Factors that motivate or inhibit faculty participation in distance education: An exploratory study.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine factors that influence faculty participation or nonparticipation in distance education at an urban public university in the southwestern United States.; The study surveyed 1400 faculty to identify factors that motivate or inhibit faculty participation in distance education. The researcher used principal component analysis (PCA) to determine which factors could influence participation or nonparticipation. PCA reduced 217 responses on the 53 survey items to 9 factors that accounted for 70% of the total PCA variance. Of the nine, five factors contained three or more items and six factors had Cronbach alphas of .78 or greater: Traditional staff service, monetary rewards, insufficient rewards, technical and administrative rewards, job advancement requirements, and relatively strong alphas for professional quality, and professional prestige. The first factor, with twelve intrinsic motivators and three extrinsic motivators, accounted for 19% of the variance; the second factor with all fourteen items extrinsic motivators, accounted for 15% of the variance; and the third factor, with seven extrinsic inhibitors and one intrinsic inhibitor, accounted for 12% of the variance. University faculty perceived the strongest forces that would influence their participation were intrinsic (19% of variance) and extrinsic motivators (35%), not inhibitors (15%).