The Construction and Application of E-Learning Curricula Evaluation Metrics for Competency-Based Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

Today, students at universities in advanced countries typically enroll in colleges, such as the College of Education, which offer interdisciplinary programs for undergraduates in their first and second years, allowing them to explore personal interests, experience educational research fields, complete their integrated curricula, and then choose a major in their third year. To cooperate with the government’s epidemic prevention policies and measures in the post-COVID-19 era, the trend of e-learning and distance teaching has accelerated the establishment of integrated online curricula with interdisciplinary programs for undergraduates in the College of Education to facilitate effective future teacher professional development (TPD). Therefore, it is very important to construct e-learning curricula evaluation metrics for competency-based teacher professional development (CB-TPD) and to implement them in teaching practice. This research used social network analysis (SNA) methods, approaches, and theoretical concepts, such as affiliation networks and bipartite graphs comprised of educational occupational titles and common professional competencies (i.e., Element Name and ID), as well as knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs), from the U.S. occupational information network (O*NET) 26.1 OnLine database, to collect data on the occupations of educational professionals. This study also used Gephi network analysis and visualization software to carry out descriptive statistics of keyword co-occurrences to measure their centrality metrics, including weighted degree centrality, degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and closeness centrality, and to verify their importance and ranking in professional competency in eight categories of educational professionals (i.e., three categories of special education teachers and five categories of teachers, except special education). The analysis of the centrality metrics identified the educational common professional competency (ECPC) keyword co-occurrences, which were then used to design, develop, and apply e-learning curricula evaluation metrics for CB-TPD. The results of this study can be used as a reference for conducting related academic research and cultivating educational professionals’ online curricula, including ECPC keywords, integrated curricula design and the development of transdisciplinary programs, and teacher education, as well as to facilitate the construction and application of future e-learning curricula evaluation metrics for CB-TPD.