Instructional Design Skills and Competencies Dissertation

Instructional Design Skills and Competencies - Dissertation Example This includes internal training courses, formal and informal mentoring, certification programs, and externally run training courses. Unfortunately, this is not the case for all faculty. Although these numbers have increased nationwide, when analyzing data from individual schools, there are many faculty who do not receive this training. The specific topic for this research is the skills that are needed for faculty who are involved in online course development, and the training that is needed to assist in this development. 1.4 Research Problem Write a brief statement that fully describes the problem being addressed. Present this in one sentence or no more than one clear concise paragraph. Through the past decade, the number of higher education institutions that offer online courses has increased, and there has been an increase of enrollment in these courses (Allen and Seaman, 2011). In specific colleges and universities, faculty members are faced with developing these courses without f ormal training in many cases. This lack of knowledge indicates a need for increased knowledge and skill building for all teachers developing and teaching online course. According to Allen and Seaman (2011), 65% of institutions surveyed indicated that online course delivery is critical to an institution’s long-term plans. Also, there has been an increase in acceptance of online courses (Carliner & Driscoll, 2009). Faculty is often responsible for creation, development, and management of online classes (Carliner & Driscoll, 2009), without formal training. Devries (2007) states that there is an assumption that ready-made software automates part of course development processes, leaving only the contributions of subject matter experts (SMEs), who are the faculty-designers. This usually is not true in practice. Although the software may use templates and other tools, faculty may lack understanding of how to use them (De Vries, 2007). Faculty-designers are often met with the tasks o f developing and managing course content, facilitating and recording student activity, providing consultation sessions for students with questions and concerns and developing meaningful learning activities (Ally, 2008). The need for faculty training in these areas is well documented (Ally, 2008; De Vries, 2007) and an effective training program to enhance the skills needed must be found. 1.5 Research Purpose Write a brief statement that fully describes the intent of the study or the reason for conducting the study. Present this in one sentence or no more than one clear concise paragraph. The purpose of this study is to understand the needs of faculty designers who teach and design online courses. The findings from this study will provide insight into instructional design skills currently used by faculty-designers of online higher education courses. It will also provide information about skills required to develop and manage online courses from the faculty-designer perspective. The f uture purpose of this research is to design a training program for a higher education institution where faculty need training. 1.6 Research Question(s) (What do you really want to know? The rest of this form derives from and should constantly be