Ensuring Quality in Online Education Instruction: What Instructors Should Know?

Abstract

With a growing number of courses offered online and degrees offered through the Internet, there is a considerable interest in online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online learning instruction. The major concerns are centering on the following questions: What will be the new role for instructor in online education? How will students’ learning outcomes be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of face-to-face instruction? and How will instructors motivate students to learn in the online learning environment? This paper will examine new challenges and barriers for online instructors, highlight major themes prevalent in the literature related to “quality control or assurance” in online education, and provide strategies for instructors to design and deliver effective online instruction. Recommendations will be made on how to ensure quality in online instruction, and the role of administrators in ensuring quality online learning will also be described. With a growing number of courses offered online and degrees offered through the Internet, there is a considerable interest in concerns and problems associated with online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online education instruction (Allen & Seaman, 2003). According to Twigg (2001) many problems that arise from online education as it relates to quality include, but is not limited to: (a) the requirement of separate quality assurance standards, (b) programs having low (or no) quality standards, and (c) there being no consensus on what constitutes learning quality. Online education, according to Harasim (1989), is a new domain of learning that combines distance education with the practice of face-to-face instruction utilizing computer-mediated communication. Volery (2000) concluded that online delivery is a form of distributed learning enabled by the Internet. Ascough (2002) suggested that online education has the following features: (a) it provides a learning experience different than in the traditional classroom because learners are different, (b) the communication is via computer and World Wide Web, (c) participation in classroom by learners are different, (d) the social dynamic of the learning environment is changed, and (e) discrimination and prejudice is minimized. More recently, Allen and Seaman (2003) in conducting a survey on online education delivered by higher education institutions in the United States defined an online course as one that had at least 80 % of the course content delivered online. Regardless of the definition, an early indication of the widespread popularity of online education courses can be found in a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, which revealed that more than 54,000 online education courses were being offered in 1998, with over 1.6 million student’s enrolled (cited in Lewis, et al., 1999). In this study, Allen and Seaman (2003) reported that: (a) over 1.6 million students took at least one online course during the Fall of 2002, (b) over one-third of these students (578,000) took all of their courses online, (c) among all U.S. higher education students in Fall 2002, 11 percent took at least one online course, and (d) among those students at institutions where online courses were offered, 13 percent took at least one online course (p.1). Background of the problem Controversies as to the quality of online education have not diminished over the past decades. Many people are suspicious of online education because courses are often offered by divisions of extended studies or continuing education (Husmann & Miller, 2003) and are taught by adjunct faculty or instructors who have not earned doctoral degrees. Therefore, many individuals have concluded that online education programs are left outside of formal faculty structures that have traditionally had oversight for instructional course quality. Both proponents and opponents have been concerned about online education quality. Opponents view online education as inferior, see it as a substitute for the traditional “brick and mortar” university, and conclude it is rather a profit making venue. This type of delivery is often viewed by “administrators as a “cash cow”-a means of delivering instruction to a large number of paying customers without the expense of providing things such as temperature controlled classrooms and