Studying changes in teachers before and after a fully online graduate programme

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived effect of a fully online Master of Education programme designed to prepare teachers to be accomplished teachers. Graduates of the programme completed a 33-item survey about the effect of the programme on five programme standards as student learning outcomes: content knowledge, planning learning environments, and applying effective teaching, assessment, and professional dispositions. We used a retrospective approach in that our graduates rated the frequency of their practice before and after the programme. All 33 items on the survey were statistically significant, indicating the increased frequency of practicing these five areas. We critically discussed the reasons why, in some items, there was almost the same across the participants of the study. The study’s implications include the design of online graduate programmes for teachers and evaluative and analytical methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Asynchronous learning
• professional development
• teacher education
• online programme
• online graduate degrees

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Research support and sponsorship

This study was funded by Georgia Southern University – Faculty Research Committee Seed Grant

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.