A Multimethod Approach for Understanding Educators' Motivations to Take Online Professional Development

• In Event: Innovative Research on Motivation in Social Cultural Contexts

Abstract

Online professional development courses (PDs) allow for accessible, high-quality opportunities to enhance educators’ practice. To make sure that online PDs meet educators’ needs it is necessary to understand why educators take these courses. Existing studies apply general surveys for this purpose, but they may not capture some educator-specific motivations. This study used both traditional Likert-style items and open-ended responses analyzed using natural language processing (NLP) to identify 1,930 educators’ motivation to take one of four online PDs. We identified altruistic interests (helping students and community) as a salient motivation that was not included in the Likert-style items. We contend that using multiple data sources may help reveal unique motivations in other contexts, as well.

Authors

• Ella Anghel, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Joshua Littenberg-Tobias, GBH
  Non-Presenting Author

• Matthias von Davier, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author