Abstract
Self-directed learning is one of the essential skills in this era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the 21st Century. The use of technology, particularly online learning and professional development, is becoming an alternative to face-to-face learning. The study seeks to investigate the impact of online professional development on teachers' self-directed learning skills. The study adopted a positivist paradigm. The study employed the SDLI questionnaire approach proposed by Cheng et al. (2010), a quantitative method for data generation. The study used the same questionnaire twice on the same participants. In phase one, teachers responded to the questionnaire without any prior intervention. Then, in the second phase, teachers began engaging in learning activities using Google Classroom. Then, after the participants engaged in the online professional development, they were asked to complete the SDLI in questionnaire again. Participants were foundation phase teachers in the district of Joe Gqabi, in the Eastern Cape province. The research findings show that teachers already have self- directed learning skills; however, online professional development further increases their self-directed learning.