Publication Date

2019

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Mayall, Hayley J.

Degree Name

Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)

Legacy Department

Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment

LCSH

Educational technology

Abstract

Despite the benefits online education provides, some faculty still consider online teaching less effective than traditional teaching and are not convinced they want to be involved in distance education (Blin & Munro, 2008; Bolliger & Wasilik, 2009; Chen & Chen, 2006). In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the movement toward online education is slow and not promising due to several factors that may relate to faculty, learners, and institutions. The aim of this study was to investigate faculty members' intentions to teach online at the University of Hail in KSA based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Additionally, this study assessed the effect of demographic characteristics (age, gender, computer use, and years of experience) on attitude toward behavior, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control and whether these variables significantly moderate the relationship between faculty members' 1) attitude toward behavior, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and 2) their behavioral intention (BI) to teach online. This study employed a quantitative research methodology to address the research questions. The results of this study indicated that the combined TPB constructs (attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control) significantly predicted faculty members' intention to teach online and approximately 39.1% of the variance in the faculty's behavioral intention to teach online was explained by these three predictors. Specifically, the results indicated that attitude ([beta] = 0.44, p < .001) and subjective norm ([beta] = 0.38, p < .001) were statistically significant determinants of behavioral intention. However, perceived behavioral control was not found to be a significant predictor. Also, the findings showed that none of the demographic or professional characteristics (age, gender, computer use, and years of experience) significantly predicted attitude or subjective norm. Whereas, regarding the outcome of perceived behavioral control, the results revealed that it was only predicted by age and computer use. Regarding the moderating role of age, gender, computer use, and years of experience, the results indicated that years of experience was found to be a significant moderator of the relationship between attitudes and intention ([beta] = 0.35, p = 0.04) and the relationship between subjective norm and intention ([beta] = -0.64, p = 0.01) on the other. The analysis showed that the relationship between attitude and behavioral intention increased as years of experience increased, while the relationship between subjective norm and behavioral intention decreased as years of experience increased.

Comments

Committee members: Smith, Thomas; York, Cindy.||Advisor: Mayall, Hayley.||Includes bibliographical references.

Extent

133 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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