Informal learning practices among secondary school teachers in the Kinta district of Perak

The purpose of this research is to examine the informal learning practices among secondary school  teachers in the Kinta District of Perak. The research is conducted by examining four research  questions: I. What types of informal learning activities the teachers may have done in the past  year? 2. Where do the teachers engage in informal learning? 3. How much time do teachers spend in  informal learning? 4.What are teachers' favoured modes of informal learning? The study employed the  quantitative methodology and data were collected through structured questionnaires. The secondary  school teachers were selected to participate in this study. The main source of data was from a set  of questionnaire and 143 teachers responded. The study revealed that almost all the teachers  indicated that they had engaged in some form of informal learning. The background characteristics  of the respondents were also examined based on gender, age, and school locality, etcetera. The  findings revealed that teachers spent an average of six hours per week engaged in informal learning  related to their job, community/social, recreational and home. Specifically an average of 2.4 hours  were spent in the workplace activities, 1.7 hours spend for recreational related activities, and  1.4 hours in community learning and about 1.5 hours spent in home activities. The learning modes  preferred by teachers generally were learning on their own or with peers. The future educational  interest reported by respondents were themes related directly to teaching.