By Xiaojing Liu, et al.
This study explored the instructors’ perceptions regarding four dimensions of instructor roles using Berge’s [1] classifications: pedagogical, managerial, social, and technical. This study also examined the challenges and issues confronting online instructors when fulfilling these roles.
The findings reveal a stronger emphasis on the pedagogical roles (course designer,
profession-inspirer, feedback-giver, and interaction-facilitator). Emphasizing those roles, the instructors promote three types of interactions: student-content, student-student, and student-teacher. A lesser emphasis on social roles represented mixed feelings regarding its importance to the instructors.
In fact, Morine-Dershimer [2] found that instructor guidance nurtures a richer understanding of complex problems by enabling students to process a greater complexity of information.
In the traditional classroom, facilitation relies on both verbal and non-verbal cues to initiate understanding of ongoing communication and course tasks. Communication online, however, relies mainly on written language without para linguistic cues.
The culture of higher education is moving away from teacher-centered learning towards learner-directed learning, with instructors functioning as facilitators, coaches, consultants, or resource people who provide intellectual guidance for student learning
Berge’s instructor roles—pedagogical, managerial, social, and technical
A. Pedagogical Role
facilitating educational processes for students’ understanding of critical concepts, principles, and skills [1]. Such tasks include encouraging students’ knowledge-sharing and knowledge-building through interactive discussion, designing a variety of educational experiences, providing feedback, and referring to external resources or experts in the field.
B. Social Role
include developing harmony, group cohesiveness, and collective identity [1, 8, 9]. Online social roles require instructors to develop nurturing skills by encouraging participation, giving ample feedback and reward, attending to individual concerns, and using a friendly, personal tone [14].
C. Managerial Role
Managerial roles include the organizational, procedural, and administrative tasks associated with the
learning environment [1]. The tasks involve coordinating assignments, managing online discussion
forums, and handling overall course structure [8, 9]. Mason [20] advocates that online instructors take
strong leadership in shaping online interaction by setting clear agendas and objectives for online
conferences and establishing procedural rules and decision-making norms.
D. Technical Role
The technical role of online instructors can make participants comfortable with the system and software program used for online courses. Technical tasks include referring students to technical support resources, addressing technical concerns, diagnosing and clarifying problems encountered, and allowing students sufficient time to learn new programs.
In summary, it is worth mentioning that “not all of these roles need to be carried out in their entirety by the same person. In fact, it may be rare that they are” [1]. Different roles may be intricately related with each other because one issue can cut across two or more areas [1].
A. Instructors’ Perceptions on Four Dimensions of Their Roles
Due to the loss of real-time interaction and rich contextual cues that they had experienced in the traditional classroom, it was essential for instructors to provide much more elaborate information in their online courses.
While selection and design of course material were crucial, many instructors noted that it was equally
important to carefully structure and organize the course materials in a way that made students engage in learning through a variety of activities.
Many instructors also alluded to the iterative nature or “trial and error” of online course design by
continuously refining and improving the assignments, deliverables, or course materials in a way that was both challenging and manageable from the instructor’s perspective.
Faculty members in this online MBA program seemed to have identified strongly with their roles as
designer.
B. Profession-Inspirer
A number of instructors noted that they adjusted their assignments and discussions to connect to students’ work experience. They noted that online courses have the advantage to take learners back to their work contexts and apply the theories on the specific issues they confronted in a company.
C. Feedback-Giver
instructors unanimously agreed on the important role of giving feedback to online learners. They value the immediacy and quality of feedback as well as the sustainability of instructional feedback on students’ engagement was valued.
D. Interaction-Facilitator
Online discussion promoted a democratic environment as it created a common framework for students to share their learning experiences and professional growth. The instructors agreed that the students needed to take a central role in online discussion while instructors assumed a “facilitator” or “consultant” role to scaffold the discussion.
Although many agreed on the role of instructor, the range of facilitation showed a wide spectrum of
moderating strategies and frequencies of interactions. On the low end, approximately half of the instructors rarely moderated online discussions. On the high end, a few instructors participated extensively in online discourse through a variety of facilitating techniques including questioning, prompting responses, recognizing, requesting responses, and modeling social presence.
Managerial Role
a. Conference Manager
Many instructors noted that the negative effect of time lag in asynchronous discussion could easily cause dominance issues in discussions because early students can take control of the forum.
Another issue related to time lag was the reduced responsiveness of online students to peer’s comments which resulted in extensive redundant information.
Though much effort was made to promote interactive discussion, the results revealed that the instructors still had great difficulty in refining and “weaving” discussion so that conversations progressed from sharing answers to knowledge-negotiation and -construction
b. Organizer and Planner
One important aspect of organizing is to being clearer and more structured when giving directions online. Many instructors found that any ambiguity would result in misunderstanding in communication and thus reduce the efficiency of the learning process.
The instructors sensed that online
learners need to be provided with a clear structure and timeline to keep them engaged in learning in the midst of their busy work schedules.
Social Role: Rapport Builder
One of the greatest challenges for online learning, as many instructors noted, was the ability to build a more personal relationship between educator and student. The “impersonal nature” of the online
environment posed a great difficulty for building social rapport. These instructors were not yet convinced of the relevance and viability of the social role for student learning. Various technological limitations and concerns about time further detracted from community building efforts.
Technical Role
a. Technical Coordinator
Their technical role required instructors to refer students to technical support resources or communicate technical issues to support staff.
b. Media Designer/Developer
a few instructors who had developed video clips from scratch were unsure about whether the anticipated education benefit was worth the extra Exploring Four Dimensions of Online Instructor Roles: A Program Level Case Study development effort.
c. Technology Integrator
One of the most frequently mentioned issues related to the instructors’ frustration with the inefficiency of online chat room tools.
From the start, almost every instructor tried to use chat rooms for online discussions or virtual office hours. However, a majority of them finally discontinued using the rooms as a discussion tool because of concerns about technological limitations, typing skills, and the difficulty in scheduling a time for class to meet online.
Students’ Perceptions of Four Dimensions of Instructor Roles
- Pedagogical Role
About 90% of the students agreed that online learning activities fostered their understanding of key concepts. Nearly 85% of the students agreed that the instructors play a role of “facilitator” rather then a “lecturer.” More than 75% of the students replied that the way the instructors facilitated the class discussion fostered their learning. However, about 20% were not so sure about the effectiveness of the instructors’ facilitation in discussion forums.
- Social Role
The students were not engaged in a fully socially supportive online learning environment. While
approximately 60% of the students never felt lonely while taking the classes, about 25% did, in fact, feel isolated. In addition, 49% responded that they could not feel the emotions of other students in their online courses. Similarly, only 28% of students felt that they knew their instructors and other students well. These findings indicated that other factors, such as the one week in-residence required by the program to develop group cohesiveness, helped foster a sense of community in online courses in this program.
- Managerial Role
About 85% of online students agreed that online instructors provided clear instructions. Nearly 95% of the students agreed that the online courses were well organized. With the effort of online instructors in promoting equity in online participation, nearly nine in ten students felt comfortable participating in online discussion with others.
- Technical Role
Slightly more than 85% of the students agreed that the tools and technologies used in online courses were helpful for deep learning. However, it should be noted that about 11% of the students did not agree that technologies were effectively used in online courses.
The overall satisfaction of online learners with the quality of online courses in this program was
extremely high (M=4.27, SD=.72). About 90 percent of the students in this study felt they learned a lot from taking courses in this online MBA program (M=4.33, SD=0.76). In addition, approximately 86% students agreed that online courses had improved their skills at work (M=4.22, SD=0.73).
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