Teaching Presence in Online Courses: Similar Perceptions but Different Experiences from Multiple Instructor Perspectives

Online course instructors’ perceptions and perspectives regarding their teaching presence as a key presence in online learning environments significantly influence, if not determine, their online teaching practices, which in turn influence the quality of online students’ learning experiences. Although gaining deeper insights into online course instructors’ perceptions and experiences of teaching presence is quite important and valuable for online education, there is still limited qualitative inquiry into this critical presence across diverse online teaching contexts. The purpose in this qualitative, multiple case study was to explore and understand online course instructors’ perceptions and experiences regarding their own presence in their online courses. We explored the perceptions and experiences of eight course instructors teaching undergraduate and graduate-level online courses at a midwestern U.S. college. Our findings indicated that teaching presence was uniformly considered important and necessary by the instructors although their applications and priorities regarding their teaching presence varied. We discussed our themes that emerged from our interview data and offered several theoretical and practical implications regarding teaching presence in online learning environments