Date of Conferral

2015

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

Caroline Crawford

Abstract

Students enrolled in face-to-face and online business administration courses at a Midwestern Christian college were provided faith-integrated opportunities; however, the challenge was to maintain consistency in providing the online courses with similar faith integration as the face-to-face courses. It was unknown whether the same faith-integrated opportunities were provided in face-to-face and online courses. Kohlberg's cognitive moral development and Fowler's spiritual development theories grounded this qualitative bounded case study. Research questions focused on whether instructors taught the same faith-integrated content in online and face-to-face classes, and whether online and face-to-face students received the same faith-integrated experiences. A purposeful sample was gathered of 3 freshman, 3 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 3 seniors who completed both faith-integrated online and face-to-face business administration courses; in addition, 4 instructors were recruited who taught faith integration in online and face-to-face business administration courses. Open-ended questionnaires were collected from students and observations were collected using online course shell interactions between students and instructors. All data were open coded and thematically analyzed using a visual model process. Instructors integrated faith more in the face-to-face courses than in the online courses. A white paper containing recommendations to integrate faith in all business administration classes included building collaborative faculty groups, student-focused rubrics, and faculty course-based rubrics. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change by providing faculty with the necessary tools to equitably provide faith integration in business administration online and face-to-face courses and to develop students' ethical decision making through faith-integrated lessons.

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