Jodi, your paper covered a very relevant topic for online instructors. I do believe that on-line students deserve the same education that ground students receive which means as instructors we certainly do have a responsibility to address all of the needs of our students as best as we can.  I will admit that this can be difficult when we do not have the advantage of seeing or hearing our students unless we step out of the classroom and make a phone call or skype.  That being said, I do believe that GCU has an advantage over other online programs in that we can refer them to the "Prayer Request" icon or do what I often do and let them know that I am personally praying for them myself during their struggles when I see a need.  This is not something that could take place in a secular university. 

I also really thought that your idea about a supervisor or counselor being available to the students was a fantastic idea.  I think this may add a special touch to online teaching and fill an emotional need that may be lacking.

Thank you for addressing such an important topic and need of the online classroom.

Sheila Shaver- College of Education

Hi Jodi - Great work and topic to explore. Having read a little on emotional intelligence, there are many research areas to explore. I thought you were innovative in your approach, as this is a narrowly focused topic. In taking this path, it was an excellent approach. In fact, I thought your response rate for the surveys was actually reasonable.  It is even higher than I thought when I first saw what you sent out. 

Your paper also reminded me of a book I read by Daniel Goleman called Emotional Intelligence - Why it can Matter more than IQ. I think there is even a section in there about emotional learning. Just mention if you find it helpful.  Good luck!

Brad Armstrong

Dr. McKnight-I love the topic of Emotional Intelligence since I read Daniel Goleman's book. There is so much potential, according to Goleman, for its usage. I enjoyed reading your work. I posted my comments below for your review. I appreciate you sharing your work.

Dr. McKnight - The subject of Emotional Intelligence is very interesting right now, and I use the knowledge learned from books like Goleman's and apply it to modern business with much success, so I am glad to see an application making its way to the classroom. One observation that I have, while not backed by any research, is that most people tend to read online communications picturing the last visible or physical encounter they had with the person. For example, if the last time I spoke with someone it was an argument, I find that any written communications from that person tend to be read through a negative lens, and vice-versa. Maybe in your guide there can be something about ensuring that the spoken communications with students is always upbeat and positive so that written communications aren't misconstrued. We all have had emails taken out of context, and I usually find this is why. Your paper is clearly written, though has a few grammatical errors and incorrect words. The only limitation I can see is maybe determining the EQ of the people surveyed, since the majority of your data relies on the ability of the surveyed to self report and know their own emotional intelligence. Overall, very exciting stuff!

As an online educator, I find that it is difficult to express emotions in the online classroom. Also, more often than not, students misinterpret the tone of instructor communications instead of taking the written words literally for what they are. I can see how anxiety would be the number one emotion expressed by online students. In my experiences, students over-analyze written communication, thusly, making their academic tasks more difficult. It is easy to become anxious when an instructor expects students to be accountable for their actions.

Dr. McKnight, your research on emotional intelligence is more relevant now than ever before. Online teaching can be very rewarding but also as you discovered very frightening. I believe having a mentor for new faculty is a good way to help minimize fear among faculty. Having someone to call even on weekends or evenings for a resource is to me much more effective than tech support alone. I did a study in my masters program on the factors that contribute to stress for staff nurses and found that emotional support was the number one concern among the nurses. Your research in online faculty and students has many parallels with mine. Unfortunately, concerns with emotional intelligence can be addressed improperly and this can lead to faculty resigning and students disenrolling.

One of the situations that causes me to have the most anxiety is when a student asks me a question about how to find an assignment or something else that they can not see in their view and it is the first time for me teaching the course. My first gut reaction is to tell them "this is my first time teaching this course" but I dont because I feel that I would loose all of their confidence. If tech support is not available it is great to be able to call somone who has more experience with similar situations for advice.

Any time that we make strides such as this research to lower anxiety among faculty and students we are improving the profession and adapting to changes in the profession (online teaching). Good work!

Jodi, This is an excellent topic for study.  Many of us have had online students that tell intimate personal stories, that may or may not impact their learning or their emotional state.  When a student reveals" I have a diagnosis of clinical depression,"I often wonder if they declared their disability when enrolling.  This can be a sticky situation for all involved, university, staff, and the student.  I think you have addressed a subject that is becoming more and more needed for educators.

Nice Work

Betty

 Dr. McKnight, I was fascinated with the study and found it to be a very interesting topic for online educators. Emotional intelligence is very important in any profession but maybe even more so in education. I think some students are willing to share more about their lives and feelings in the online classroom since it is not a face to face interaction. I think being in an online setting makes it less intimidating to share feelings and emotions than being in a traditional setting. I was surprised to find that only about 50% of those requested participated. I can see how those surveyed could experience frustration and anxiety. Being able to effectively and efficiently manage these emotions is a big part of EI.  I could see how faculty members could also feel like counselors at times as well. As Kristin commented earlier, it can be easy for things to be taken out of context with mostly written communication in the online environment. Great topic! Would love to read further research regarding it! Well done!

~John Steele

This is a very interesting topic on online education. Some students come to online learning probably unprepared for its challenges with tells from peers it is easier than the tradition format. They probably get disappointed and frustrated when they discover they must be prepared for each week's lectures and assignments, and that any laisser-faire attitude reflects immediately in the grade book. When these happen, they tend to cast aspersions on the course design, the instructor and sometimes the University. Online learning will give you stress and frustration if you are not prepared for its challenges.

Boniface C Madu

Dr. McKnight,

    Thank you for addressing the pink-elephant in the room for online learning. Indeed, one of the challenges faculty in online programs face is proactively creating an online presence that is welcoming, affirming, and empowering for students. However, as you point out in your research, online faculty need requisite skills in identifying the underlying needs of students as communicated through emotions (or the lack thereof). I appreciated your thorough research on many points in the article and your suggestions for further study. Related to this, I would encourage you to include research on language and emotionally-laden words that may reveal to faculty that a deeper issue is present in the classroom. 

Serving with You,

Scott D. Edgar

PhD, DMin.

GCU - College of Theology

Interesting topic, I never see much research focusing on faculty.  These issues have not occurred with me, so now I'm wondering if I need to be more attuned to Emotional Intelligence.   

Teaching for GCU I feel very fortunate to have counseling and tech support at my finger tips.  However, many colleges don't provide these services, making this research and further research imperative.

With that said I think it's very important that you work on your methodology to provide solid reliable results that can be utilized for future research.  It would be helpful to know if those surveyed have traditional or non-traditional students and maybe even knowing what disciplines faculty teach. In fact a more information about the faculty would be helpful.

On a mechanical note, a few spelling errors and reference page isn't formatted correctly.  You are on the right track keep up the creative research ideas.

Cindy Barnes

College of Education

What an interesting topic this is. In an online environment, this demonstrates that using all capital letters and smiley faces may not communicate the length and breadth of emotions we may want them to!

You mention a limitation of the study being the number of respondents that you had (52). Do you think that expanding your initial group to grow the number of respondents would change the study results?

With the growth of online and blended learning environments, how to accurately convey and read emotions will become an increasingly important topic of research and discussion.

Excellent topic to explore for online learners. We are fortunate that GCU recognizes the potential problems, and has several resources available. Many online schools do not provide these services. Your idea to focus on one school for future reseach may be a good idea - or maybe compare a school that provides services with one that does not.

Jodi, you make an excellent point regarding how the student and teacher relationship has changed in the online environment.

Emotional intelligence is available via an online classroom environment or a face-to-face classroom environment.  Most online instructors are experienced, seasoned, and well versed in the online environment.  There may be instances with respect to subject matter when online instructors are selected because they best meet certain criteria.  Limitations exist in an online environment.  An online instructor cannot ascertain his or her students' emotional state of mind at any moment in time.  An online instructor derives the emotional state of a student through their words.  This is a valuable assessment and a unique opportunity to understand the student.

Hello Dr. McKnight:

Thank you for your informative article.  Although online education is becoming more prevalent in both academic and professional realms, the position or vocation of online faculty/instructor is an area to conduct more research. Learning to function in the online realm can pose a challenge to those of us who traditionally communicate in face-to-face settings. The lack of non-verbal communication or cues in intrinsic in the online milieu can exacerbate this situation. By researching and looking for potential "red flags" online faculty/instructors can begin to more acutely identify and respond to a student's emotional needs, thereby, advance their online communication skills, in both receiving and sending information. For instance, when responding to an email of question posted by a student, if "red flags' are present we can mold our communication to the students possible emotional needs and inquire-if warranted-about their situation.

Dr. McKnight,

The content of your research is a wonderful representation of some of the struggles of online teaching.  As a researcher of emotional intelligence (EI) I can understand the importance of possessing EI and have numerous studies on the impact of EI on group dynamics.  I would love to see how a similar survey from online students which assess their perception of their professor's EI on their learning would look.

Some Questions/Suggestions

You noted that you utilized a self reporting survey for measuring EI-which survey did you use and has this survey been validated?  Or was this a portion of the survey you created for this research?  Also if you created the survey do you have a reliability factor on it or is this the first time the survey was used?  (These issues may want to be addressed in the limitation section).

Also I believe as per APA guidelines when using numbers and percentage as the first word in a sentence it has to be spelled out rather than placed in numerical format.

Overall this article is a wonderful addition to the research on EI.  I wish you luck and look forward to reading future research from you.  Great job!

Great to see more contributions to EI research and analysis!  I agree that, even through all the available training and development, there is little guidance to manage emotional situations for online instructors. 

Structurally, it seems that there is something (perhaps a simple, directional adverb) missing in the first sentence of your introduction. Also, in the first sentence  under the methods section, "course" should either be preceded by a simple article or be plural.  As it currently reads, I cannot ascertain exactly which instructors were asked to complete the surveys.  In the second sentence of the second paragraph, under the Recommendations for Further Study section, there exists a subject-verb disagreement.  Finally, it seems that the references should be formatted to hanging indentation?

Overall, the paper is well written and insightful.  I enjoyed reading it and hope to see further study on this issue!  Thanks!