Faculty Engagement in Online Education: Applying the Perceived Characteristics of Innovation to Explain Online Teaching Intention

Abstract

There exists an increasing demand for online education; however, faculty may question the value of online courses as they grapple with making a connection between the face-to-face classroom and the online learning experience. Much research has focused on factors relating to student engagement, although we posit that faculty engagement represents an important aspect in the online learning context that has been fairly overlooked in the engagement research stream. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence a faculty’s intention to teach an OL course in addition to their level of engagement in teaching an online learning course is vital to the growth and success of an OL program. Therefore, in this study, we seek to not only understand the factors that influence faculty’s intention to teach online learning courses but also an instructor’s level of faculty engagement in online learning courses. We sought a novel lens with which to examine this phenomenon, so this study utilizes the perceived characteristics of innovation (PCI) to examine the relationships between faculty engagement and intention to teach online learning courses. We conducted a survey of 99 instructors from a large public university in order to assess the impact of PCI on faculty engagement and intention to teach online courses. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data, concluding that result demonstration, relative advantage, and compatibility influence a faculty’s level of engagement in an online learning course, which in turn influences their intention to teach an OL course. We discuss how this research can be utilized in order to more effectively allocate scarce resources by focusing on the relative advantage of online learning, the measurability of online learning, and the way in which it can be compatible with instructors teaching preferences. We present this study to enable the beginning of a new stream of research into faculty engagement.