UNDERSTANDING INFORMAL LEARNING IN VIRTUAL PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITIES OF TEACHERS IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

Reinforced internationally in the context of educational improvement, teachers’ professional networks, as a source of social capital, have been conceptualised as an integral part of teacher professionalism, as well as an essential element of successful educational change, and in the context of what Van Dijck, Poell and De Waal (2018) call “the platform society”, the use of social media platforms within professional networks of teachers has become an agenda for both research and practice. Therefore, with the overarching aim of understanding how to promote informal learning of teachers in virtual professional communities in Kazakhstan, this study explored this phenomenon within the conceptual framework identified by a review of related concepts, in particular a triangle of learning factors, namely, the need for professional connectedness, knowledge sharing self-efficacy, and knowledge sharing and receiving. This parallel mixed-method study was carried out in 29 schools of Kazakhstan by collecting teachers’ self-reported practice with the help of a paper-based questionnaires (n=440) and face-to-face interviews (n=41). An emergent trend within the identified findings is that teachers in Kazakhstan use social media within professional communities in order to obtain knowledge, which is manifested in an overlapping mixture of news, information, opinion, experience and resources, suggesting that virtual professional communities are one of the spaces for informal learning since they provide the opportunity to gain public and/or personal knowledge related to the teaching profession. In line with the identified conceptual framework, the results of the study provide a partial explanation for teachers’ engagement in virtual professional communities in the context of informal learning. The study suggests that both the need for professional connectedness, as part of professional identity and commitment for learning, and knowledge sharing self-efficacy are positively associated with knowledge sharing and receiving. As well as identifying contextual types of virtual professional communities, the study identifies some of the contextual factors associated with the need for professional connectedness in the research context, such as professional isolation of teachers in rural schools, the need for mentoring support, and the context of educational change, and contextual sources of knowledge sharing self-efficacy, such as professional comparison and sense of professional connectedness. Finally, in contribution to the growing body of research, the present study also argues for the importance of face-to-to face collaboration within and beyond schools in order to promote professional knowledge exchange within virtual professional communities. The research has clear implications for research and practice in the fields of teacher professional learning, particularly in Kazakhstan, hence it is believed that present study can help future efforts to support informal learning in virtual professional communities.