Analysis of key roles in large‐scale online learning: Interactive participation characteristics and knowledge construction behaviour patterns

Abstract Online teacher professional development is a branch of online learning, which offers educators opportunities to refine their pedagogical skills and collaboratively construct knowledge within professional learning communities. During these interactions, teachers often engage in knowledge construction while exhibiting diverse role characteristics. Investigating these role characteristics and knowledge construction patterns can enhance the comprehension of the interaction process and contribute to online teacher professional development design, addressing challenges such as weak activity and low collaboration. This study examined the key roles that actively interact or contribute to the online community in online teacher professional development, analysing interactive participation characteristics and knowledge construction behaviour patterns. Data were collected from an online teacher professional development activity in China. Statistical, content and lag sequence analysis methods were employed. Results showed that the three key roles had weak interaction persistence and different content quality in interactive participation characteristics. Knowledge construction behaviours of key roles were generally at a high level, with different patterns observed. Finally, the study proposed practical implications based on key roles' interactive participation characteristics and knowledge construction behaviour patterns. These implications may inspire the learning designs that promote online interaction and deep learning based on role characteristics in online teacher professional development. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Online teacher professional development is an evolving and increasingly recognized field within education, positioned as a subset of online learning. Within professional learning communities, teachers engage in knowledge construction and display varied role characteristics. In large‐scale online teacher professional development, only a few consistently maintained knowledge sharing and interaction. These active participants, or ‘key roles’, account for the majority of interactions. The interactive characteristics of the key roles are rarely discussed. What this paper adds Key roles, while actively participating in the online community, do not necessarily maintain consistent activity throughout the learning process. The interactive participation behaviour of key roles tends to learn more towards ‘following’ rather than ‘initiating’. The quality of interactive content from key roles varies widely. While they are responsible for a significant portion of interactions, it is not guaranteed that these interactions will always be of high quality. Knowledge construction behaviour patterns vary among key roles. Overall, their knowledge construction behaviours are generally at a high level and primarily transit among high stages of knowledge construction. Implications for practice Maintain continuous interaction and posting high‐quality content prove to be challenging even for key roles. Course administrators should monitor and strategically enhance their engagement to prevent them from becoming lurkers. Understanding the behaviour patterns of key roles offers insights for increasing interaction enthusiasm among active participants. It is necessary to develop role‐specific scripts in professional learning communities, to tailor content for opinion leaders, contributors and boundary spanners.