An International Study of the Relationship between Teachers' Experience and Readiness to Teach Online

In the present study, we tested the common assumption that teachers with more experience consider themselves better prepared for online teaching and learning (OTL). Utilizing an international data set of 731 teachers in higher education at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we performed structural equation and network modeling to quantify the experience-readiness relationship. In contrast to the linearity assumption “the more experienced, the better prepared”, we found robust evidence for a curvilinear relationship. Teachers’ readiness for OTL increased first and then decreased with more experience—this applied especially to the self-efficacy dimension of readiness. Further analyses suggested that the experience-readiness relationship does not only exist at the level of aggregated constructs but also at the level of indicators, that is, specific areas of knowledge, teaching, and support. Hence, describing the experience-readiness relationship requires a measurement perspective that accounts for possible differential functioning of the readiness measures. We argue that both novice and experienced teachers in higher education could benefit from experience-appropriate, pedagogical, and content-related support programs for OTL.