Mentor Teachers’ Expectations and Evaluations of Online Professional Development Courses

The demand for continuous professional development for teachers that is tailored to their needs, accommodates their busy schedules and offers high-quality learning opportunities has encouraged the creation of programmes for online teacher professional development (oTPD). Research shows that learners achieve a similar level of mastery in online courses as in on-site courses. However, learner characteristics, such as digital and self-regulated learning (SRL) skills, appear to play an important role. Despite the proliferation of oTPD courses in recent years, the understanding of best practice regarding the design, implementation, perception and learning outcomes of such courses remains limited. In this context, oTPD courses for mentor teachers were developed, created and evaluated in this project. This paper focuses on expectations and evaluations of these courses held by mentor teachers (N = 183). Feedback was collected via online questionnaires at three measurement points between December 2023 and March 2024. The mentor teachers held high expectations of oTPD. These expectations appear to have been largely met. The mentor teachers expressed satisfaction with the oTPD and reported various personal benefits. However, there are indications that more social interaction would have been necessary to satisfy mentor teachers' expectations and promote professional development even better. Furthermore, mentor teachers' personal characteristics, including age, digital and SRL skills, appear to have influenced their expectations and evaluations. Although exclusively based on self-reports, the results provide important indications of how to enhance the effectiveness of oTPD courses by integrating more opportunities for exchange and scaffolds to support SRL skills.