This blog is about motivation and incentives
Colleges continue to offer growing numbers of courses and programs of study through distance education technologies. Yet despite this growth, relatively little is known about what inspires faculty to teach with a technology-mediated approach. The current study was designed as an exploration into the incentives that faculty perceive as motivating. The analysis of over one hundred articles lead to the conclusion that faculty generally teach in distance education programs for the same reasons (incentives) they teach traditional courses; for intrinsic rewards. The study identified self-satisfaction, flexible scheduling and wider audience as the intrinsic rewards and stipends, decreased workload, release time and new technology as the extrinsic motivators. A profile of the distance educator was developed to assist administration assigned the task of motivating faculty toward distance delivery.
At the millennium, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges estimated that one-third of all colleges and universities would be closing within ten years. Peter Drucker, a management theorist, recently predicted that higher education institutions as we know them today, will be relics in a matter of a few short years (Lenzer, 1997). The message was to change or die. The source of the change is digital technology and distance education. Whether faculty see distance education as a positive pedagogical venue or not, they tend to recognize the fiscal value of distance delivery in higher education.
In addition to the need for change, is the need to work within new budgetary constraints being set forth by legislatures across the nation. These budget cuts are threatening to derail many traditional programs in higher education, forcing colleges and universities to look to faculty for cost saving distance delivery alternatives. Distance delivery has proven to be a means of recouping lost revenue, but without willing faculty, the programs are destined for collapse. If distance education is not only to sustain itself but to grow in upcoming years, it is imperative for administrators to understand the motivation that entices faculty to transition to alternative delivery modes. A number of authors have taken on the task of investigating incentives which translate into the distance learning paradigm (Betts, 1998; Rockwell, Schauer, Fritz, & Marx, 1999; Willis, 1994; Wilson, 1998). The success of any future distance education program is hinged on enticing faculty to move their courses to distant formats.
The current study was undertaken for two reasons: first to establish a profile of today's distance educator and second to identify motivators that entice faculty to teach at a distance. Over one hundred articles were reviewed. The following is a synopsis of those articles.
While colleges around the globe offer growing numbers of courses through distance technologies, few studies have clearly delineated the motivators that propel faculty to teach at a distance. On-campus faculty excel in pedagogical activities due mainly to their desire for intrinsic rewards such as personal satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, and watching students succeed (Betts, 1998). The question then becomes, do faculty receive these same intrinsic rewards from distance teaching? And are the rewards sufficient to motivate additional faculty to move to alternative delivery methods?
Before academic leaders can began enticing faculty to transform their lectures to electronic format, it is important for administrators to have a general picture of their faculty. Statistics from the U.S. Department of Education illustrates that 52 percent are male and 38 percent are senior faculty. Not surprisingly, 54 percent are tenured and 82 percent are full-time faculty. The academic disciplines most often utilizing distance education are business, commerce, agriculture, and education. Although these facts offer a limited picture of the today's distant faculty, they give little assistance in determining the motivators that persuade faculty into the distance arena. The next step in this study was to identify both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators that might be used by administrators to augment their current programs.
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