When Teacher Training Shifts From Offline to Online: Roles, Efficacy Beliefs, and Cognitive Load of Collaboration

As flexible transitions between online and offline teacher training modalities become ubiquitous, educators encounter multifaceted challenges. Their collaborative roles and learning experiences across these distinct CSCL environments remain under-explored. This study aims to map patterns of teacher adaptation and acquire responsive strategies for evolving professional development ecosystems by designing an offline-to-online (O2O) training program, which included two offline and two online sessions featuring collaborative tasks. A total of 30 teachers participated in the program. Teachers’ subjective experiences, including collaborative roles, efficacy beliefs, and cognitive load, were assessed after each training session. Thematic analysis and statistical methods were used to analyze the data. The results identified three collaborative roles—coordinator, integrator, and assistor—with coordinators demonstrating higher self-efficacy than assistors and greater collective efficacy than integrators. Additionally, a notable increase in mental load was observed as trainees transitioned from offline to online sessions, with no significant interaction effect between training modes and collaborative roles. These findings provide valuable insights for the design of collaborative activities and procedural interventions in teacher training, suggesting that role differentiation and careful management of cognitive load are essential for effective training programs.