Results

3.5.1 Themes

Initially, 21 themes were identified. As the interviews progressed, I found that the 21 themes could be grouped into seven larger themes. The seven themes that continually emerged in the interviews included student engagement, social presence, increased effort teaching online, isolation, software usability, research and miscellaneous. Table 3.5.1.1 shows the initial 21 themes and the larger theme they fell under. There was overlap among the categories, but the table outlines the general trend.

21 Table 3.5.1.1 Counts of Themes across 26 Interviews

Theme Example of Dialogue Total

References

Interviews Containing Theme Student Engagement

Ability to Engage Online Students

“I don’t know how well that worked because it is only really the students accessing that”

64 19

Engagement Strategies “There discussion comments are only graded in the week, because it needs to be an interactive experience.”

58 19

Social Presence Attitude Towards Online

Education

“[Online education is] way less fulfilling. You don’t get any eyeballs, you don’t meet anyone, you don’t get to know your students. It’s just work.”

133 19

Class Attributes “[Students] are suppose to participate in online discussion forums as well, interacting with each other.”

48 20

Personal Connection to Students

“I find I come to get to know the students better than if I were to teach on campus… There is a lot of interaction online… and I am seeing their work.”

39 15

Increased Effort Teaching Online Learning Management

Software (Blackboard)

“[Updating course content on Blackboard] is so cumbersome

that it is just not worth it” 29 16

Course Development “[The course re-design] will make the course much less of a here’s the information go in your corner and learn it to let’s all work together and explore what is available out there in the world…”

52 18

Face-to-Face Teaching “It is not as good as a classroom setting” 37 14

Time spent Teaching Online

“Some things are more work and some things are less.” 61 18

Use of Educational Technology

“We broke [the large class] into smaller groups... have had software issues”

67 17

Isolation Isolation from Students or

Colleagues

“This is the first time [a student] didn’t acknowledge my contacts.”

26 10

Lack of Communication Cross-Department

“Between the technical issues and the inter-organizational problems, we got nothing done in four years.”

8 6

Software Usability Interaction with Technical

Support

“two hours of speaking with [tech support], we find out it is the permissions… [he] came to my office to fix this… we scheduled an hour, it took four hours”

28 17

Technical Problems “Anywhere between half to two thirds of the content has disappeared [because of broken links].”

65 20

Research

Departmental Attitudes “In this climate of fiscal restraint, my fear is that they are not going to support [online education]”

32 13

Division of Time “Check on more email or plant one more flower” 29 13

Job Description “I still manage [the courses], but the content areas are provided by experts in the area… they are responsible for updating the content.”

18 9

Research Pressure “Junior faculty members, I can’t imagine. I have ethical problems assigning online courses to people.”

6 4

Miscellaneous Distance Education Pre-

Internet

“I have seen a lot of change. It keeps getting better and

enrollment keeps going up” 6 4

General Teaching Attitudes “I will give you the opportunities to do well, but ultimately you have to take those opportunities to do well, I can’t do that for you.”

22 3.5.2 Quantitative Analysis

Table 3.5.2.1 presents the percentage of positive remarks made by a participant compared to all remarks that had either a positive or a negative affect. Because the research was framed around discovering challenges, it was expected that more negative than positive experiences would be generated in the interviews. The rest of the tables show the statistical results, which examined demographic factors in relation to engagement. The tables below show that most of the

demographic factors analyzed did not appear to affect engagement. The participants’ confidence using technology, class size, and experience teaching online showed no significance differences in engagement. However, dividing the participants based on whether they have an active research agenda (Table 3.5.2.5) did appear significant.

Table 3.5.2.1 Classification of Instructors’ Feelings of Success Teaching Online Struggling % of Positive remarks Coping % of Positive remarks Succeeding % of Positive remarks

Participant3 23.9 Participant1 36.5 Participant4 59.7

Participant10 26.9 Participant2 31.5 Participant5 56.6

Participant11 23.5 Participant6 38.6 Participant8 50.0

Participant7 36.3 Participant9 55.4

Participant12 54.0

Table 3.5.2.2 Single-Factor ANOVA Comparing Levels of Engagement against Technological Confidence Technological Confidence & Engagement

df SS Between Groups SS Within Groups P-Value ≤ 0.05

10 204.76 1557.54 p = 0.8200

Category Count Average Variance

Early Adopter 4 35.83 221.13

Confident 3 43.03 91.30

Simple Tasks 3 38.37 355.77

Not Familiar 1 50.00 N/A

Table 3.5.2.3 Single-Factor ANOVA Comparing Levels of Engagement against Class Size Class Size & Engagement

df SS Between Groups SS Within Groups P-Value ≤ 0.05

11 582.85 1403.31 p = 0.2095

Category Count Average Variance

High Density 2 56.00 0.72

Medium Density 6 39.88 116.61

23

Table 3.5.2.4 Single-Factor ANOVA Comparing Levels of Engagement against Years Experience Years Experience & Engagement

df SS Between Groups SS Within Groups P-Value ≤ 0.05

10 260.05 1719.43 p = 0.5693

Category Count Average Variance

Under 5 Years 3 33.47 207.90

6-10 Years 6 43.70 224.24

Over 10 Years 2 45.85 182.41

Table 3.5.2.5 Independent t-Test Comparing Levels of Engagement against Research Priority Research Priority & Engagement

df SS Between Groups SS Within Groups P-Value ≤ 0.05

11 1141.02 545.14 p = 0.0004

Category Count Average Variance

Active Research Agenda 6 30.12 40.98

No Active Research Agenda 6 52.03 68.05