Abstract

This study examined faculty characteristics and behaviors in 46 MBA courses conducted over a two-year period. We found that both formal instructor activities, referred to in the online learning literature as teaching presence, and informal instructor activities, known as immediacy behaviors, were positive predictors of student perceived learning and satisfaction with the educational delivery medium. We also found that instructor login intensity, the average amount of time spent per login session, was a negative predictor of perceived learning. Collectively, these findings suggest the need for instructors to structure and organize their courses beforehand so they can focus on efficient engagement with their students while the class is in session. Although teaching presence and instructor immediacy were significant predictors of delivery medium satisfaction, they explained only 6% of the variance. This finding should help instructors avoid taking unnecessary responsibility for students’ attitudes toward online learning. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for training of online instructors and the appropriate use of multilevel analytical tools in online learning and education research.

Citation

Arbaugh, J.B. (2010). Sage, guide, both, or even more? An examination of instructor activity in online MBA courses. Computers & Education, 55(3), 1234-1244. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved April 19, 2021 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/66868/.

Keywords

• adult learning
• Business Administration Education
• College Faculty
• College Instruction
• Correlation
• Distributed learning environments
• Educational Strategies
• electronic learning
• faculty development
• Foreign Countries
• Graduate students
• Instructional Effectiveness
• internet
• online courses
• pedagogical issues
• Predictor Variables
• student attitudes
• Teacher Behavior
• Teacher Characteristics
• Teacher Role
• Teaching/Learning Strategies
• Virtual Classrooms
• Web Based Instruction