Exploring Selected Online and Face-to-Face Course Inclusion of Faith Integration in a Business Administration Program

Students enrolled in face-to-face and online business administration courses at a Midwestern Christian college were provided faith-integrated opportunities; however, the challenge was to maintain consistency in providing the online courses with similar faith integration as the face-to-face courses. It was unknown whether the same faith-integrated opportunities were provided in face-to-face and online courses. Kohlberg\u27s cognitive moral development and Fowler\u27s spiritual development theories grounded this qualitative bounded case study. Research questions focused on whether instructors taught the same faith-integrated content in online and face-to-face classes, and whether online and face-to-face students received the same faith-integrated experiences. A purposeful sample was gathered of 3 freshman, 3 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 3 seniors who completed both faith-integrated online and face-to-face business administration courses; in addition, 4 instructors were recruited who taught faith integration in online and face-to-face business administration courses. Open-ended questionnaires were collected from students and observations were collected using online course shell interactions between students and instructors. All data were open coded and thematically analyzed using a visual model process. Instructors integrated faith more in the face-to-face courses than in the online courses. A white paper containing recommendations to integrate faith in all business administration classes included building collaborative faculty groups, student-focused rubrics, and faculty course-based rubrics. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change by providing faculty with the necessary tools to equitably provide faith integration in business administration online and face-to-face courses and to develop students\u27 ethical decision making through faith-integrated lessons