The Effect of Online Professional Development Participation on Perceived Self-Efficacy

Professional development has been shown to not only enhance educator skills and develop new instructional methods, but also impact student achievement. Nonetheless, evaluating the effectiveness of online professional development based on student success has been complicated because student achievement can be affected by many factors. However, one element of professional development that can be correlated with educator training, classroom practice and student success is self-efficacy. The Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) along with questions about online professional development (OPD) rigor and type were utilized in this quantitative causal-comparative study. 141 participants from various LinkedIn education-focused communities completed the survey. The purpose of the survey was to determine the degree of perceived self-efficacy in student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management educators had once they participated in an online professional development class. The mean and standard deviation were initially computed. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also conducted to make comparisons between the amount of OPD participation and self-efficacy as well as the degree of OPD type compared to the level of self-efficacy indicated. A t-test was conducted to analyze significant differences between the degree of OPD rigor and self-efficacy. In all instances, no significant differences were found. Thus, the data showed that there was no significant relationship between participation in OPD, type of staff development or the degree of OPD rigor with self-efficacy. The present study was exploratory in nature and its scope was not broad enough to gather sufficient detailed participant infounation to entirely refute or support existing data about self-efficacy. As a result, it was recommended that additional experimental studies be conducted as a follow-up to this exploratory research.