Internet Learning Volume 4, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 59

Internet Learning
Target Population and Sample
The target population for the study
was comprised of 7,000 faculty members
employed by a major university system
based in the southern portion of the United
States. Of the 7,000 targeted population
of faculty, 1,057 (15.1%) of system faculty
completed the online survey, and of those
who completed the survey 939 (88.8%) of
the responses were complete and usable.
The researchers of this study, however
report the results pertaining to the openended
responses which sought answers
to the three research questions. Only
396 of the faculty respondents provided
answers to the open-ended questions
regarding their perceptions of the benefits
of MOOCs, challenges facing MOOCs and
why there were low completion rates in
MOOCs. Overall, the researchers analyzed
396 faculty responses using the Atlas Ti
qualitative program. The sample included
46% females and 54% males. Eighty-two
percent of the respondents identified
themselves as Caucasian, 8% Hispanic, 2%
African American, 1% Asian, 1% American
Indian, and 6% who identified as “other”.
Sixty-seven percent of the sample indicated
they were tenured or tenure track faculty,
while 33% said they were non-tenure track.
Open-ended coding was conducted
to determine what key concepts faculty
provided in their responses to describe
the benefits and drawbacks of MOOCs,
challenges of MOOCs and reasons for the
low completion rates in MOOCs courses.
Axial codes were developed to group
primary codes into broader concepts which
enabled the researchers to create themes
based on the axial codes.
Instrumentation
The electronic survey was comprised
of several validated instrument items which
have been used to measure perceptions
regarding MOOCs. The researchers of this
study obtained permission from the Babson
Survey Research Group, a renowned
research team in the area of online learning,
to use some of the questionnaire items from
what was originally known as the Sloan
Online Survey, through a partnership with
the Sloan Consortium and Pearson. The
other items of the instrument were adapted
from Anderson and Kanuka’s (1997) work
and were modified to meet the needs of
this study. In addition, items were obtained
from Ke’s (2011) study. Only the results for
the open-ended section of the instrument
are reported in this study.
Data Collection Procedures
Prior to data collection and to
protect human subjects in the study, the
approval to conduct this study was obtained
from the Institutional Review Boards
(IRBs) of the three institutions where the
researchers are employed. Once the IRB
permissions were granted, the researchers
worked with a main contact person in the
university system of over ten institutions to
coordinate the data collection process. Data
delimiters were identified by the researchers
to ensure confidentiality of data. From a list
provided by the university contact, survey
invitations were distributed via e-mail. In
the invitation, a unique link was provided
and directed the participants to the study.
The electronic survey was created in such a
way that participants could only complete
the survey one time.
Data Analysis
To analyze the qualitative data
collected through open-ended questions
from the 396 faculty members who
provided rich and detailed explanations
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