Online education and the need for professional development training for online faculty at community colleges

With the growing number of courses and degrees being awarded online, there was considerable interest in online education among institutions of higher education. Due to the paucity of research on the needs of online community college faculty, this dissertation provided an introduction to the issues community colleges faced in providing professional development training to faculty who taught online. The following three research questions were used to examine community college faculty’s perceptions about the professional development training they received to teach online courses: What are the pedagogical and technical challenges faculty members experience in developing online courses? What are the elements of support faculty perceive they need to teach online courses? What are community college faculty members’ expectations for being ready to teach online classes? It also includes a literature review on online education in U.S. post-secondary institutions, the role community colleges have played in online education, the attitudes that faculty have had towards online education, the changing roles online faculty would have to adapt to in order to navigate from the traditional classroom to online, and institutional support. This study took place at an urban community college located in Texas. A qualitative research method was used to interview eight full-time faculty with at least three years online teaching experience from the Government Department only. The theoretical framework for this study was based on Bandura’s self-efficacy theory. The data collected reflected the voices of online faculty and their professional development needs to effectively develop their courses. It also explored the challenges of faculty who teach online courses with an emphasis on the quality of training and support provided by colleges for faculty to develop and maintain their online courses. With the increased demand for online courses professional development need is urgent in order for colleges to meet the growing demand.Educational Leadership and Polic