Written by: Shalyn Michelle Lapke and M. S. Lapke, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, USA
Abstract: The worldwide coronavirus pandemic that erupted in 2020 accelerated the already exponential growth of online course delivery (Twist, 2021; Martin, Budhrani, Kumar, & Ritzhaupt, 2019). Educational leaders struggled to cope with effectively guiding faculty through the crisis (Thornton, 2021). Though many studies have analyzed the nature of satisfaction for students in online learning settings, none have examined the satisfaction of the educator. This study aimed to fill the gap in the academic literature pertaining to job satisfaction for online instructors. A phenomenological study was undertaken to examine the job satisfaction of a group of online instructors at a private university in the United States. We found that participants experienced issues with barriers in communication, difficulties ensuring student success, a lack of student readiness and difficulty forming meaningful relationships with students online. Participants noted that they planned to continue teaching online indefinitely despite the overwhelming evidence of dissatisfaction. The single factor indicating job satisfaction - scheduling flexibility - was the primary reason participants overlooked the significant amount of dissatisfaction.
Keywords: online education, leadership, job satisfaction, effective teaching