Exploring Chinese EFL pre- service teachers' perceptions of self-directed professional development: The benefits and challenges disclosed

Teaching has long been regarded as a demanding and complicated job, in which teachers play a vital role. To be effective and successful in this profession, they need to constantly engage in professional development programs. However, such programs are mostly externally driven with teachers playing passive roles. Against this pitfall, self-directed professional development (SDPD) has recently captured the attention of educational researchers. Yet, the benefits and challenges of SDPD in pre-service programs are unknown in EFL contexts. To fill this gap, this study used a semi-structured interview with 50 Chinese pre-service teachers regarding their perceptions of this mode of professional development. The findings of thematic analysis obtained by MAXQDA software (v. 2022) revealed that the most frequent benefits of SDPD were being "needs-based" and "self-directed", which, in turn, produce "flexibility", "autonomy", and "professional knowledge development" in teachers. Concerning the challenges in implementing SDPD, "lack of professional interaction/assistance" from external forces and being "labor-intensive" for teachers were posed most frequently by the participants. Despite these complexities, most of the Chinese pre-service teachers (82%) preferred self-directed and self-initiated PD given their potential and effectiveness. The study encourages EFL educators to revisit their perspectives, plans, and strategies regarding professionalism and professional development.