| Online education has become a major component of higher education. With the rapid growth of online learning, stakeholders are concerned that higher education institutions might have increased access but lowered quality. Facing scrutiny and accountability demands, online education programs are often called to demonstrate quality. The challenge facing online education is how to widen access and reduce costs, while at the same time improving and ensuring quality.;In order to ensure quality, many organizations in the United States have developed standards and guidelines that detail the essential criteria for online programs to plan, evaluate, and improve quality. However, defining and implementing quality standards are complex issues. There are questions about the completeness of these quality standards. There are also unknowns of how much these quality standards, as developed by U.S. organizations, can be applied in educational settings other than the U.S.;This study explored how U.S. quality indicators for online education are perceived by Chinese faculty. Nine sources from the U.S. literature were identified to represent U.S. online education quality standards. Thirty-one quality indicators were assembled, and a survey was administered to 400 Chinese online faculty and their teaching assistants at a Chinese institution.;The results indicate that U.S. quality indicators for online education are perceived by Chinese faculty as relevant, with high ratings on the perceived importance of these indicators. Most respondents feel that this set of quality indicators reflects their criteria of quality; and that China should adopt them. The study also reveals, from the open-ended questions responses, that U.S. quality standards are not fully capturing the essence of quality for online education. Quality indicators, as reflected in the U.S. quality standards, focus more on the elements and conditions that are considered as inputs, but not enough on the outcomes. This suggests that even if the Chinese institutions replicate these indicators, the quality assurance process is not necessarily going to address the concerns that come out of the open-ended questions responses.;Because of the shortcomings and the incompleteness of these U.S. quality indicators, Chinese higher education institutions should be cautious in borrowing them. In order to successfully apply these U.S. indicators in China, Chinese scholars and institutions should expand and modify these U.S. quality indicators to suit the Chinese educational environment. This dissertation further discusses what expansion and modifications are needed, and how China may go about such modification. The dissertation concludes with the study's implications for quality assurance practices in China and for future studies of the quality of online education. |
