Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to investigate the conceptions and misconceptions of instructors pertaining to their roles and competencies in distance education. Case study research design was adopted within the study. The participants, nine instructors in a public university delivering the courses in fully distance programs, was selected by using typical case sampling strategy. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observations on distance courses. The collected data were analysed through constant comparison analysis. The qualitative analysis revealed instructors’ conceptions of roles, competencies, and misconceptions in distance education. Roles included planning and delivery. Planning sub-theme covered the roles of environmental / technical planning and instructional design. Delivery sub-theme covered the roles of lecturing, evaluation, guidance, motivation, and material development. Participants’ conceptions of competencies included ICT competency, communication skills, and subject expertise. Finally, the study findings identified the misconceptions of the instructors. The identified misconceptions were identified as use of the same materials with face-to-face education, sufficient materials, lack of role for interaction among students, ineffectiveness of distance education, having the same roles with face-to-face education, and impossibility of distance collaboration among students. The findings imply that the instructors’ conceptions of roles and competencies are based on their experience in both face-to-face and distance education and this base unsurprisingly caused misconceptions regarding teaching in distance education.

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