Impact of Instructor Qualities in Higher Education Online Courses

摘要

As both universities and students demonstrate an increasing interest in offering and taking online courses, a better understanding of the causes of student outcomes, such as student achievement has become increasingly important. Exploring the causes of varying rates of student success in online courses of higher education is an ongoing challenge given the distance between both instructors and students. Prior research has primarily focused on three categories of potential causes, those at the student, program/course, and environmental levels (Hart, 2012, Lee & Choi, 2011). This study investigated an additional variable, the role of the teacher, which has been hidden within and in many instances even left out of previous studies (Hart, 2012, Lee & Choi, 2011).;In this study, student data from 63,320 students were used to investigate these variables. Students took an online course with one of 166 participating instructors or were in a like face-to-face class spanning 5-semesters from the fall of 2014--spring 2016. A multivariate linear regression indicated that the instructor qualities of years of experience, level of education and practical experience predicted 5.6% of student achievement, while an instructor's level of training predicted 2.1% of student achievement in online courses of higher education. This is not unsurprising giving the complex nature of online courses and the number of variables already identified as impacting student success in such formats (e.g. previous student performance, motivation, computer competence, level of peer/instructor interaction, work commitments). Although the amount at which these teacher qualities make up the overall formula for student success is small, this study has added to our understanding of additional factors impacting student success in higher education online courses.