Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Davis, James

Committee Member

Campbell, Charles

Committee Member

Mathews, Jerry

Committee Member

Wiseman, Marty

Date of Degree

5-2-2009

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Community College Leadership

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Educational Leadership

Abstract

This study was designed to examine administrators’ attitudes toward the significant factors for facilitating the implementation of online courses at select community colleges in Mississippi. The population for this study included all presidents, vice presidents, deans, business managers, directors of campus technology, and distance learning coordinators at the select community colleges in Mississippi. The total population was 79 administrators. For this study, 79 questionnaires were electronically distributed to the participants, 70 (89%) were returned. 1 (2%) was excluded due to incomplete answers. 69 questionnaires (87%) were analyzed and used for this study. The findings show that in terms of relationships between select variables (position, college, age, gender, ethnicity, and experience) and administrators’ attitudes toward implementing online courses three variables had a positive relationship with administrators’ attitudes (i.e., age, ethnicity, and experience). Also, 3 variables had a negative relationship with administrators’ attitudes (i.e., position, college, gender). Furthermore administrators rated their attitudes toward online courses as “strongly agree”. In terms of the most important factors that facilitate implementing online courses at the select community colleges in Mississippi, administrators rated their responses as “strongly agree.” Those factors were resources, infrastructure, willingness of administrators to implement online courses and faculty to participate in implementing online courses. In this study, administrators rated their responses on barriers that limit implementation of online courses as “agree.” Those barriers that limit implementing online courses are lack of technical support, lack of faculty participation and lack of student access to the resources. Finally, in accordance with the finding, this study offered several major recommendations to administrators and community colleges that should be considered before implementing and delivering online courses. Some of those recommendations related to knowledge and skills of using technology by administrators, establishing good infrastructures to offer excellent online courses, and qualifying and recruiting the human resources needed to administer online courses successfully

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/15043

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