Moreover, the school organized the skill competitions and trainings to enhance practical abilities of faculty members. As academic requirements of teachers must be met, the university is now planning to launch a plan named 'one teacher with one research project'. This will help every academic faculty to have a funded research project. When many approaches of professional development have been provided to the
teachers, we need to know their attitudes. Therefore, this study tries to explore what approaches teachers found important when considering their own professional development. As a result, if the university and the tourism industry know the effective methods that faculty consider important for their professional development, they can provide and create more related opportunities or professional development of strategies to them, which enable teachers to better prepare students for rewarding hospitality and tourism careers.
Methodology. A Questionnaire Design.
This study was mainly conducted by the way of questionnaire. A questionnaire included two parts: the first part mainly investigated demographic characteristics of teachers; the second part inspected importance of approaches to professional development viewed by faculty members.
Dutá investigated the importance of 21 methods for professional development of the university teachers in Romania and Spain [7]. Yin conducted the questionnaire survey on the professional development mode of university teachers in China [8]. Lin et al. investigated the study of professional development needs of hospitality teachers in Taiwan [9]. Richter et al. examined teachers' uptake of formal and informal learning opportunities across the career cycle [10].
Because of different subject and chances that the teachers owned, we chose several approaches mentioned by the over literatures. The questionnaire was constructed mainly based on the group discussions with teachers at the international hospitality management school. The basic normal used approaches to professional development were listed. The approaches include formal and informal, voluntary and compelled, individual and collaborative activities.
In the questionnaire, teachers were asked to rate each approach in response to the question 'How important is this approach to you in your professional development?' on a five-point response scale labeled 'very important', 'important', 'neutral', 'not very important' and 'not important at all'.
Sampling procedures and method of data analysis.
There are 47 full-time academic faculty members at the tourism management school and the international hospitality management school. 41 of them completed the questionnaire, and all questionnaires were effective.
The SPSS 25.0 software was adopted for data analysis in this study. The descriptive statistics method was mainly adopted for absolute frequency and relative frequency. The mean rating scores were calculated on their ratings of the importance of the approach for teacher professional development by
giving a score of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to each item, respectively, on the five-point response scale.
Results. Basic information about the resondents.
Section 1 of the survey was used to obtain demographic information about the respondents. As can been seen in Table 1 more than 70% (70.7%) of the respondents were female. 90% of them are under the age of 40. Most of them began to work at the university when they achieved their master degree in
Respondents' ratings of the importance of approaches to professional development.
The percentage of teachers' rating of the importance of approaches to professional development is shown in Table 2. The mean score of each approach was calculated in Table 2.
It has shown that teachers rated 'working visits to universities in the country/abroad' as most important approach, followed by 'reading of professional literature and books' and ' writing academic papers or reports'. From the relative high rating scores, it can be seen that teachers pay more attention on academic development, and believe the approaches (A2, A3, A4, A1, A9) which can promote their academic development are much more important than those which can develop their practical skill development (A8, A6, A3), although the importance of practice and application in tourism and hospitality education is strongly emphasized. Moreover, the high scores of approaches (A3, A4) viewed by faculty members can be done individually rather than collectively.
The second obvious finding is that the supervising of students' dissertations (A13) and projects (A12) are considered the least important approaches to professional development. The mean values of two items are 3.44 and 3.76, with a rank of 18 and 15, respectively. Through a deep discussion with some teachers, we found that working on supervising of students is teachers' necessary
their mid-20's. Nearly 30% of respondents have more than ten years of teaching experience. There are 44% respondents who have teaching experience less than five years. Only three teachers are at the rank of professor (including professor and associate professor). Others are at the rank of lecturer and assistant lecturer. Teachers will be at the assistant lecturer level initially and appointed at the lecturer after three or four years of teaching.
responsibility, but there are very limited promotion effects on professional development.
Another clear trend from the rating scores is that the internal activities for professional development received very low scores. Teachers considered that 'internal training' (A7) and 'internal skill competition' (A8) were not significant to them.
Discussion and implications.
This study shows that the faculty members who are teaching tourism and hospitality at the University of Sanya believes that approaches of promoting their academic development are much more important than those of practical skill development. The reason is that the appraisal system in China for promotion of professional title is academic orientation and the performance appraisal of the university also demands teachers to meet academic research requirements. However, majority teachers lack academic innovation and research methods. Nowdays, academic innovation and publication of high quality research papers become main obstacles to teachers' development. As teachers care more about individual academic development, the interactions with students and supervising of them, the core responsibilities of teachers, are not valued. This is unfavorable for teaching of high quality students to the industry. Therefore, the university can set some practical skill indicators to the current appraisal system, which help teachers expand their professional development from
Table 1. -Demographics of respondents
Variable Category Sample %
Gender Male 29.3
Female 70.7
Age 20 - 30 36.6
31 - 40 53.7
41 - 50 7.3
Above 50 2.4
Years of teaching <2 years 2.4
2 - 5 years 41.5
6 - 10 years 26.8
Above 10 years 29.3
Years of working at University of Sanya <2 years 2.4
2 - 5 years 41.5
6 - 10 years 29.3
Above 10 years 26.8
Academic ranks Professor 7.3
Lecturer 65.9
Assistant Lecturer 26.8
narrow development to all-round development.
The university has provided many internal chances for teachers to improve their skills. And teachers were normally obliged to attend these trainings. So, they disapproved of them, and more trusted outside learning opportunities, such as working visits to other universities or internship at
tourism enterprises. It might be helpful to give opportunities and reserved time for teachers to have a deep communicate and learn chances with academic experts and industry professionals. A collaborative strategy with outstanding external resources to promote teachers' professional development should be established.
Table 2. - Perception of respondents ' rating of the importance of approaching to professional development
Approaches Very Important Neutral Not very Not Mean S.D. Rank
important No. No. No. important No. important at all No.
A1. Participation in 24 11 6 0 0 4.44 0.743 7
academic or industry conferences
A2. Working visits to 30 10 1 0 0 4.71 0.512 1
universities in the
country/abroad
A3. Faculty internships in tourism and hospitality 21 16 4 0 0 4.41 0.670 8
organizations
A4. Completion of formal 26 12 2 1 0 4.54 0.711 4
higher education (such as
postgraduate degree)
A5. Craft training 24 15 2 0 0 4.54 0.596 4
motivated by self-interest
or career demands
A6.Achievement of 11 13 15 2 0 3.80 0.901 14
tourism related
certificates
A7.Internal training at the 9 11 17 4 0 3.61 0.945 16
University
A8. Participation in 7 14 12 7 1 3.46 1.051 17
internal skill competition
A9. Conducting 22 14 5 0 0 4.41 0.706 8
government sponsored or
enterprise supported research projects
A10.Reading of 28 12 1 0 0 4.66 0.530 2
professional literature and books
A11. Online learning 11 20 10 0 0 4.02 0.724 12
A12. Instruction of 9 15 15 2 0 3.76 0.860 15
students in practical
projects or entrepreneurship
programs
A13. Supervision of 8 9 19 3 2 3.44 1.050 18
students' dissertations
A14. Learning through 15 19 7 0 0 4.20 0.715 11
classroom teaching
A15. Writing academic 27 11 3 0 0 4.59 0.631 3
papers or reports
A16. Self-reflection 20 21 0 0 0 4.49 0.506 6
A17. Conversation with 10 21 8 2 0 3.95 0.805 13
colleagues
A18. Learning from and 20 16 5 0 0 4.37 0.698 10
conversation with
reputable experts
Literature:
1. Hainan Tourism Development Committee. (2018) 2018 Hainan Conference on Tourism Work. http://tourism.hainan.gov.cn/qtkf/qtsj/201806/t20180613_7 9921.htm
2. Sanya Satistics Bureau. (2018) 2017 Statistics Bulletin of the Economic and Social Development of Sanya. http://tjj.sanya.gov.cn/tigb/201802/t20180207_ 2547952.html
3. Sanya Human Resources Management Council. (2018) Whitepaper of Tourism Human Resources Development Sanya 2017. http://210.14.134.26:988/pages/ dowload-data.html
4. Caena, F. (2011) Literature Review Teachers' Core Competences: Requirements and Development. Retrieved from European Commission, Directorate-General for Education and Culture. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_ culture/repository/education/policy/strategic-framework/ doc/teacher-competences_en.pdf
5. Williamson McDiarmid, G., Clevenger-Bright M. (2008). 'Rethinking Teacher Capacity', in Cochran-Smith, M., Feiman-Nemser, S. & Mc Intyre, D. (Eds.): Handbook of Research on Teacher Education. Enduring questions in
changing contexts. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group and the Association of Teacher Educators.
6. Desimone, L.M. (2009). Improving Impact Studies of Teachers' Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures. Educational Researcher, 38(3), 181-199.
7. Du^ä, N.V (2012). Professional development of the university teacher -inventory of methods necessary for continuing training. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 33:1003-1007.
8. Yin, J. (2013). Informal learning: Research on the development mode of university teacher[D]. Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, P.R.China.
9. Lin S.H., Yang P.S., Ting W.C. (2016). The Study of Professional Development Needs of Hospitality Teachers in Taiwan. International Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 6:61-68.
10. Richter, D., Kunter M., Klusmann, U. Ludtke O., Baumert J. (2011). Professional Development across the Teaching Career: Teachers' Uptake of Formal and Informal Learning Opportunities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27:116-126.
Сведения об авторе:
Цзин Генг (г. Санья, Китай), доктор философии, профессор в школе международного управления гостеприимством, Университет Санья, e-mail:[email protected]
Data about the author:
Jing Geng (Sanya, China), doctor of philosophical science, Professor at School of International Hospitality Management, University of Sanya, e-mail:[email protected]
