Enrollment numbers in higher education online coursework have continued to grow while overall higher education enrollment has declined (Allen, Seaman, Poulin, & Straut, 2016). The inability to directly observe teaching in online courses has created the need for an alternate method of distinguishing quality online course offerings for both university administrators and students alike (Boysen, Kelly, Raesly, & Casner, 2014). Frequently, the quality of an online course is measured by the use of an established rubric, such as the Quality Matters (QM) rubric. These rubrics allow for objective determination about the quality of an online course’s design as measured against pre-established standards. The 2014 QM higher education rubric measures eight standards paralleling quality instructional design principles (Quality Matters, 2017). It is important to note, rubrics such as the QM rubric, do not allow for the measurement of quality online instruction provided to the students enrolled in the course per se. The evaluation focus of these rubrics is on the course design rather than the teaching (Pina & Bohn, 2014). An excellent online course is the result of quality instructional design in combination with the delivery of quality teaching. Student learning outcomes will be primarily impacted by the quality of teaching provided by the online instructor (Frazer, Sullivan, Weatherspoon, & Hussey, 2017). There is a need for more research about how to measure the delivery of quality online instruction in higher education courses.
Purpose
Quality instructional design and quality course instruction are dissimilar concepts and as a result should be measured differently. Many higher education courses, taught solely online, are taught by faculty who did not participate in the development of said courses (Lowenthal, Bauer, & Chen, 2015). As a result of decades of research, seven principles of good teaching practices for use in higher education instruction have been widely recognized (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). Historically, these established principles of quality face-to-face teaching have served as the framework for quality online teaching (Shelton & Hayne, 2017). The premise is these known principles of quality instruction in the face-to-face classroom can also be used to evaluate the quality of teaching provided in the online classroom. Crews and Wilkinson (2015) surveyed faculty teaching online and asked them to correlate the QM rubric standards to Chickering and Gamson’s principles of good teaching. The results of their research indicated further exploration about how online course design influenced quality online teaching. More defined criteria to objectively measure quality online instruction in higher education course offerings are needed to facilitate faculty self-reflection on needed course improvements and to further define online teaching for peer review purposes. This purpose of this pilot study is to increase understanding about what constitutes quality online teaching as perceived by faculty teaching online.
Methods
The research design planned for this study is retrospective, qualitative data analysis. A purposive sampling method will be used to seek the perceptions of faculty teaching online. The participants will be asked to expand upon principles considered as essential for quality online instruction in order to objectively gather information. This information will be sought through open-ended, fill-in-the-blank questions within the anonymous, researcher created, online survey deployed to all institutional faculty currently teaching online courses is to objectively gather information determining how the established principles of quality teaching are incorporated into the online classroom. This proposed research will be guided by the following research question:
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How are Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) principles of good teaching reflected in online instruction as perceived by higher education faculty with online teaching experience?
Results
Survey data will be retrospectively analyzed using qualitative content analysis (QCA). Qualitative content analysis is a research technique that provides new insights, increases researcher’s understanding of a particular phenomenon, or informs practical actions (Krippendorff, 2013; Schreier, 2012).
Conclusion
The results of this planned research will have implications for educational institutions offering online courses. Students, faculty, and administrators should all benefit from information about how to better evaluate the quality of online teaching. Results gleaned from this study will seek to correlate the connection between known principles of good teaching practice and quality instruction in online courses. Additionally, this research will report further principles, deemed to be essential for quality online instruction, as perceived by faculty with online teaching experience.