Characterization of approaches to online teaching in distance education courses

Teachers’ approaches to teaching have been proved to influence students’ learning outcomes in face-to-face teaching. It is necessary to extend the research to approaches to teaching in online environments, as few empirical studies have been conducted for this mode of study. This study aimed to characterize lecturers’ approaches to teaching in two distinct forms of online teaching in distance education courses and examine the influences upon the approaches to online teaching adopted. Data were collected from interviews with fourteen lecturers in a Vietnamese regional university and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. The study revealed a framework for approaches to online teaching with one motivation and seven strategy components. System-level design issues were found to impact upon approaches to online teaching, so components of synchronous/asynchronous teaching and craft/industrialized system were added to the framework.