Conceptions and Misconceptions of Instructors Pertaining to Their Roles and Competencies in Distance Education: A Qualitative Case Study
Abstract
The
purpose of this study is to investigate the conceptions and misconceptions of
instructors pertaining to their roles and competencies in distance education.
Case study research design was adopted within the study. The participants, nine
instructors in a public university delivering the courses in fully distance
programs, was selected by using typical case sampling strategy. The data were
collected through semi-structured interviews and observations on distance
courses. The collected data were analysed through constant comparison analysis.
The qualitative analysis revealed instructors’ conceptions of roles,
competencies, and misconceptions in distance education. Roles included planning
and delivery. Planning sub-theme covered the roles of environmental / technical
planning and instructional design. Delivery sub-theme covered the roles of
lecturing, evaluation, guidance, motivation, and material development.
Participants’ conceptions of competencies included ICT competency,
communication skills, and subject expertise. Finally, the study findings
identified the misconceptions of the instructors. The identified misconceptions
were identified as use of the same materials with face-to-face education,
sufficient materials, lack of role for interaction among students,
ineffectiveness of distance education, having the same roles with face-to-face
education, and impossibility of distance collaboration among students. The
findings imply that the instructors’ conceptions of roles and competencies are
based on their experience in both face-to-face and distance education and this
base unsurprisingly caused misconceptions regarding teaching in distance
education.
Keywords
Distance Education,Instructor Roles,Instructor Competencies,Conseption,Misconceptions
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