Teachers Seeking Development through Online Sources: Why and How?

Through interviews with three English language teachers from preparatory schools who willingly participated in online professional development, this case study explores how teachers undertake digital professional development in digital environments. We drew on Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan, 2012) about the motivation as to how they engage and learn during online professional development in order to evaluate their process of teacher learning in online settings. In three separate cases, the participants' motivational elements and how they utilize technology were presented using an exploratory methodology based on the interviews. According to the study, all of the teachers were intrinsically driven, and their main driving forces for engaging in online professional learning were the need to increase competence, exercise autonomy, and gauge relatedness. The participants cited using webpages, YouTube, Instagram, MOOCs, and MOOCs as their go-to online resources. The focus of the discussion centers on how this study's conclusions might be used to encourage language teachers to participate in online professional development using self-determination theory.