Strategies to improve job satisfaction of faculties who teach online

By Priya Chetty on April 22, 2012

It is well known that level of job satisfaction of faculties teaching online is highly correlated with the quality of the education delivered online and performance of students learning online (Marion and Quaglia, 1991). Therefore it is important for faculties to be highly satisfied and happy about imparting education online. However, keeping the faculties satisfied and happy relies purely upon the educational institutions to which they are tied up. The methods by which educational institutions can motivate job satisfaction levels are three fold. They are offering rewards and incentives, providing technical support and enabling collaboration through communities (Bettencourt and Brown, 1997). Educational institution on adapting strategies to address issues mentioned in the above three areas can improve the level of job satisfaction of faculties working with them and teaching online and make their work more enjoyable, interesting and productive:

Rewards and incentives for job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is always associated with rewards and recognition (Distefano, Rudestam and Silverman, 2004). In any organizations, the level of satisfaction of employees increase with an increase in the payment made to them (Terpstra and Honoree, 2004). Therefore universities must recognize the faculties who offer best results by imparting education online. This will improve their performance as well as motivate the other faculties to involve themselves in online teaching.

Technical support for job satisfaction

Online teaching involves application of too much of information technology (Hadegorn, 2000).  Too much of technical issues will lead the faculties to lose interest in their work.  In order to facilitate faculties to teach students online without any interruption, the university must offer 24X7 technical supports. There must be a dedicated IT support team that immediately resolves technical issues in teaching.   This will ultimately improve the satisfaction level of faculties.

Collaboration

Vesely, Bloom and Sherlock (2007) have identified the level of satisfaction of faculties could be improved by setting up online communities exclusively for faculties. This will help them interact with their peers, share their views as well as gain knowledge from others.  These communities will help faculties to work in groups rather than working isolated. This will obviously increase the interest levels of faculties to teach online, improve job satisfaction and make them produce better results.

References

  • Marion, S., & Quaglia, R. (1991). The relationship of teacher satisfaction to perceptions of school organization, teacher empowerment, work conditions, and community status. Education, 112(2), 206-216.
  • Distefano A, Rudestam K E and Silverman R J (2004), Encyclopedia of distributed learning, SAGE, London.
  • Hagedorn, L. S. (2000). Conceptualizing faculty job satisfaction: Components, theories, and outcomes. New Directions for Institutional Research, 27(1), 5-20.
  • Bettencourt, L. A., & Brown, S. W. (1997). Contract employees: Relationships among workplace fairness, job satisfaction and prosocial service behaviors. Journal of Retailing, 73(1), 39-61.
  • Terpstra, D. E., & Honoree, A. (2004). Job satisfaction and pay satisfaction levels of university faculty by discipline type and by geographic region. Education, 124(3), 528-540.
  • Vesely, P., Bloom, L., & Sherlock, J., (2007). Key elements of building online community: Comparing faculty and student perceptions. Merlot Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 3(3). Retrieved on March 15, 2012 from: http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no3/vesely.htm.

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