Professional Identity Construction in Asynchronous Teacher Forums: A Discourse Analysis of Online Professional Development Interaction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55804/ETAGTSU.2346-8149.2026.15Keywords:
asynchronous communication, professional identity, teacher forums, discourse analysis, online professional developmentAbstract
This article examines how professional identity is constructed through discourse in asynchronous online forums used in teacher professional development programmes. It analyses two purposively selected datasets from British Council English language teacher development contexts: the TKT Module 1 forum (2013; 14 participants, 6 discussion themes, 80 posts) and the Online Teacher Community (OTC) forum (2025; 35 participants, 7 discussion themes, 267 posts).
The qualitative, interpretive analysis combines Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) with the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to examine participant positioning, evaluative and epistemic stance, collegial alignment, and interactional organisation. The unequal corpus sizes and differences in participant composition, task design, and platform context are treated as contextual conditions; the comparison focuses on the forms and functions of discursive practices rather than their statistical prevalence.
The findings show that professional identity emerges as participants draw on experience, calibrate knowledge claims, align with colleagues, and connect contributions across delayed interaction. Thread-level analysis further shows how a procedural prompt can develop into contextualised pedagogical reasoning through hedging, acknowledgement, asking questions, and sharing experience.
Overall, the study demonstrates how asynchronous teacher forums can support social and cognitive presence while revealing a tension between supportive collegiality and critical engagement. It contributes micro-level evidence to research on online teacher professional learning and offers implications for designing and facilitating discussion forums.
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