Teachers' Lifelong Learning in Digital Professional Development: Narrative Inquiry into Positive Emotions and Technology-Enhanced Teaching Practices

Abstract

Digital professional development has become central to teachers' lifelong learning, yet research has paid limited attention to how teachers emotionally experience digital learning and translate it into technology-enhanced teaching practices. Using narrative inquiry, this study explores how teachers construct meaning from digital professional development, how positive emotions emerge within their learning journeys, and how these emotions shape pedagogical transformation. Data were collected from 18 primary and secondary school teachers through semi-structured narrative interviews, reflective learning journals, and digital teaching artefacts. Thematic narrative analysis revealed four interconnected findings. First, meaningful digital professional development renewed teachers' professional hope and strengthened their lifelong learning orientation. Second, positive emotions, including hope, enjoyment, satisfaction, pride, curiosity, and belonging, supported teachers' willingness to experiment with digital tools. Third, these emotions enhanced digital teaching self-efficacy and helped teachers move from technical adoption to more reflective technology-enhanced pedagogy. Fourth, professional identity reconstruction strengthened the sustainability of digital teaching practices, particularly when teachers began to view themselves as adaptive learners, peer contributors, and digitally capable educators. The study contributes to the teacher professional development literature by positioning positive emotions as affective mechanisms linking digital professional learning with classroom innovation. It also offers practical insights for designing emotionally supportive, collaborative, and pedagogically meaningful digital professional development.