Differences in Nursing Faculty Satisfaction Teaching Online: A Comparative Descriptive Study.

BACKGROUND: Many students today desire an education that can be completed without attending traditional classroom settings. Nursing administrators are responding by increasing the number of online course offerings, which has resulted in more nursing faculty asked to transition coursework from traditional to online classes, often without support.

METHOD: The sample for this quantitative, descriptive, comparative study included nursing faculty from 15 randomly selected states who participated in an online survey, producing 185 completed surveys for analysis.

RESULTS: Satisfaction was significantly higher in nursing faculty who taught 20 or more courses online, compared with those who taught five or fewer. Satisfaction was significantly higher for faculty who received mentoring, release time, technical support for software, hardware, the Learning Management System (LMS), and training for the LMS, compared with faculty who did not.

CONCLUSION: Results offer valuable evidence that support services are important to increase overall faculty satisfaction teaching online. [J Nurs Educ. 2018;57(9):536-543.].