Date of Graduation

2007

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine higher education faculty members’ perceptions as compared to their students’ perceptions of the psychosocial environment in distance learning courses as shown in the results of the Distance Education Learning Environment Survey (DELES) and to understand how faculty learn and change their teaching for course development and delivery using technology. Research shows that an increasing number of colleges and universities are offering online courses and programs and an increased number of students are enrolled in distance learning. The need to look at how faculty teach, learn, and change their online courses is recognized. For this study, six faculty members who taught online using a course management system were the participants. Three interrelated themes were derived from interviews, course materials, and extant data from the DELES and a student demographic survey. The themes that evolved were Early Online Teaching, Higher Education Faculty Members Learn, and Teaching Online Affects Future Teaching. The predominant model of teaching used was Direct Instruction with Partners in Learning, The Study of Values through Jurisprudential Inquiry and Learning to Think Inductively used to a lesser extent. These models were based on Joyce, Weil, and Calhoun (2004). Faculty participates realized the need for more student interaction and collaboration as part of the psychosocial environment for online courses and recognized the need to learn of ways to incorporate interaction and collaboration and other identified psychosocial environment criteria into future courses. The necessity for support for online faculty members, and opportunities to learn new models and strategies to increase learning in online courses was determined. The need for updating technological skills was also seen as important. The importance of learning about other teaching models and how they might be adapted for online teaching as well as for face-to-face teaching was discussed by faculty members. Administering the DELES for future courses and analyzing the results, both at the beginning and at the end of online courses, was seen as a way to learn from the students by comparing faculty and student perceptions in order to improve online courses.

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