Date of Graduation

12-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership (EdD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Curriculum and Instruction

Advisor/Mentor

Lasater, Kara A.

Committee Member

Pijanowski, John C.

Second Committee Member

Smith, Marcia S.

Keywords

Asynchronous Instruction; Distance education; Instructional design; Perceptions; Vignettes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore higher education faculty’s perceptions of factors that influence dynamic decision-making when choosing opportunities for student engagement in asynchronous online courses. More specifically, this study sought to understand how faculty in higher education perceived these factors to prevent and facilitate dynamic decision-making when designing instructor presence, student-to-student collaboration, and student-to-academic content engagement opportunities in asynchronous online courses, as Garrison et al. (1999) suggest, for a community of inquiry. There has not been much focus on the dynamic decision-making of online instructors in higher education and a call to continue exploring factors that influence dynamic decision-making processes has been made (Stefaniak et al., 2021). The overarching questions of this study were (1) What factors do higher education faculty perceive to influence dynamic decision-making when choosing opportunities for student engagement in asynchronous online courses, and (2) How do faculty in higher education perceive these factors to prevent and facilitate dynamic decision-making when choosing opportunities for student engagement in asynchronous online courses? This qualitative study explored faculty’s perceptions through digitally simulated scenarios in the form of vignettes and provides insight into how faculty in higher education perceive factors that influence dynamic decision-making when choosing opportunities for student engagement in asynchronous online courses. Through a reflexive thematic analysis, the findings suggest organizational norms and policies, and personal factors associated with asynchronous instructors are interconnected and influence dynamic decision-making.

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