Understanding the Professional Development Needs of Hong Kong Special School Music Teachers

Contrasting the Teacher Support Programme with earlier work, attention is drawn to the apparent conundrum that professional development has not changed over time. Serving to explain this lack of change and filling a gap in the current research literature, this paper reports a mixed-model study of the professional development needs of music teachers from 41 (100%) of Hong Kong's special schools for students with intellectual disabilities. Counter to the reported Western trend, these respondents preferred "training" to what they viewed as the potentially confrontational individualized on-site support. Yet within this "training", the respondents did show openness to "participant-directed staff development sessions" and learning best practices and strategies from the peers. A conclusion is drawn that, as this case study illustrates, professional development need not change significantly when its provision is restricted to meeting only the immediate, basic needs of its recipients.