Investigating teachers’ participation patterns in online teacher professional development: what is the relationship between participation frequency and participation quality?

Online teacher professional development (OTPD) opportunities are made available to teachers and draw increasing research attention. As the key characteristics of teachers’ participation in OTPD, the frequency and quality of participation are increasingly concerned. However, the relationship between teacher participation frequency and participation quality is still unclear. Addressing this problem not only helps reveal teachers’ participation patterns in OTPD, but also provides support for promoting teachers’ online professional learning and improving OTPD organization and management. To identify teachers’ participation patterns and the relationship between participation frequency and participation quality in OTPD, this study analyzed 5,064 log records of 415 teachers using lag sequential analysis, t-test, and Chi-square test. The findings indicated that teachers preferred shallow participation behaviors, such as sharing resources and experience, and seldom carried out deep participation/engagement behaviors (e.g., proposing knowledge topics, establishing teaching and research practices). Teachers with higher participation frequency had lower participation quality in OTPD and tended to repeat shallow participation behaviors. Finally, the study proposed some suggestions for better supporting teachers’ participation in online professional development, such as strengthening the links between information sharing activities, knowledge construction activities, and teaching and research practices.