{"id":{"repo_id":"alverno","oai_identifier":"oai:alverno.omeka.net:835"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/alverno/oai:alverno.omeka.net:835","repository":{"repo_id":"alverno","name":"Alverno College","base_url":"https://alverno.omeka.net/oai-pmh-repository/request"},"display":{"title":"A phenomenological study of faculty members’ definitions of online course rigor: Exploring how an online course quality assurance program shapes online course rigor","abstract":"Hamel, Brad This study aimed to describe higher education faculty members’ perspectives on the value of a quality assurance boot camp and how it shapes their definitions of rigor. This study also explored the relation between institutional support and rigor, specifically quality assurance initiatives. By exploring the impacts of additional online education quality assurance on faculty members’ definitions of rigor, this research may have implications for the future of online education and its effects on traditional face-to-face learning. The subjects of this phenomenological study were faculty members from a comprehensive Great Lakes regional four-year state higher education institution. Six participants were chosen via simple random sampling from a list of volunteers who had one or more years of online teaching experience and participated in at least one professional development training program to improve online education design and delivery at the institution. Interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions to explore the shared lived experiences of taking the quality assurance boot camp for online course development. Interview data were coded and analyzed in relation to the research question. Codes emerged through two rounds of coding the detailed and rich data obtained in the interview process. The second round of coding concluded with a final total of 12 codes. Analyzing the final codes and how they were interconnected, six unique themes emerged. The themes include: 1) faculty readiness for quality teaching, 2) faculty internal institutional support as a component of rigorous teaching, 3) alignment in online course design, 4) feedback to shape course rigor, 5) educational technology aiding quality courses, and 6) faculty workload affecting course quality and rigor. The data and themes resulted in four major findings. The key finding was that the boot camp experience reinforced participants’ definitions of rigor rather than directly shaping them. The second finding was that the more their definitions of rigor aligned with the literature, the more open they were to new techniques for improving rigor and modifying courses over time. The third finding was that participants felt that institutions need to provide support beyond boot camp training to achieve quality online courses. The final finding was that the boot camp, which focused on online teaching, had a positive impact on participants’ face-to-face teaching. One implication of this research is that boot camp training benefits faculty members by helping them develop better quality and more rigorous online courses. Institutions should support faculty members with robust mentoring and peer review processes throughout new course ideation, design, implementation, and modification. Lastly, course formats other than online may benefit from implementing quality assurance boot camps. However, faculty members are not always up to date on the new pedagogy or tools that are available to them, and that would enable them to improve the rigor and quality of their courses.","abstract_html":"Hamel, Brad This study aimed to describe higher education faculty members’ perspectives on the value of a quality assurance boot camp and how it shapes their definitions of rigor. This study also explored the relation between institutional support and rigor, specifically quality assurance initiatives. By exploring the impacts of additional online education quality assurance on faculty members’ definitions of rigor, this research may have implications for the future of online education and its effects on traditional face-to-face learning. The subjects of this phenomenological study were faculty members from a comprehensive Great Lakes regional four-year state higher education institution. Six participants were chosen via simple random sampling from a list of volunteers who had one or more years of online teaching experience and participated in at least one professional development training program to improve online education design and delivery at the institution. Interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions to explore the shared lived experiences of taking the quality assurance boot camp for online course development. Interview data were coded and analyzed in relation to the research question. Codes emerged through two rounds of coding the detailed and rich data obtained in the interview process. The second round of coding concluded with a final total of 12 codes. Analyzing the final codes and how they were interconnected, six unique themes emerged. The themes include: 1) faculty readiness for quality teaching, 2) faculty internal institutional support as a component of rigorous teaching, 3) alignment in online course design, 4) feedback to shape course rigor, 5) educational technology aiding quality courses, and 6) faculty workload affecting course quality and rigor. The data and themes resulted in four major findings. The key finding was that the boot camp experience reinforced participants’ definitions of rigor rather than directly shaping them. The second finding was that the more their definitions of rigor aligned with the literature, the more open they were to new techniques for improving rigor and modifying courses over time. The third finding was that participants felt that institutions need to provide support beyond boot camp training to achieve quality online courses. The final finding was that the boot camp, which focused on online teaching, had a positive impact on participants’ face-to-face teaching. One implication of this research is that boot camp training benefits faculty members by helping them develop better quality and more rigorous online courses. Institutions should support faculty members with robust mentoring and peer review processes throughout new course ideation, design, implementation, and modification. Lastly, course formats other than online may benefit from implementing quality assurance boot camps. However, faculty members are not always up to date on the new pedagogy or tools that are available to them, and that would enable them to improve the rigor and quality of their courses.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Hamel, Brad"],"institution":"Alverno College","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2023,"date_issued":"2023","date_published":"2023","updated_at":"2026-07-27T18:44:40Z","subjects":["Web-based instruction--Design","Distance education","Quality assurance","Education, Higher","Online education","Bootcamp","Rigor","Online course design"],"languages":["English"],"rights":["These materials may be used by individuals and libraries for personal use, research, teaching (including distribution to classes), or for any fair use as defined by U.S. Copyright Law."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://alverno.omeka.net/items/show/835","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Hamel, Brad"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2023"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Alverno College"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Web-based instruction--Design","Distance education","Quality assurance","Education, Higher","Online education","Bootcamp","Rigor","Online course design"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["English"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["These materials may be used by individuals and libraries for personal use, research, teaching (including distribution to classes), or for any fair use as defined by U.S. Copyright Law."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://alverno.omeka.net/items/show/835"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Hamel, Brad This study aimed to describe higher education faculty members’ perspectives on the value of a quality assurance boot camp and how it shapes their definitions of rigor. This study also explored the relation between institutional support and rigor, specifically quality assurance initiatives. By exploring the impacts of additional online education quality assurance on faculty members’ definitions of rigor, this research may have implications for the future of online education and its effects on traditional face-to-face learning. The subjects of this phenomenological study were faculty members from a comprehensive Great Lakes regional four-year state higher education institution. Six participants were chosen via simple random sampling from a list of volunteers who had one or more years of online teaching experience and participated in at least one professional development training program to improve online education design and delivery at the institution. Interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions to explore the shared lived experiences of taking the quality assurance boot camp for online course development. Interview data were coded and analyzed in relation to the research question. Codes emerged through two rounds of coding the detailed and rich data obtained in the interview process. The second round of coding concluded with a final total of 12 codes. Analyzing the final codes and how they were interconnected, six unique themes emerged. The themes include: 1) faculty readiness for quality teaching, 2) faculty internal institutional support as a component of rigorous teaching, 3) alignment in online course design, 4) feedback to shape course rigor, 5) educational technology aiding quality courses, and 6) faculty workload affecting course quality and rigor. The data and themes resulted in four major findings. The key finding was that the boot camp experience reinforced participants’ definitions of rigor rather than directly shaping them. The second finding was that the more their definitions of rigor aligned with the literature, the more open they were to new techniques for improving rigor and modifying courses over time. The third finding was that participants felt that institutions need to provide support beyond boot camp training to achieve quality online courses. The final finding was that the boot camp, which focused on online teaching, had a positive impact on participants’ face-to-face teaching. One implication of this research is that boot camp training benefits faculty members by helping them develop better quality and more rigorous online courses. Institutions should support faculty members with robust mentoring and peer review processes throughout new course ideation, design, implementation, and modification. Lastly, course formats other than online may benefit from implementing quality assurance boot camps. However, faculty members are not always up to date on the new pedagogy or tools that are available to them, and that would enable them to improve the rigor and quality of their courses."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["PDF"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["A phenomenological study of faculty members’ definitions of online course rigor: Exploring how an online course quality assurance program shapes online course rigor"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Hamel, Brad"],"dc:date":["2023"],"dc:description":["Hamel, Brad This study aimed to describe higher education faculty members’ perspectives on the value of a quality assurance boot camp and how it shapes their definitions of rigor. This study also explored the relation between institutional support and rigor, specifically quality assurance initiatives. By exploring the impacts of additional online education quality assurance on faculty members’ definitions of rigor, this research may have implications for the future of online education and its effects on traditional face-to-face learning. The subjects of this phenomenological study were faculty members from a comprehensive Great Lakes regional four-year state higher education institution. Six participants were chosen via simple random sampling from a list of volunteers who had one or more years of online teaching experience and participated in at least one professional development training program to improve online education design and delivery at the institution. Interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions to explore the shared lived experiences of taking the quality assurance boot camp for online course development. Interview data were coded and analyzed in relation to the research question. Codes emerged through two rounds of coding the detailed and rich data obtained in the interview process. The second round of coding concluded with a final total of 12 codes. Analyzing the final codes and how they were interconnected, six unique themes emerged. The themes include: 1) faculty readiness for quality teaching, 2) faculty internal institutional support as a component of rigorous teaching, 3) alignment in online course design, 4) feedback to shape course rigor, 5) educational technology aiding quality courses, and 6) faculty workload affecting course quality and rigor. The data and themes resulted in four major findings. The key finding was that the boot camp experience reinforced participants’ definitions of rigor rather than directly shaping them. The second finding was that the more their definitions of rigor aligned with the literature, the more open they were to new techniques for improving rigor and modifying courses over time. The third finding was that participants felt that institutions need to provide support beyond boot camp training to achieve quality online courses. The final finding was that the boot camp, which focused on online teaching, had a positive impact on participants’ face-to-face teaching. One implication of this research is that boot camp training benefits faculty members by helping them develop better quality and more rigorous online courses. Institutions should support faculty members with robust mentoring and peer review processes throughout new course ideation, design, implementation, and modification. Lastly, course formats other than online may benefit from implementing quality assurance boot camps. However, faculty members are not always up to date on the new pedagogy or tools that are available to them, and that would enable them to improve the rigor and quality of their courses."],"dc:format":["PDF"],"dc:identifier":["https://alverno.omeka.net/items/show/835"],"dc:language":["English"],"dc:publisher":["Alverno College"],"dc:rights":["These materials may be used by individuals and libraries for personal use, research, teaching (including distribution to classes), or for any fair use as defined by U.S. Copyright Law."],"dc:subject":["Web-based instruction--Design","Distance education","Quality assurance","Education, Higher","Online education","Bootcamp","Rigor","Online course design"],"dc:title":["A phenomenological study of faculty members’ definitions of online course rigor: Exploring how an online course quality assurance program shapes online course rigor"],"dc:type":["Text","Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T18:44:40Z"}