Teachers in transition: A qualitative exploration into the impact of emergency remote teaching on professional development

Abstract

This investigation examines the evolving landscape of professional development among higher education teachers, focusing on the long-term effects of the COVID-19 emergency-remote-teaching period. The aim is to better-understand how the pandemic has shaped current attitudes and practices in professional development. Using a qualitative approach, ten English for Academic Purposes teachers from a university in Kazakhstan were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to determine how their experiences of professional development during the online pandemic have affected their perceptions and approaches to professional development in the current post-pandemic, and mostly face-to-face, teaching context. The findings indicate that COVID-19′s emergency-remote-teaching period has had a largely positive influence as teachers are now more likely to prioritize improving their technological competence, as well as engage in a wider variety of professional development topics and platforms. Professional development is also more likely to be flexible and individually tailored to the specific needs of each teacher. However, challenges including online fatigue as well as trauma caused by the pandemic have also emerged. The investigation makes significant contributions to the understanding of professional development under emergency-remote-teaching conditions in contrast with “non-emergency” operations. It also advances field knowledge on the increasing fluidity of the professional development landscape across both online and offline learning spaces. Lastly it enriches the understanding of how structured and unstructured forms of professional development can be balanced and tailored to individual teachers’ needs.