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Dr. Wingo is Assistant Professor, The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing, Dr. Peters is Associate Professor, and Dr. Gurley is Assistant Professor, The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Education, and Dr. Ivankova is Associate Professor, The University of Alabama at Birmingham Schools of Health Professions and Nursing, Birmingham, Alabama.
The authors have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
Nursing schools in the United States are increasingly offering courses that include online learning environments to allow more students access to education ( American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2014 ). Schools that include online education as a major part of their strategic plan need faculty who can successfully deliver high-quality online courses. Yet many schools of nursing in the United States are experiencing a faculty shortage due to various factors including low faculty salaries, workload, and the retirement of aging instructors ( AACN, 2014 ; Chan, Tam, Lung, Wong, & Chau, 2012 ; Roehrs, 2011 ). In fact, in 2014, nursing schools were forced to reject the applications of more than 68,000 students because of a lack of faculty and other resources ( AACN, 2015 ). Clearly, nursing schools might not be able to continue to produce enough successful graduates to enter the health care workforce unless they address the faculty shortage problem.
One way to approach the nursing faculty shortage problem is to address issues that could affect faculty attrition rates. However, school leaders might not always understand the various challenges nursing faculty face, especially in online teaching environments. Nursing schools offering online courses can benefit from learning more about faculty's experiences teaching online so they can address significant challenges and reinforce positive aspects of the teaching experience. This insight may also help to improve institutional infrastructures for faculty support, with administrators and instructional designers who understand how teaching online impacts instructors.
Delving into the perspectives of administrators and instructional designers who play key roles in ensuring the success of nursing faculty can provide a fuller picture of faculty's experiences as online instructors. Administrators not only hire faculty to teach online, but they are often responsible for policies and procedures that determine the level of training and support offered to instructors or the selection of learning...