Categories: Communication Design, Technology
Summary and Citations:
"This study sought to identify the most prevalent barriers to online instruction for the faculty" (Lloyd, Byrne, & McCoy, 2012, p. 1) at a southeastern university in the United States. The results came from a survey group of 75 faculty members. They found that those with experience in online education were less resistant to teaching online courses.
The insights from their literature review are particularly helpful for those researching this field:
"The fact that experience with and the degree of experience with online education breaks down barriers to education is not thoroughly addressed elsewhere in the literature (Lloyd, Byrne, & McCoy, 2012, p. 8).
"Of the eight conditions that facilitate faculty involvement in online education identified by Ely (1999), the three conditions that are perceived by faculty to have the greatest impact on the implementation of new online programs include adequate institutional resources, appropriate knowledge and skills, and a general dissatisfaction with the status quo (Ensminger & Surry, 2002). Instructors' willingness to participate in distance education is positively impacted by increased training, an expectation of high student evaluation scores, and comfort with the technology, while negatively impacted by communication issues such as lack of visual cues and other forms of social contact (Lee & Busch, 2005). However, faculty-perceived barriers to teaching online also include: a lack of compensation for time and class sizes; added responsibilities; inability to grasp visual cues from students; concerns about the quality of the content; concerns about the ownership of courses developed; inadequate training and resources; increased workload; the value toward promotion and tenure; a lack of administrative and technical support; a lack of experience with online teaching; and a change in the faculty's institutional role (Bower, 2001; Haber & Mills, 2008; Johnson, 2008; Lyons, 2004; Panda & Mishra, 2007; Ryan, Hodson-Carlton, & Ali, 2004, 2005; Schifter, 2002; Seaman, 2009; Shea, 2007; Singh & Pan, 2004). Maguire (2005) identified additional barriers, which include: increased workload that deterred from research time; lack of recognition in both the area of tenure and promotion and equality in regards to face-to-face instruction; and a lack of monetary compensation for developing or teaching online courses. Faculty were also concerned about lack of standards in online education, the impact that the online atmosphere would have on job security, and the quality of instruction" (Lloyd, Byrne, & McCoy, 2012, p. 2).
"In an attempt to reconcile the broad-based literature that identifies various individual barriers to online education, Muilenburg and Berge (2001, 2005) developed a comprehensive framework of barrier categories through factor analysis. They identified 10 constructs that incorporate barriers to online education and which form the basis for their framework. While this framework proves useful in reducing and combining variables into meaningful constructs so as to test individual differences, it was written to be inclusive of the perspective of distance education institutions, users, developers, policymakers, trainers, and instructors, and has been used to this end (see Cho & Berge, 2002; Muilenberg & Berge, 2005). However, it is not clear whether perceived barriers to online teaching vary among faculty groups and what role previous experience with online education might have on faculty perceptions, which has obvious implications on training and implementation strategies at institutions of higher learning (Lloyd, Byrne, & McCoy, 2012, pp. 2-3).
This study directly reflects teacher perceptions, but the focus is primarily on getting instructors to overcome their hesitations about online learning.
