Networked Learning Communities in Promoting Teachers’ Receptivity to Change: How Professional Learning Beliefs and Behaviors Mediate

Abstract

More research on networked learning communities (NLCs) and the causal mechanism among the effects of NLCs are needed. To better understand the impacts of NLCs and the influential factors, this study intended to discover how teachers’ participation in networked learning communities affects their beliefs and behaviors of professional learning and further influence their receptivity to change. Adopting a survey design, we collected 226 valid questionnaires from the pilot schools joining the program of Learning Community under Leadership for Learning supported by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. First, the results indicated that the program’s intervention of NLCs had a significant positive effect on teachers’ receptivity to change. Second, teachers’ participation in NLCs also showed a significant impact on their beliefs and behaviors regarding professional learning. Third, teachers’ beliefs in professional collaborative learning could significantly enhance their behaviors of professional collaborative learning. Fourth, the program’s intervention, employing hands-on professional learning activities, had a significant impact on teachers’ inclination to realize the program, both through direct influence and the mediation of beliefs about professional learning. The results acquired from this study would be conducive to developing strategies to support implementing the NLCs program.