An Exploration of Faculty Transition to Online Teaching: The Impact of Identity Disruption and Participation in Communities of Practice on Faculty Satisfaction with Online Teaching

Online course enrollment at higher education institutions continues to increase at a rate greater than that of traditional classroom-based courses. These institutions expect faculty to be driven outside their typical comfort zone by adopting online teaching practices. Traditional classroom faculty experience a disruptive shift in their workplace norm moving from teacher-centered to learner-centered delivery methods. In turn this prompts reassessment of teaching identity. Collegial interactions inside communities of practice (CoP) (Lave & Wenger, 1991) offer a space for negotiating role ambiguity and re-establishing identity. This study explored the extent that faculty perceived an identity disruption when shifting their teaching practice online, the perception of benefit of participating in an online CoP with other like-minded colleagues, and the faculty perception of satisfaction with their overall online teaching experience. Quantitative and qualitative survey data were examined through the lens of three theoretical frameworks: social-identity, CoP, and identity disruption, a theoretical lens rarely used in this field. Data were obtained from online faculty participating in CoPs on social media sites. The use of CoP as a predictor of faculty satisfaction arose as a unique aspect of this study as did the lack of previous quantitative data on online faculty identity disruption. Results revealed a majority of participants reporting some level of identity disruption. Additionally, CoP participation was found to be a statistically significant factor for predicting faculty satisfaction with teaching online. Faculty desired meaningful collegial communication in addition to student-to-instructor and student-to-student interaction. Implications from this study suggest that higher education institutions need to provide faculty professional development including CoPs to promote online faculty satisfaction.