What is interesting is virtual learning seems to go against the very nature of teachers and teaching. For example, many teachers are in the profession to change the lives of students, to have an impact, for interaction, to motivate and aspire students. Some teachers find that these are all diminished and even sometimes eliminated in the virtual environment. Given the expansion of K-12 virtual education across the United States, there is scarce evidence on virtual teachers’ and their acclimation to this setting. Therefore, the purposes of this study were twofold: i) identify and modify a scale for use in the virtual setting; and ii), analyze the data collected from virtual teachers to describe and explore their sense of self-efficacy. This exploratory study found that a group of virtual teachers had a moderately high sense of self-efficacy. T-tests revealed significant differences between teachers’ sense of self-efficacy scores and grade-level taught, content delivery, and prior participation in a virtual course. Multiple regression was used to show that virtual teaching experience (years), course content, and grade-level taught explained some of the variations in teachers’ sense of self-efficacy composite scores. Furthermore, teachers’ that incorporate synchronous and asynchronous lessons have a higher sense of self-efficacy than those that do not. In addition to providing evidence that supports the scale design and use, an unexpected finding emerged from this cross-sectional study: Teachers’ age had strong positive correlation with overall teaching experience but there was no correlation between age and years of virtual teaching experience. On average, research suggests that teaching experience, gained over a career, is positively associated with student achievement. Therefore, it seems plausible that the quality of virtual courses could vary widely due to variations in virtual teachers’ experience. With a better understanding of scale utilization, a profile of virtual teachers’ perceptions and points for future research, researchers and practitioners can enhance instructional practices. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. / Spring Semester 2019. / April 12, 2019. / Teacher Engagement, Teacher self-efficacy, Virtual education / Includes bibliographical references. / Toby Park, Professor Directing Dissertation; Vanessa Dennen, University Representative; Marytza Gawlik, Committee Member; Carolyn Herrington, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_710045 |
| Contributors | Walker, Reddick Russell (author), Park, Toby J. (Professor Directing Dissertation), Dennen, Vanessa P. (University Representative), Gawlik, Marytza A. (Committee Member), Herrington, Carolyn D. (Committee Member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Education (degree granting college), Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (126 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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