Keywords
Eduacational Equity
Web Scraping
Text Mining
Mixed Methods
Teacher Professionalization
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Copyright (c) 2026 Alexandra Krebs, Barbara Getto
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
The ongoing digital transformation poses significant new challenges for schools, education, and teacher training. The DEEP – Professionalization project, based on the IPRODiG model, investigates how digitalization and educational equity are integrated into continuing education for primary school teachers in German-speaking Switzerland. This paper presents a first-phase pilot report focusing on the systematic mapping of publicly available continuing education offerings. The objective is to identify training formats, content, objectives, and assess the extent to which these two critical topics are addressed. As an exploratory analysis of a pilot dataset comprising 4,658 professional development offerings, the paper aims to generate initial, data-grounded hypotheses rather than definitive conclusions. These hypotheses are intended as a basis for subsequent analytical phases and for future strategic development in teacher continuing education.
Using automated web scraping techniques, publicly available course descriptions were systematically collected from a diverse range of institutional providers. The dataset was analysed through topic modelling to identify dominant thematic structures, content priorities, and their interrelations. As these data primarily reflect the representational level of course offerings, the study adopts a mixed-methods perspective, complementing the computational analysis with questionnaires and interviews to enable triangulation and contextual interpretation. These additional data sources are announced as subsequent project phases and are not yet integrated into the present analysis.
The paper critically reflects on the methodological affordances and limitations of AI-supported research approaches, demonstrating how surface-level quantitative pattern detection can be productively combined with qualitative inquiry. The relevance of these methods specifically for media education research is discussed, particularly regarding digital research literacy and the epistemological positioning of computational methods within the field. The findings provide a structured overview of current trends in teacher professional development and offer data-informed, preliminary insights for future strategies, particularly regarding strengthening equity-oriented professional learning in contexts of ongoing digital transformation.
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