Teacher Characteristics Shape Engagement and Outcomes in Online Professional Learning Environments

This study investigates how certain teacher characteristics—specifically, math anxiety and confidence in teaching mathematics—and school-context features are associated with teachers' behavioral engagement patterns in an online teacher professional learning platform. To this end, we applied frequent sequential pattern mining to elementary teachers' log data collected from an online professional learning platform, the Virtual Learning Community (VLC), and linked it with survey data. Results indicate that teachers with higher levels of math anxiety were significantly more likely to remain within a single section of VLC rather than navigate across multiple sections (b = -0.764, p <.001). Additionally, this exploratory engagement was positively associated with teachers' self-reported instructional practices (b = 0.743, p <.001). This finding indicates that teachers who navigated across multiple sections of VLC were more likely to perceive improvements in their instructional practice. Our research contributes to empirical evidence on how individual differences contribute to diverse patterns of participation in online professional learning, and it discusses practical implications that offer insights for designing teacher-specific support strategies in these environments.