Problem Durumu

Professional development (PD) is widely acknowledged as a critical factor for achieving success in the future educational reforms (Desimone, 2009; Guskey, 2000; Hawley & Valli, 1999). Effective PD aims to enhance instructional techniques, instructor attitudes, beliefs, and ultimately student performance (Griffin, 1983; McCarney, 2004). Ensuring quality PD is also vital in helping educators to become more proficient in managing the complex interplay between technology, pedagogy, and cognitive content (Rienties & Townsend, 2012; Löfström & Nevgi, 2008).

Similar to conventional face-to-face PD, OTPD also has favorable outcomes, including enhancements in reflective teaching, classroom practices, collaborations with colleagues, and increase in student achievement (Bragg et al., 2021). Online teacher professional development (OTPD) represents a novel area of inquiry, and demands comprehensive examination (Elliot, 2017). As it cannot be reduced to a mere replication of conventional face-to-face activities on digital platforms (Stevens-Long & Crowell, 2002). Decisions concerning the deployment of online or hybrid OTPD are typically informed by a variety of organizational and personal factors, which determine the most appropriate delivery mode for the task at hand and for the given context (Fairman et al., 2023). However, the provision of effective OTPD is essential if such modalities are to benefit educators, since merely using technology as a means of PD delivery mechanism cannot guarantee its effectiveness (Powell & Bodur, 2019).

Even if there are a number of advantages of OTPD including increased flexibility by enabling teachers to work at their own pace from anywhere they want, fostering a sense of community by among colleagues, and lowering costs (Dede, 2006; Fleischer & Fox, 2003; Magidin de Kramer et al., 2012; Treacy et al., 2002; Wynants & Dennis, 2018), it also owns certain drawbacks as well. These include limited interaction, insufficient feedback from trainers, reduced sense of presence, hardware problems, tardy responses to questions, limited digital competency, and insufficient technological infrastructure (Baran & Cagıltay, 2006; Johar et al., 2021; Juárez-Díaz & Perales, 2021; Wynants & Dennis, 2018).

Level of participation, participant satisfaction, and program quality in comparison to a standard or intended objectives can reveal essential information about the effectiveness of an OTPD program (Dede et al., 2005). By carefully considering the assets and drawbacks and OTPD and adopting a suitable framework, it is possible to improve the overall quality of OTPD and enhance the perception of instructors towards OTPD programs at higher education institutions.

Yöntem

This phenomenological study aims to investigate the perceptions of EFL instructors regarding OTPD practices, using the OTPD framework developed by Powell and Bodur (2019) as a basis. The study employed purposive sampling to select six EFL instructors working at six different foundation universities in Ankara, Turkiye. Semi-structured interview questions were developed based on a comprehensive literature review and the interviews were recorded and analyzed by the researchers. The analysis of the interviews was conducted through content analysis, which identified six OTPD design and implementation features, namely relevancy, authenticity, usefulness, interaction and collaboration, reflection, and context, as the main themes of the analysis in line with Powell and Bodur's framework (2019).

Beklenen/Geçici Sonuçlar

The present study aims to investigate the applicability of OTPD design and implementation features proposed by Powell and Bodur (2019) to gain insights into the perceptions of instructors regarding OTPD practices. Preliminary results reveal that the identified OTPD features are suitable for understanding instructors' views on OTPD practices.

The first theme created was about the usefulness of OTPD activities. As the framework implies an effective OTPD is expected to be perceived useful by the participants. In this study, participants also commented on the topic by highlighting that some OTPDs are found to be useful in real life while other are not. One of the participants expressed ‘‘I think some of these activities are really useful while others are useless in real life. What I mean by useful in real life is that taking some trainings that can be adapted to the education and training process in real terms helped us a lot. However, I don't think some of them were very necessary.’’ (Participant 3)