Engagement, Satisfaction and Time Management Skill of Online Instructors (Jennifer Seaton, Gordon McCalla, Richard Schwier)

1. Engagement, Satisfaction, and Time
Managements Skills of Online Instructors
J. X Seaton; R. A. Schwier; & G. McCalla
University of Saskatchewan

2. Research Story
• Completed Master’s of Arts Online
• Less than satisfactory experience
• Experience not congruent with the research
• WHY??

3. Case Study
• 12 online instructors at the University of
Saskatchewan followed over a year
• A lot of variation between instructors
• In demographics
• In style of online teaching
• Generally the online course was thrust upon
them

4. What did I learn?
• My experiences mirrored those of my
participants.
• When online education goes well it is
awesome
• When it doesn’t go well everyone dreads it
• Seemed to be related to research
• And linked to time management

5. Questions
• Are we expecting too much from online
instructors?
• If student engagement predicts the student
satisfaction in the course, can instructor
engagement predict instructor satisfaction?
• Follow up: Will student presence increase instructor
engagement?
• Can time management techniques help
instructors manage the stress of online
courses?

6. Quantitative Study: Design
• Survey Instruments
• Engagement – Schaufeli (2001)
• Schaufeli’s Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES)
• Opposite of burnout
• Assesses: Vigor, Dedication, and Absorbtion
• Satisfaction - Bolliger and Wasilik’s (2008)
• Online Faculty Satisfaction Survey (OFSS)
• Assesses: Student, Instructor, and Institution Satisfaction
• Time Management - Hoff Macan (1994)
• Hoff Macan’s Time Management Behaviours Scale
• Assesses Setting Goals and Priorities, Scheduling & Planning,
and Preference for Organization

7. Preliminary Results
• Collected results from 28 University of
Regina Online Instructors from a variety of
departments
• Good to understand local trends at the
university
• Purpose of the data to show what you can
learn from a similar study
• More data from other institutions can allow
meta-analysis

8. Schaufeli’s Utrecht Work
Engagement Scale (UWES)
• Vigor
• Avg. 3.52 (SD = 0.88)
• Absorption
• Avg. 3.60 (SD = 0.72)
• Dedication
• Avg. 4.64 (SD = 0.56)
Feelings of
Flow
Pride

9. Online Faculty Satisfaction Survey
(OFSS)
• Student Subscale
• avg. 3.71 (sd = 0.59)
• Instructor Subscale
• avg. 3.52 (sd = 0.49)
• Institution Subscale
• avg. 2.99 (sd = 0.68)

10. Institution Subscale Questions
Question Avg. SD
I have a higher workload when teaching an online course as
compared to the traditional one
4.04 0.96
It takes me longer to prepare for an online course on a weekly
basis than for a face-to-face course
3.46 1.37
I receive fair compensation for online teaching 4.07 1.25
I am concerned about receiving lower course evaluations in the
2.61 1.45
online course as compared to the traditional one

11. Hoff Macan’s Time Management
Behaviours Scale
• Goal Setting
• Avg. 4.29 (SD = 0.62)
• Mechanics
• Avg. 3.91 (SD = 0.68)

12. Analysis by Department
Faculty Dedication Score Mechanics Score
Arts 4.25 4.04
Business 4.68 3.82
Continuing Education 4.83 4.68
Fine Arts 4.67 3.81
Kinesiology 3.67 4.5
Nursing 3.46 3.66
Science 4.44 4.24
Social Work 4.33 2.88

13. Analysis by Technological Confidence
Technological Confidence Dedication Score
Early Adopter 4.75
Comfortable 3.88
Adequate 4.33
Early Adopter
Very comfortable with technology and enjoys technology. Early adopters enjoy
incorporating new technologies into their lives and try to stay up to date with the latest
developments.
Comfortable
Comfortable with technology but do not go out of their way to be up to date with the
latest technology. People in this category are comfortable with technology and tend to see
technical problems as fun puzzles to solve.
Adequate
Know just enough about technology to do their job. People in this category can use
technology to complete the tasks that they need to, but rely on tech support to handle
technical problems that they come across.
Unfamiliar
Intimidated by technology. People in this category not only rely on tech support to help
them with technical issues, but they also tend to rely on co-workers/friends to help them
with daily use of technology.

14. Analysis by Employment Level
Employment Outside the University Satisfaction - Student
Subscale
General
Engagement
None 3.73 3.59
Occasional Part-time 3.59 3.98
Part-time 3.18 3.69
Full-time 4.51 4.67
Any Employment Dedication Score
None 4.01
Some 4.58

15. Question that Surface
• Does the University Support best practices
for online education?

16. Correlations Among Tests
Student SS Instructor SS Satisfaction Vigor Absorption Dedication
Instructor SS 0.635
Satisfaction 0.939 0.804
Vigor
0.789
0.0000006
0.647
0.0002
0.790
0.0000006
Absorption
0.486
0.009
0.363
0.058
0.441
0.02
0.685
Dedication
0.584
0.001
0.776
0.000001
0.680
0.00007
0.595 0.553
Engagement
0.730
0.00001
0.684
0.00006
0.747
0.000005
0.910 0.863 0.802
Institution SS

17. Concluding Thoughts
• There is a lot of research that suggests that
instructor presences is important for student
engagement.
• But what if instructor engagement is dependent
upon student presence?
• More information is needed. Similar studies are
useful for the institutions
• Meta-analysis would give us information about how
these factors relate to university characteristics

18. Thank you
Questions?
University of Regina talk available
upon request.