In this chapter, the background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, research questions, significance of the study, limitations and delimitations are introduced. The background focuses in mandarin Chinese language education, online courses and satisfaction of teachers.
Background of the Study
In the last decades, Taiwan has been promoting the study of Mandarin Chinese in order to increase the number of Mandarin speakers throughout the world. The number of foreign students who decide to study in Taiwanese universities and language centers are increasing due to the importance of the Mandarin Chinese in today’s globalization. Taiwan owns an excellent education system and welcomes international students to study undergraduate, graduate and Mandarin Chinese studies. These mandarin Chinese courses are offered in small sized groups of six to ten students in educational institutions known as mandarin language centers. The Mandarin Language Centers are represented by an outstanding teaching staff, well equipped with Mandarin Chinese teaching certification issued by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. Among those language centers, the most popular in Taiwan is the Mandarin Training Center in National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) which is known for its excellent Mandarin Chinese language program where around 1700 international students from over more than fifty countries study during the year. In 1956, The Mandarin Training Center (MTC) was created as an extension of NTNU.
This center is one of the world's most distinguished Chinese language study programs. The Mandarin Training Center is located in the university’s main campus known as Heping Campus.
The language center's courses involve studies of mandarin Chinese language, literature, calligraphy and arts offered in a three month term throughout the year. The center is well known as the leading institute of the Test of Chinese as Foreign Language TOCFL in Taiwan. The teachers from the Mandarin Training Center have more than two years of teaching experience and own bachelor or master degrees in teaching Mandarin Chinese as a second language teaching.
Due to the increase of technology in recent years, many teachers from the Mandarin Training Center have received training in educational technology such as online teaching and multimedia instruction.
Online education is defined as the class that uses the online course delivery mode in its
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curriculum, moreover it is the transfer of information via the Internet while students and teachers are being connected at the same time (Richardson & Swan, 2003). Technology has played an important role in the development and expansion of online education (Kim & Bonk, 2006).
Despite the mandarin Chinese teachers have educational degrees, every year they must attend to lectures, conferences and courses related to Mandarin Chinese teaching. In recent years, the Mandarin Training Center developed an online program known as MTC Online in order to offer flexible and intense Mandarin Chinese courses through the Internet for students who are interested in improving their Chinese language skills. MTC is the only language center in Taiwan that offers online mandarin Chinese courses where students register and pay to receive online courses. Given the fact that there is a rapid growth of online education programs, educational institutions must provide good online programs (Kim & Bonk, 2006).
The MTC online program currently offers mandarin Chinese courses to students all over the world by allowing students to use their computers, laptops, tablets or mobile devices to have access to the courses. The only equipment needed to participate from online learning is a basic computer workstation with an internet connection (Li & Akins, 2004). The courses’ schedule are arranged based on the student’s needs and by the time this study was conducted the MTC only offered classes to not more than 2 students per course. The students can choose online courses such as everyday Chinese, Chinese reading and writing, Chinese for kids, Chinese conversation, Chinese news reading and listening and business Chinese. Research has shown that projections suggest that online courses will increase significantly in educational institutions in the following years (Smart & Cappel, 2006).
The online courses are delivered by professors of the Mandarin Training Center who use quality teaching materials in order to deliver professional mandarin Chinese courses. The teacher job position like many other professions is regulated by the ministry of education in Taiwan and mandarin Chinese professors have to complete some education requirements, such as tests and trainings, in order to teach in the language centers. The teaching job position does not only involve working with students but also allows teachers to communicate and work with other faculty members such as academic supervisors, directors, professors, researchers and others.
The online teachers play an important role in online courses because they are the ones who deliver the course that was planned and designed by academic staff of the MTC. Many
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institutions have been training their teachers to deliver efficient online classes (McQuiggan, 2007). Only online teachers who have been trained are certified to teach online courses. The online teachers are responsible for answering students’ doubts or questions related to mandarin Chinese; reply to the student’s written messages, grade the student’s assignments and tests, solve internet connection issues, respond to messages from faculty members, keep and evaluate the students’ performance. Some of the online teachers’ job tasks are done out of the workplace which leads to comprehend and explore their degree of satisfaction with online courses.
The growth of technology in education has been changing the job tasks of online teachers who teach online courses and it is important for educational institutions to comprehend and investigate how satisfied they are with these courses. The job satisfaction of teachers refers when they meet their personal needs and their job performance improves (Ololube, 2006). The studies of teacher’s satisfaction are used to investigate if they are accomplishing their personal and career goals within the educational institution. The job satisfaction of teachers is important for organizations to better understand them and make decisions according to their satisfaction needs.
Job satisfaction has been the most studied research area of organizational behavior (Dave &
Raval, 2014).
Statement of the Problem
A significant number of students have been taking online mandarin Chinese courses using MTC online program and this number is expected to increase in the future. Given this anticipated growth in online mandarin Chinese education, it is important for MTC to ensure that their online teachers are satisfied with their jobs. If the satisfaction of online mandarin teachers is not explored, it may negatively affect the efficiency and quality of the MTC online courses.
As the number of online teachers in the MTC online program keeps growing, the mandarin training center must ensure that they are not only satisfied but are also receiving support in their online teaching job. As of the year 2015, the MTC did not know well satisfied or dissatisfied online teachers are with online courses. Given the fact that researchers have demonstrated the importance of teacher satisfaction, it is important to know how well satisfied online teachers are.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study aims to investigate teacher satisfaction with online mandarin
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Chinese courses. This study sought to determine the factors that lead to the satisfaction of online teachers at the mandarin training center; furthermore it also aims to know their satisfaction levels with online courses. To meet this purpose, this research will investigate a) the factors that contribute to the satisfaction of online teachers with online mandarin Chinese courses; b) the reasons that contribute to the online teacher satisfaction; c) the online teachers’ overall satisfaction level with online courses.
The results of this study are expected to provide important findings that can be useful for language teachers and academic managers who are interested in understanding teacher satisfaction in mandarin Chinese language centers. Furthermore, the findings intend to offer detailed information that could be used by language centers in order to use strategies to increase teacher satisfaction and retention rates within their institutions. This study will provide useful data to be used for policy development, implementation and evaluation of online courses within educational institutions. This study will be conducted in order to make a contribution to the field of mandarin Chinese education in order to motivate future researchers to conduct similar studies within language centers.
Research Questions
Based on the research purpose, the research questions are stated as following:
1. What are the online teachers’ experience with online mandarin Chinese courses?
2. How satisfied are online teachers with mandarin Chinese online courses?
3. What are the factors that lead to online teacher satisfaction with online mandarin Chinese courses?
4. What are the online teachers’ suggestions for improving the teacher satisfaction with online mandarin Chinese courses?
Significance of the Study
Due to the fact that MTC online started in the last few years, the satisfaction of online teachers within the center needs to be explored. Few research studies have been conducted to investigate the satisfaction of online faculty in order to comprehend what they think and feel about the factors that make them feel satisfied in their mandarin Chinese online teaching job.
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Due to the fact, that other language centers in Taiwan are interested in implementing online mandarin Chinese courses in the following years, these institutions need to understand the satisfaction of teachers with online courses. Satisfaction studies would be helpful for teachers, program managers, academic staff and language centers who are concerned with the quality of their online courses.
For the first time, this study focused on online teachers with the opportunity to explore and describe their satisfaction with online courses. This study may be of significance for human resource development or education researchers and professors. This study was conducted to encourage current researchers to make future research papers contributions and use this dissertation as a reference. If researchers understand the facts of online education in mandarin language centers, the findings of this research could help educational institutions not only to improve their online courses but also to attract, train and retain talented online teachers. This study also suggested additional areas for research. Such studies could offer an enhanced picture of the factors that contribute to satisfaction of teachers with online courses.
Delimitations and Limitations
The study delimits to investigate the language centers in Taiwan. The study is limited only to the teachers of the Mandarin Chinese Center of NTNU known as Mandarin Training Center. This study was limited to MTC teachers who were teaching online courses of the MTC online program during the year 2015. Among all the mandarin language centers in Taiwan, the researcher chose the Mandarin Training Center because it was the language center that had the largest number of students and teachers in Taiwan and was the only center who provided online mandarin Chinese courses. This study investigated the teachers’ satisfaction of online mandarin Chinese courses.
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