Challenges facing teacher education in Qatar: Q methodology research

Hadeel Alkhateeb; Michael H Romanowski; Abdellatif Sellami; Abdullah M Abu-Tineh; Youmen Chaaban

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09845

Challenges facing teacher education in Qatar: Q methodology research

Heliyon. 2022 Jul 3;8(7):e09845. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09845. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Authors

Hadeel Alkhateeb¹, Michael H Romanowski², Abdellatif Sellami², Abdullah M Abu-Tineh³, Youmen Chaaban²

Affiliations

¹ College of Education, Qatar University, Qatar.
² Educational Research Center, College of Education, Qatar University, Qatar.
³ Department of Educational Sciences, College of Education, Qatar University, Qatar.

Abstract

This study aims to identify the challenges facing teacher education in Qatar. Through Q methodology, it examines the ways in which schoolteachers, preservice teachers, teacher education faculty, and Ministry of Education and Higher Education personnel identify what they see as significant challenges faced by teacher education in the country. The overall aim is to provide an overview of teacher education in Qatar and the challenges of improving programs and processes. Results show that the participants' perspectives fall on a continuum of diverse views in which minimal consensus exists. Still, four consensus points were found across the emerged perspectives: schoolteachers' workload, responsibilities and roles of educational stakeholders, the exasperation towards college-based teacher education, and the impact of culture on teacher education. Based on the results of this study, we argue that these consensus points represent the main challenges facing teacher education in Qatar.

Keywords: Q-methodology; Qatar; Teacher challenges; Teacher education.