Considerations for the future of online professional development for early childhood educators

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, online professional development courses for early childhood educators (ECEs) have found their way into early education in Austria for the first time. This article presents data from a survey of 235 ECEs in Austria on the advantages and disadvantages of participating in synchronous and asynchronous online training courses. The results of this study suggest that online training is not a short-term trend; rather, these formats are becoming increasingly established in the training landscape. Future studies should examine how to design online training courses methodologically and pedagogically, such that both synchronous and asynchronous courses appeal to the target group of ECEs. Finally, this study developed six recommendations for the design of online training courses based on its empirical findings.