Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore why community college mathematics instructors who currently only teach face-to-face [F2F] courses do not teach distance education courses and to identify strategies to encourage instructors to teach online.Conceptual Framework. The foundation of this study is expectancy-value theory. Expectancy-value models show 3 components that influence motivation: having an expectancy of being successful in a task, having a value for engaging in the task, and having costs associated with the task (Barron & Hulleman, 2015). The expectancy-value theory is a motivation theory, which suggests that a person's expectancy for success, combined with his or her valuing of an activity, explains his or her choice to do the activity (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002).Methodology. A qualitative study was used to explore the reasons why community college mathematics instructors do not teach distance education courses. The study was not bound by site or district and investigated a current phenomenon in depth and within a real-world context (Yin, 2014). Purposeful sampling was used to recruit community college mathematics instructors in Los Angeles County. The sampling criteria were (a) the participant was a current community college mathematics instructor, (b) the instructor had not taught distance education math courses (including both hybrid and online courses) in the past 5 years, and (c) the instructor had taught mathematics for at least 2 years. Eight participants were interviewed as part of this study.Findings. The findings indicated that all eight instructors had both optimistic and adverse views of teaching distance education. Further analysis identified reasons that motivate and demotivate instructors to teach online through the lens of Barron and Hulleman's (2015) expectancy-value-cost framework. Views of distance education influenced instructor motivation to begin teaching online both positively and negatively. Themes reflected in the extant literature with themes that are both deeply rooted over time and emerging as more contemporary.Conclusions. The findings of this study were consistent with Barron and Hulleman's (2015) expectancy-value-cost framework. It was concluded that while there are several costs associated with teaching distance education, barriers could be alleviated for many instructors.