An Exploration of Faculty Perspectives of Online Teaching in a Sample of Collaborative Baccalaureate Nursing Programs in Ontario Colleges

This thesis examined online teaching in the Ontario college sector in prelicensure collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs with the purpose of exploring and understanding best practice implementation and the nature and appropriateness of curriculum content for online delivery in nursing programs, as perceived by the faculty who have taught or are teaching courses online. The overarching question for this study was: What are the perceptions of participating faculty regarding the nature, challenges and strengths of teaching online course content in prelicensure collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs, and what are the implications for online course delivery? I used an exploratory-descriptive design and constructivist lens and pragmatic worldview with a mixed-methods data collection methodology to answer the research questions. The theoretical framework was rooted in constructivism as a teaching approach. My study included a representative sample of 13 English language Colleges in Ontario that offer prelicensure collaborative baccalaureate nursing programs. Participants were full-time and part-time nursing faculty and program coordinators in these programs. Data were collected through document analysis, an online questionnaire survey completed by 32 faculty (53.3%), and interviews with 16 nursing faculty. Based on the findings, I concluded that online education is useful in these nursing programs when the content and the semesters/years are appropriate, and necessary supports are in place. Content containing complex cognitive concepts was perceived as better suited to face-to-face settings, as was experiential learning such as relational practice and psychomotor skill mastery. A hybrid delivery format was the most preferred teaching environment. Faculty experienced challenges with developing higher level online discussions and having students collaborate. Faculty perceived that online teaching took much more time and there was a need for acknowledgement by leadership of this time in workload assignments. Though the colleges in this study are representative of the Ontario CAATs, the findings are not broadly generalizable. However, they will be of interest to other academic programs that wish to assess their own use of online learning, particularly in people and practice-based professional programs that prepare practitioners who work with vulnerable populations.Ph.D