Date of Award

January 2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Jeffrey C. Sun

Abstract

Community colleges are offering online coursework at a rapidly increasing rate; however, the growth of online coursework is not the result of new enrollments, but rather currently enrolled students' shifting from a face-to-face modality to an online modality. This shift presents some challenges because previous studies of college faculty satisfaction regarding online teaching have indicated that faculty members (faculty) are frustrated, particularly with two primary issues: the technology used to teach online and the time it takes to develop and administer an online class. Nonetheless, community college faculty are increasingly expected to teach online classes in spite of the previous reports of faculty frustration that is leading to dissatisfied instructors. The emergence of new instructional resources might reduce or eliminate frustrations and increase satisfaction. Specifically, using online resources such as third-party prepared curriculum materials could reduce faculty frustrations with technology and time. Given the change in instructional resources, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence that such prepared curriculum materials may have on community college faculty satisfaction when teaching online.

Faculty satisfaction is a complex social construct that incorporates several factors. To explore this construct of faculty satisfaction when teaching online, a survey was developed and distributed to faculty at seven community colleges. Factor analysis of the data did not support new constructs of a Technology-related factor or a Time-related factor that influenced faculty satisfaction. However, the items that represent these factors were found to be important. Logistic regression models were used, and the results did not support a finding that prepared curriculum materials were a statistically significant variable. However, additional data analysis found that specific types of prepared curriculum material were significant, suggesting connections between prepared curriculum and faculty satisfaction.

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