cartoon from Edudemic.com

In the October issue of eCampus News there’s a very nice summary of a study conducted by Dr. Kristen Betts of Drexel University on the faculty of Armstrong Atlantic State University. This study built upon a 1997 study conducted at George Washington University, updating the original GWU survey instruments in order to capture usefully comparable data, while also taking into account the changes in digital education in the intervening years. A recommendation-oriented article was also created from the study’s findings.

What’s particularly interesting to InTRO about this study is that Armstrong reconfigured its instructional technology support structure as this study was in development. In other words, it was responsive–initial findings were used to guide concrete institutional change. And not only change, but growth–Armstrong’s edtech infrastructure grew as the study’s findings came in.

Here are some key takeaways from the study! Faculty do remain hesitant over online learning, even if they’ve previously taught online. But the source of that hesitancy changes based on experience. Faculty with previous involvement in distance ed were concerned with faculty-oriented items such as workload, tech support, and infrastructure. Faculty new to distance learning were concerned with a number of these things, but they were also concerned with the quality of the students in online courses. This would suggest that at Armstrong, seeing is believing–actually teaching online eliminates the worry over student quality.

In order to address faculty hesitancy at an institutional level, however, Armstrong not only conducted a faculty technology audit and developed an institutional hardware replacement procedure, but brought varied campus service providers together to collaborate, streamlining faculty participation in online education. While the UO’s mission is more explicitly research-intensive than Armstrong’s, there are a lot of lessons to be learned here from the results!