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Factors Contributing to Faculty Experiences with Online Learning

A Mixed Methods Study

Michelle Giles, Bob Kaiser, Rhonda Ritter, Ellen Zimmerman CECS 6512 Spring 2013

The Research Question

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What factors contribute to faculty experiences with online learning?

Establish a baseline understanding of the college faculty’s perceptions based on personal experience within the online learning environment.

Sub-Questions

Research Question

Three Sub-questions

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Used to establish a baseline understanding of online learning

Question 1 Question 3

‣  What are the factors that faculty perceive as being barriers to teaching in an online environment?

Question 2

‣  What are the advantages that faculty perceive as increasing their motivation to teach in an online environment?

‣  What are the factors that faculty perceive as being advantages to teaching in an online environment?

Research Design

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Better understanding and multiple perspectives

Quantitative

Qualitative

‣  Individual, semi-structured interviews

‣  Maximal variation sampling

‣  Deeper exploration of faculty experience

‣  Ensuring trustworthiness

Qualitative Phase

‣  Survey

‣  Demographics

‣  Faculty Experience

‣  Knowledge of On-line Learning Environment

Quantitative Phase

Mixed Method

Exploratory Mixed Methods Design

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A continuous process

Quantitative

Data Collection

Qualitative Data

Analysis

Quantitative

Data Analysis

Qualitative Data

Collection

Interview

1 2

3

4

5

Implementation

Visual Model for Mixed Methods Procedures

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Exploratory Mixed Methods Design

Quantitative Data Collection

Quantitative Data Analysis

Interview Protocol

Faculty Survey and demographic items

Qualitative Data Collection

Numerical item scores

Quantitative Data Analysis

Implementation

Descriptive statistics analysis Frequency analysis Frequency tables

Consider themes as subscales Write items for each subscale Items across subscales

Maximum variation sampling Semi-structured interviews

Field notes Transcripts

Coding Thematic Development

Coded text Themes

Summarize dimensions Evidence of construct validity

Discuss extent to which qualitative dimensions were validated

Descriptions of dimensions Validated instrument to measure

dimensions

Procedures Products

Instrumentation

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Survey Instrument & Semi-structured Interview Protocol

Survey Instrument Semi-structured Interview

‣  Pilot tested with randomly selected individuals with the same field.

‣  Open-ended and Likert-type scale.

‣  Twenty one questions.

‣  The first seven questions – demographic.

‣  Remaining fourteen will pertain to LMS & synchronous tools, technology and training comfort levels, philosophy, weekly time spent on preparation, assessment and delivery of content, perceived barriers, motivators and advantages.

‣  Field tested on a random sample.

‣  Consist of twelve questions.

‣  Four questions related to alignment of synchronous classes with pedagogical philosophies.

‣  Four questions related to how technology adoption impacts faculty experience with online learning.

‣  Four questions will address factors that faculty perceive as being barriers to, motivators for and advantages of teaching in an online environment.

Data Collection & Analysis

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Quantitative and Qualitative

Quantitative Collection

Qualitative Analysis

Quantitative Analysis

Qualitative Collection

‣  Self created survey instrument constructed in Qualtrics survey tool.

‣  Request email to university program coordinators to recruit faculty for voluntary participation.

‣  Further contact by calling for interview questions.

‣  Link to survey in the introductory email to faculty

‣  Survey data will be downloaded from Qualtrics.

‣  Survey data will be manually entered into SPSS and analyzed for frequency of responses.

‣  Responses to open-ended questions will be reviewed and coded to identify common themes.

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‣  Semi-structured individual interviews.

‣  Subset of faculty selected using maximal variation sampling.

‣  Written consent for recorded interviewed.

‣  Duration of interview is 15 to 30 minutes

‣  Recording will be transcribed, coded and analyzed.

‣  Data will be analyzed using the constant comparative procedure.

‣  Analysis will consist of identifying, coding and categorizing patterns found within the data.

‣  Collective review by all members of the research team to ensure consistency and agreement.

Results

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Both Quantitative and Qualitative

Quantitative Survey •  Demographics •  General Teaching

Philosophies •  Levels of Online Experience •  Use of synchronous and

asynchronous tools •  Comfort Level of Tools •  Levels of Training with Tools

Semi Structured Individual Interviews •  Barriers •  Motivations •  Satisfaction •  Advantages •  Preferences

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Quantitative Results

Survey - Demographics

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11 Participants

Gender Age Ethnicity Education Level Rank

5 Female 6 Male

Range from 36 to 67 Average Age 46 Standard Deviation 10.7

9 White 1 Hispanic 1 African American

1 Full Professor 2 Associate Prof 1 Assistant Prof 1 Instructor/Lecturer 6 Adjunct/Teaching Fellow

8 Hold PhD 3 Hold Masters

9 Teach Bachelors 8 Teach Masters 5 Teach Doctoral

Survey Questions

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Teaching Philosophies

Question 1

Level of Training with Tools Varied 7 self taught

1 had 3- 5 hours 1 had 10 + hours 2 had no training

Top Three Comfortable or Very Comfortable Synchronous Tools Used

Use of Synchronous in current online courses?

9 yes 2 No

Cognitivisim/Pragmatism Constructivism/Interpretivism

Behaviorism/Objectivism

Moodle Blackboard

Skype

Levels of Experience Teaching Online?

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Been a Student in an Online Course? 10 Yes 1 No

6 - C/P 4 - C/I

1 used all three

2 less than a year 1 for 1 – 3 years 3 for 4 – 6 years

5 for 6 or more years

LMS Currently Used

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Use of Tools

Schoology

Desire 2 Learn

Canvas

Moodle

Blackboard

no users (0%)

7 users (64%)

1 users (9%)

6 users (55%)

3 users (27%)

Synchronous Tools

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Use of Tools

Wimba

iChat

Big Blue Buttons

WebEx

Google Hangout

Go To Meeting

Blackboard Collaborate

Skype

Google Docs

Adobe Connect

No user (0%)

1 user (9%)

2 users (18%)

7 users (64%)

2 users (18%)

2 users (18%)

7 users (64%)

8 users (73%)

1 user (9%)

3 users (27%)

Level of Comfort

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Rank Ordered

Ichat

Desire 2 Learn

Schoology

Google Docs

Adobe Connect

Canvas

Skype Blackboard

Moodle

3 very comfortable

1 neutral 2 comfortable

5 very comfortable

1 neutral 1 very comfortable

1 neutral 6 comfortable

3 very comfortable

1 neutral 4 comfortable 4 very comfortable

2 neutral 2 comfortable 6 very comfortable

3 comfortable 6 very comfortable

1 neutral 1 comfortable 3 very comfortable

1 comfortable

Big Blue Buttons

1 very comfortable

Wimba 2 comfortable 1 very comfortable

WebEx

4 comfortable

GoToMeeting 2 comfortable

Faculty with 6 + Years Teaching

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Hours Spent Training

Moodle Google Skype

Num

ber

of

Fac

ulty

None Self 1- 2 3-5 None Self 1- 2 3-5 None Self 1- 2 3-5

Num

ber

of

Fac

ulty

Num

ber

of

Fac

ulty

1

3

1 1

4

5

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Qualitative Results

Qualitative Results

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Semi-structured individual interviews

Interviews Barriers Motivations Satisfaction Advantages Preference

Member Checking Interview transcripts were provided to participants to ensure creditability and trustworthiness

Interviews Team of four research analyst. Reviewed transcribed interviews to produce a list of key points and similar topics

Barriers Similar types of barriers consisting of technological, student resistance and time consuming

Satisfaction From the faculty perspective, the most satisfying element was collaboration and ability to share resources

Preference Not a single participant preferred to teach online, two preferred face to face, one preferred hybrid

Motivations Two categories of motivation, both professional and personal, but often intertwined

Advantages The flexibility of the medium was the main advantage, easy to grade student work and the anywhere any time flexibility

Checking

Barriers

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Summary of Barriers to Teaching Online

Technological Student Resistance Time Consuming

•  Non compatible technology

•  Instructor Bias •  Inflexible Tools •  Communication delays

•  Don’t want to read •  Resistance to change •  Posting assignments •  Lack Self motivation

•  Students get lost •  Students comfort with

technology •  Multitasking while online •  Answering same questions •  Mediating

misinterpretations

•  Need competent, readily available tech support

•  Need Tutorials •  Need FAQ’s

•  Students are only willing to what they are comfortable with.

•  Professor answers the same questions over and again due to students lack of attention to detail, which consumes time

Motivations

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Summary of Motivations to Teaching Online

Personal Professional

•  Working from home •  Flexible hours

•  Following the trend of education

•  University push towards online education

“Well I’m trying right now to get a project off the ground because I want to have a large impact, I want to reach a large number of people and so the best way to go about trying to have that kind of impact, a large scale impact, is to continue online, so that would be a motivation for me.”

“I’m motivated to try to improve online learning experiences simply because this is where we are at. I don’t have to like it but I can at least try to make it better and that’s where my motivation comes from in that instance.”

Satisfaction

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Summary of Satisfaction to Teaching Online

Collaboration Shared Resources

•  In depth dialog among students

•  Shared resources contribute to the learning process

“I think I find it most satisfying when there is genuine collaboration between the students in the online classes and I can see they are sharing rich information and they are having deep discussions and dialogue regarding things that I have put out online, where they actually are questioning each other and they have a point, counterpoint exchange where they are challenging one another. To me, that kind of networking is where learning actually takes place.”

“I like being able to post resources and materials online in a learning management system like Schoology so it becomes a sharing space rather than a delivery space.”!

Dis-satisfaction not having any face-to-face component restricted their ability to teach and that they couldn’t truly know if a student understood the concepts being taught

Advantages

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Summary of Advantages to Teaching Online

Flexibility Convenience

•  Easier to grade and manage the class content •  Anytime, any place, on the

go with mobile

“I think an advantage from a teacher’s point of view um, is also a little the same; geographical location. I could be an online teacher for N.Y.U. and still stay here in Texas.”

“All of my assignments are sent in electronically so I don’t have all these papers to haul back and forth like you used to have.” !

Preferences

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Summary of Preferences to Teaching Online

No one preferred Online Teaching

•  “I absolutely prefer face-to-face.” •  “Face-to-face, I would like to do face-to-face.” •  “My option would be a hybrid class where you have some face-

to-face and some online. That would be what I enjoy the most because then you get a little bit of everything.”