Teachers\u27 Roles in Online Learning: the Student Perspective

This study examines how 153 university students perceived the roles of their teachers in online learning environments. Results of statistical analyses conducted using a 27-item and 5-likert-scale questionnaire showed that the Cronbach’s Alpha value of the entire questionnaire was .955 and those of the three sub-roles were all above .891, indicating that both the questionnaire and the three factors of sub-roles were reliable and valid. Further analyses revealed that the three sub-roles of teachers (i.e. cognitive, affective and managerial) were significantly different from each other: managerial was significantly higher than cognitive, while affective was the lowest. Results of descriptive statistics also revealed that keeping a record of students’ learning was quite notable for students. The findings suggest that the roles of teachers in online learning as a whole were reduced. However, the managerial role was more notable than the cognitive role, while teachers obviously had exerted the least influence on affective aspects in online learning contexts. The present study holds that these findings may offer some insight into classroom activity and make a basis for future studies of comparing teacher roles across different educational contexts