The relationship between teaching presence and online instructor satisfaction in an online teacher training program

As the number and frequency of online programs being offered in higher education continue to increase, so too does the amount of research dedicated to examining and exploring their impact on learners and learner outcomes. Yet in the literature there is less research dedicated to examining instructor outcomes in online programs, especially with regard to the feelings and perceptions of satisfaction instructors derive from their online teaching. This thesis reports the results of a case study that examined a cohort of instructors engaged in synchronous, online videoconference instruction in a graduate teacher training program at a mid-sized private university in Seoul, South Korea. Using a mixed methods approach, instructor responses gathered from interviews, the Online Instructor Satisfaction Measure, and observation of videoconference lessons were triangulated to establish whether or not a relationship might exist between teaching presence and instructor satisfaction with the aim of describing that relationship. Overall, the findings presented in this thesis represent an exploration into the impact of instructor satisfaction on teacher actions in online videoconference contexts. In addition to finding that satisfied instructors show more teaching presence indicators than instructors who are not satisfied, two related issues emerged from the case study that have implications for future research. First, the overall context of the teaching program must be taken into account when describing online teaching and learning. Second, existing indicators of teaching presence based on text-based instances of online teaching may need to be revised to take into account the increased volume of synchronous, videoconference lessons that are quickly becoming mainstream in online teaching and learning.