Exploring the Impact of University Student Engagement on Junior Faculty’s Online Teaching Anxiety and Coping Strategies during COVID-19

Abstract

(1) Background: When online teaching or blended teaching becomes the new normal in college teaching and learning during the pandemic phase, how to cope with teaching anxiety and enhance online student engagement has been frequently discussed among scholars and practitioners. (2) Methods: This qualitative study aims to investigate the impact of online college student engagement on junior faculty’s online teaching anxiety in the pandemic era, with an emergent shift to online teaching as a new normal for higher education. The study analyzed the ways junior faculty adapted to enhance online student engagement and cope with anxiety-provoking sources. (3) Results: Online teaching anxiety may occur at the beginning of the semester or during a large amount of assessment and marking and can also occur with student complaints and the inactive online engagement of students. Student engagement is the most challenging pedagogical issue during online teaching, especially social and emotional engagement. (4) Conclusion: This study recommends that peer mentoring and university-level faculty professional development services are effective strategies to reduce junior faculty’s teaching anxiety. Pedagogy training and support should provide faculty with hands-on activities with problem-solving toolkits that they can take away to their own teaching.

1. Introduction

When online teaching has become the new normal in higher education during the pandemic, online teaching anxiety is growing among the junior faculty, who are facing more complicated challenges than classroom teaching. Among all the pedagogical difficulties, student engagement is one of the most challenging tasks, which is listed as a university policy and teacher evaluation criteria. Student engagement is identified as an important indicator of the student experience in higher education [1] which requires new initiatives from individual faculty and higher education institutions during the shift to emergency online teaching necessitated by the global pandemic.

This paper begins by presenting scholarly literature about teaching anxiety and online student engagement. After discussing the objectives and research questions, the qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews was discussed in the method section. Next, findings regarding the pattern of teaching anxiety and how student engagement may influence faculty’s teaching anxiety were portrayed. Finally, discussions on the meanings and values of the findings and recommendations on the courses of action for faculty members, decision-makers for individual support, and unit-level support were proposed.

2. Literature Review

The literature review section will first present teaching anxiety and its relevance to teacher anxiety, emphasizing the online teaching environment during COVID-19. Then, literature on student engagement, especially online student engagement, was synthesized and presented.

2.1. Teaching Anxiety

Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, teaching had been widely described as an anxiety-inducing profession [2], and the issue of teaching anxiety has been an age-long affair [3]. The concept of anxiety has received much attention in teacher education because of its significant role and undeniable effects on the process of teaching and learning. Anxiety is defined as an emotional and affective state in which a person feels powerless, tense, fearful, and apprehensive [4]. Researchers classified anxiety into two types: trait and state anxiety [5]. Trait anxiety is related to personality, whereas state anxiety is felt at a particular moment as a reaction to a definite situation [4,6]. Teaching anxiety may lead to inappropriate and ineffective teaching behaviors and even affect the instructor’s wellness [7]. Gardner and Leak [8] conceptualized teaching anxiety as anxiety experienced about teaching activities that involve the preparation and execution of classroom activities.

Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities and faculty members had to respond quickly to an abrupt shift to online teaching, and the prevalence of anxiety disorders was revealed in primary school teachers, secondary education teachers, and university teachers [9]. Liu and his team [10] reported a persistently higher level of online teaching anxiety among foreign language teachers in China. Pressley et al. [11] surveyed 329 elementary teachers in the fall of 2020 from across the United States, and the teaching anxiety remained unchanged or increased for over half of the sample even when they were able to return to school. Teachers providing all-virtual instruction felt the most anxiety compared to hybrid teaching and all-in-person teaching.

Besides the definition and symptoms of teaching anxiety, the anxiety-provoking factors for teachers have received researchers’ attention for a long time [7,12]. The potential challenges and negative feelings experienced in the teaching process can result in teaching anxiety [10]. Teacher anxiety could be attributed to many sources, such as the under-resourced working atmosphere, the inadequate mastery of manipulating modern-technology-driven teaching equipment, a lack of teacher training, and working burnout [8,10,13]. There was no apparent difference in the sources of anxiety between onsite teaching and online teaching [11,14].

Pedagogical issues also strongly influence teacher anxiety, including evaluation and classroom management [15]. Agustiana [16] collected data from 50 Indonesian pre-service teachers on their teaching anxiety. Peer observation, a lack of teaching experience, large-sized classes, and student questions were the major sources of anxiety. For virtual learning settings, including synchronous and asynchronous learning, the issue of student engagement became more demanding than other factors [17].

This study aims to explore the online teaching anxiety of new junior faculty from different schools and departments at one university as the case. Teaching anxiety influences both pre-service teachers and in-service teachers, particularly new teachers with limited experience and knowledge of teaching and learning. Junior faculty in universities, including lecturers and assistant professors, are more likely to experience teaching anxiety based on their teaching expertise. Moreover, most teacher anxiety research is on the subject of perspectives, such as in foreign language and math education. However, there are limited discussions on general faculty professional development, particularly from the lens of junior faculty who had recently started their teaching career in universities with a huge passion for teaching and learning. They are also the primary target for most professional development programs for faculty within higher education institutions. Specific needs analysis on teacher anxiety and discussions on adequate support are beneficial for continuous educator development and staff retention.

2.2. Online Student Engagement

Student engagement has been reported to be crucial to student experience, including student academic achievement, satisfaction, development, and lifelong learning, which are listed as university policies and teacher evaluation criteria in many higher education institutions [18,19]. Although engagement is widely used, the meaning and interpretation of student engagement vary in different periods and contexts [19,20,21]. Kuh [22] defined engagement as involvement in learning. Trowler [23] correlated engagement with “the interaction between the time, effort and other relevant resources invested by both students and their institutions intended to optimize the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students and the performance, and reputation of the institution” [23].

There are a number of factors affecting student engagement, and interaction is a key influencer [18,24]. Interaction enacts students to communicate and construct meaning individually and with others [18]. Research revealed that the learners’ interactions with content, peers, and instructors could improve their online engagement in course learning [18,25]. Student online interaction is classified into three types: student–content interactions, student–student interactions, and student–instructor interactions. Student–content interactions enable students to work on interactive tutorials and simulations. Student–student interactions promote students’ collaborative projects and active participation in discussions. Student–instructor interactions allow students to communicate directly with the instructor synchronously and asynchronously [26].

Teacher beliefs and instructor–student bonds also contribute to student engagement [27]. Aligned with this view is an expectation around staff teaching engagement and the role of instructors as facilitators of conversations [19]. Fleckhammer and Wise [28] stated that “online students … need to be able to engage with their learning in an independent style, but it may be that overall academic engagement can be facilitated for this cohort by developing a greater sense of social engagement” [28]. If academics are convinced that they can improve student engagement, the possibility of having teaching initiatives for engagement increases. Self-efficacy can grow when someone experiences success [29]. In addition, Bandura [29] suggests that a pep talk or good feedback could help to enhance self-efficacy. Experience and feedback could be combined using direct coaching [27].

A great deal of literature about online engagement incorporates three key areas of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement because of their impact on students’ attitudes and motivations [1,30]. Nevertheless, Lawson and Lawson [21] suggested that there is a need for a “more nuanced and less formulaic conception of student engagement” [21]. Based on a review of the relevant literature that explores engagement in educational contexts, Redmond and his colleagues [19] developed an online engagement framework for higher education involving five key elements: social engagement, cognitive engagement, behavioral engagement, collaborative engagement, and emotional engagement (see

Table 1. Online Engagement Framework for Higher Education [19].

Online Engagement Element	Indicators (Illustrative Only)
Social engagement	Building community Creating a sense of belonging Developing relationships Establishing trust
Cognitive engagement	Thinking critically Activating metacognition Integrating ideas Justifying decisions Developing deep discipline understandings Distributing expertise
Behavioral engagement	Developing academic skills Identifying opportunities and challenges Developing multidisciplinary skills Developing agency Upholding online learning norms Supporting and encouraging peers
Collaborative engagement	Learning with peers Relating to faculty members Connecting to institutional opportunities Developing professional networks
Emotional engagement	Managing expectations Articulating assumptions Recognising motivations Committing to learning

). Social engagement can be illustrated through actions that build community, such as social forums and developing relationships with peers and instructors [19]. Cognitive engagement is the active process of learning. Fredricks et al. [1] identified cognitive engagement as students engaged in the learning process to “comprehend complex ideas and master difficult skills” [1]. Behavioral engagement refers to academic engagement, learning presence, and self-regulating behaviors [31]. Collaborative engagement involves developing different relationships and networks that support learning, including collaboration with different educational stakeholders. Online learners must collaborate online because of the limitation of geographical distance from peers [19]. Emotional engagement is defined as students’ emotional reaction to learning, including any feelings and attitudes toward learning [19]. Emotional engagement includes “interest, values, and emotions” [1]. This study has used Redmond et al.’s [19] framework as the theoretical framework (see Table 1).

2.3. Research Objectives and Questions

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of online college student engagement on junior faculty’s online teaching anxiety in the pandemic era of emergent online teaching as a new normal for higher education. The study will also analyze the ways junior faculty adapted to enhance online student engagement and cope with anxiety-provoking sources, aiming to discuss the implications of effective practices in enhancing online student engagement and how such anxiety could be alleviated with the efforts of individual faculty members, departments, and universities.

This study is guided by the following three research questions:

• What are the university junior faculty’s perceptions of online teaching anxiety during COVID-19?
• How does university student engagement influence junior faculty’s online teaching anxiety during COVID-19?
• What coping strategies do junior faculty members take to enhance online student engagement and alleviate online teaching anxiety?

3. Method

3.1. Data Source

The data were collected from Sunshine University (pseudonym) in Southern China. Sunshine University is a transnational university that uses English as the medium of instruction (EMI) and embraces diversity and internationalization. Sunshine University employed online and onsite blended teaching and learning in the current academic year when the authors conducted this study as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic situation as the new normal. Sunshine University emphasizes teaching innovation and student engagement and launched a guideline on fostering student engagement in learning in the current academic year.

3.2. Samples

Purposive sampling, specifically homogeneous sampling, was used in this study when confirming the number of participants. Purposive sampling is a nonrandom technique that researchers will set out what experiences and knowledge of potential participants can contribute to what needs to be known in the study [32]. Bernard [32] also emphasized that the participants’ capacity and willingness to share and communicate their knowledge and experience accurately and deliberately is essential for a study using purposive sampling. Homogeneous sampling “focus on candidates who share similar traits and characteristics” and “precise similarity and how it relates to the topic being researched” [33].

We understand the argument on the disadvantage of purposive sampling caused by relying on the researcher’s judgmental subjectiveness. The argument about purposive sampling be that “not a good defense when it comes to alleviating possible researcher biases, especially when compared with probability sampling techniques that are designed to reduce such biases” [34]. However, the researcher’s judgmental subjectiveness may become a major concern when the selection criteria are unclear [34].

After clarifying and agreeing on the definition of “junior faculty” in this study, the authors discussed the criteria for inviting interviewees as samples. First, participants should either be assistant professors or lecturers. Second, participants should come from different majors. Third, participants should teach courses online in the past academic year due to COVID prevention at Sunshine University. Eight junior faculty from different majors who taught courses online at Sunshine University were initially identified.

We emphasized data saturation when evaluating the number of interviews needed for our qualitative study using purposive sampling. According to Burmeister and Aitken [35], data saturation is more about the depth of the data instead of the numbers or the thickness of the data. Bernard [36] claimed that the number of interviews needed for a qualitative study to reach data saturation was a number he could not quantified. “If one has reached the point of no new data, one has also most likely reached the point of no new themes; therefore, one has reached data saturation” [37]. Therefore, we analyzed the data throughout our study and stopped engaging more participants whom we initially identified when no new information about our research questions was forthcoming. Finally, we ended up with five participants. Please see

Table 2. Descriptions of Interviewees.

Participant	Gender	Overall Length of Teaching Experience	Length of Teaching at this University	Discipline	Academic Rank
A	Male	1 year	1 year	Electronic Engineering	Lecturer
B	Female	1 year	1 year	Math	Lecturer
C	Female	2 years	2 years	Film	Lecturer
D	Female	3 years	2 years	Linguistics	Lecturer
E	Female	6 years	0.5 year	Architecture	Assistant Professor

for a detailed sample description.

3.3. Measures

This study employs a qualitative approach with one-on-one semi-structured interviews, which allows researchers to have an in-depth understanding of participants’ experiences and perceptions [38]. Our interview questions were composed of three themes: (1) faculty’s perceptions of online teaching experiences and their anxiety, if any, in the past academic year; (2) faculty’s perceptions of online student engagement and faculty’s thoughts on the impact of online student engagement on their teaching anxiety and their employed strategies in enhancing online student engagement; (3) faculty’s strategies for coping with teaching anxiety and expecting support from the department and the university. The interview questions were pilot-tested before using for formal interviews. Detailed interview questions for the semi-structured interviews can be found in Appendix A.

3.4. Data Collection

The semi-structured one-on-one interviews took place online via video conferencing. Each interview lasts between 40–60 min. The participant information sheet, consent form, and guiding interview questions were given to the interviewees beforehand. The interviews were recorded and transcribed into text scripts. The interview language was chosen based on the language the interviewees felt comfortable with (Chinese or English).

3.5. Analyses

Thematic analysis was used to tease out common themes of the responses. The authors conducted thematic analysis in six steps: (1) becoming familiar with the transcripts, (2) coding, (3) generating initial common themes, (4) reviewing initial themes as a research team, (5) defining and labeling common themes, (6) writing up findings. To ensure the validity and trustworthiness of the study, we applied member checks to ensure the transcripts and the interpretations of interviewees’ perceptions were accurate. We often discussed the themes and coding generated from the transcripts and adjusted our codes at different levels when needed. To answer the first research question, in addition to presenting the thematic analysis results in the findings section, the authors also described the change in teaching anxiety over time in one academic year and self-reported anxiety.

4. Results

Based on the interviews, all participants had experienced teaching anxiety in at least one online academic semester, with different anxiety levels, developments in online teaching anxiety during the semester, influential factors of online teaching anxiety, and coping strategies to alleviate the anxiety.

Starting the New Semester with Anxiety. Four out of the five participants had high teaching anxiety at the beginning of the online semester. Based on their self-reported data in the interviews, participant C expressed the strongest anxiety with her words “very anxious”, and participant B had the mildest anxiety by reporting “not very worrisome”. When the online semester started, the anxiety levels of participants A, C, D, and E had obviously decreased, with some differences in duration and range. Participant A was not anxious and felt comfortable about teaching after two weeks of online teaching. Participant C took the first half of the semester, mostly seven weeks, to adapt to the online teaching with an “acceptable anxiety level” in her words. Participant D decreased her anxiety in one month and ascribed such change to “the familiarity of the online teaching platform and the university pedagogical culture”. Participant E experienced a sharp decrease in the first week of online teaching, and some slower drops continued until reaching the bottom of her anxiety in the first month of her online semester. Participants C and E described that their anxiety toward online teaching reached a peak one day before the first online lessons.

Increased Anxiety during the Assessment Period. Participants A, B, and D claimed their anxiety levels increased during the assessment. Participant A was very concerned about students’ academic performances, which were regarded as an essential element in his self-evaluation of online teaching quality. The subject difference might be the reason due to the assessment design. From the perspective of content knowledge, both participants A and B mentioned that formulas in engineering and science majors were difficult for students to understand and use. Participant B thought her course was more difficult for online learning because principles were easy to understand through lab experiments; however, the assessment format was another reason for her rising anxiety level. Participants A, B, and D had more summative assessments, such as multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions in written tests while the other two participants evaluated students more on a formative basis. For example, participant C claimed her classes and assessments were project-based. Students worked on projects on filming and editing. Participants A, B, and D evaluated students on their individual performances, while participants C and E provided more chances for group projects and assessments.

Increased Anxiety Toward Various Student Interactions. All of the participants reported that their anxiety status was directly related to students’ interaction, including students’ feedback, complaints, and online learning engagement. All of the participants expressed that they took every student’s comment and feedback seriously. Participant B said she felt very anxious when students reported learning difficulties and inactive participation in the course. She was surprised and sad when students complained to her that some learning content was hard in the middle of the semester. According to participant C, she encouraged students to share their feelings about course learning and university studies, which was very helpful in knowing and therefore meeting students’ needs, particularly during a difficult time of online learning. However, she also pointed out that the “side effect” was that students’ negative feelings toward online education could be contagious, distracting her attention from course-based thinking to general online education during COVID-19. The anxiety increased based on her feeling of powerlessness and doubts about the online university education.

4.1. Student Engagement as the Most Challenging Pedagogical Issue during Online Teaching

All five participants claimed that student engagement was crucial to their online teaching anxiety, as they all used student engagement as the key indicator of student learning and teaching quality. Class attendance, in-class participation, learning commitment, student motivation, student interaction, and learning with peers are illustrators of online student engagement as behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, social engagement, and collaborative engagement. Cognitive engagement was not mentioned at all by the participants.

Based on the interviews, social engagement was the most concerning element of online student engagement by all five participants. Participant A believed social engagement, such as “interaction and good relationships between students and faculty”, was the most crucial element of online engagement. Participant B expressed her expectation of having more “in-class and synchronous student-student interaction and student-instructor interaction because it is more direct for faculty to know students’ learning difficulties and needs based on such online engagement”. Participant C claimed social engagement is the most essential element of her students’ online engagement, as her course was project-based, and students needed to “build up a community and trust from the classmates for the smoother group and individual projects”. Participant D, who had six years teaching experience in higher education, said that “student interactions with classmates and instructors in class time could represent their status of involvement in learning especially online learning”. Participant E believed “student-instructor relationship is the key to all online engagement elements”.

Emotional engagement was another element of online student engagement mentioned by all five instructors. “Learning commitment” and “student motivation” were key indicators. Students were reported as “less motivated” and “indifferent” to their studies during the online learning semesters. Participant D said, “I feel anxious about students’ negative feelings of learning such as no learning commitment and would try my best to motivate them by sharing my learning stories and fun cases in architecture”. Participant D believed student motivation, especially “intrinsic motivation,” was the core of learning after their university studies. She also said, “it is the instructor’s responsibility to ignite students’ learning passions and ideas of knowing what to learn”.

Behavioral engagement was not recognized by the five participants as an effective element of online student engagement; however, all of the instructors talked about attendance, which was coded as an indicator of behavioral engagement in the first place. Two out of the five instructors, participants B and E, with a lower attendance rate, used attendance to evaluate student engagement. Participant B said, “the synchronous learning of attending the online seminar was more efficient than asynchronous learning such as watching a recording because they could raise any concerns while working with me for the formula derivation”. To improve students’ attendance rate, participants B and E reminded students every week by emails and some messaging applications. Participant E also described how she fostered students’ behavioral engagement by using strategies for social engagement like “creating a closer and friendly student-instructor relationship to motivate students to join the classes”. Her strategies for increasing student online class attendance include “not asking all students to turn on their cameras because they may feel anxious in front of the camera” and “chatting with students on social media platforms frequently to know students’ feelings at the first time”.

Although participants A, C, and D had good student attendance records in their first online teaching semester, they thought attendance, which usually represents students’ behavioral engagement, could be faked in online lessons. Participant A said, “when students have online classes, attendance cannot explain student engagement. With their cameras off, you don’t know whether students are listening”.

The collaborative engagement was only discussed by three participants, A, C, D, and they wanted their students to engage in course learning by “having more possibilities of peer learning” and “getting support and ideas from classmates and peers”. Participant C pointed out that “students majoring in filming should seize the chance of building their professional network from a very early stage” and “their universities classmates and teachers are their first human resources in the film-related industries”.

4.2. Efforts and Expectations of the Coping Strategy

Reflections were mentioned by all of the participants as individual strategies. Three participants were aware of their reflective procedures and had taken actions to solve pedagogical issues.

Participants B and E reported the effectiveness of mentorship and peer talk provided at the department level. In contrast, another two participants expressed their expectations of having one-on-one support from experienced faculty in the same department. All five participants mentioned the university-level faculty professional development service as a strategy to reduce junior faculty’s teaching anxiety. They had participated in at least one supporting service, such as the new faculty orientation, a postgraduate certificate program in teaching and supporting learning in higher education, continuous professional development workshops, and pedagogies-related communities of practice.

5. Discussions and Recommendations

5.1. The Moment When Teaching Anxiety Mostly Occurs

This study explored the results from a qualitative view of investigating the moment and influential factors of junior faculty’s online teaching anxiety. Previous studies indicate that online teaching anxiety remained unchanged for most elementary school teachers in the United States and persistently high for Chinese teachers teaching foreign languages [10,11] Differently, moments of online teaching anxiety can be captured based on the descriptive data provided by junior faculty in one academic semester during the online teaching period of COVID-19. The beginning of the first online semester is the moment with the most and highest anxiety based on the five participants’ self-reported data. The assessment period and moments involving student interactions are also the moments when junior faculty feel anxious, powerless, and self-doubted.

The under-resourced working environments and pedagogical issues are the main resources of teacher anxiety, which are consistent with findings of other studies [8,13,39]. Being new to university teaching and unfamiliar with the technology-based online teaching platform amplifies the junior instructors’ initial fear of online teaching. Positive feelings such as confidence and self-efficacy dominate junior faculty’s psychological status when online teaching starts, and the teacher anxiety decreases to the bottom with individual differences in the time and amount. Once the teaching starts, the junior faculty’s attention has been shifted from the general teaching environment to students and lessons. The pedagogical issues become the primary focus, and instructors are devoted to their satisfying teaching based on their teacher beliefs. Student engagement is regarded as the most challenging and widely discussed issue in online pedagogy. Teacher reflection and actions are taken with high frequency and on a task basis to foster student engagement in online classes.

5.2. The Impact of Faculty Beliefs of Student Engagement on Teaching Anxiety

According to Redmond et al. [19], online student engagement can be categorized into five elements: behavioral, emotional, cognitive, social, and collaborative. The instructors in this study have different perceptions and priorities of online student engagement, which is consistent with previous studies. Research has demonstrated that teachers describe student engagement in different ways and prioritize pedagogies supporting different engagement elements [40,41]. This is important because teachers may need to focus on improving specific dimensions of engagement to support student outcomes and success [42]. A teacher’s level of experience and the demographic of the students in a school may also influence how teachers prioritize pedagogies that support student engagement [30].

While Bowen [43] stated that cognitive engagement is the most fundamental form of engagement, social engagement and emotional engagement are reported to be the most influential element of online student engagement by the five instructors. Among all the key illustrators of social engagement in Redmond et al.’s framework [19], students’ in-class participation and active interaction are major indicators. While both student–faculty and student–student interactions are highly valued by junior faculty, self-learning, which normally features student–content interaction, received little attention in this study. Although both asynchronous and synchronous teaching can foster student interaction and engagement online [26], junior academics prioritize synchronous lessons and live participation as more effective and controllable for university students’ learning. Cleveland-Innes and Campbell [44] indicated that “emotion is identified as important to student adjustment to the role of the online learner” [44]. Junior instructors were aware of encouraging and supporting students’ online emotional engagement through various effective learning activities, such as gamified surveys, project-based learning tasks, and fun case studies. Students’ emotional status, including their commitment to learning and self-recognized motivation, positively correlates with instructors’ online teaching anxiety.

5.3. Activating Lesson-Based and Semester-Long Teacher Reflection for Instructors

Effective teacher reflection across the first online teaching semester allows junior academics to continually think about their online teaching and then modify actions accordingly. This ongoing process taken by instructors is consistent with what Schön [45] conceptualizes as a reflection in action. As Howard [46] stated, the very nature of teaching is to revisit curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Junior faculty should be aware of such nature by attending the tailored teacher inductions and training, encouraging academics to improve their reflective practice continuously.

5.4. Reinforcing Mentor-Mentee Nexus within the Department

Compared with the high teacher anxiety of most of the participants, one instructor reported low anxiety at the beginning of the semester due to the prompt support from her Shifu, who had provided one-on-one mentoring before and after her first online lesson. Mentorship is widely used in primary and secondary education for novice teacher development, while some higher education institutions foster peer support between novice and experienced teachers by encouraging mentoring programs. More and more universities have established the “buddy system” or “mentor system” among senior faculty members and junior faculty members and between new faculty and returning faculty.

All interviewees’ identity as the junior faculty may also be relevant to their online teaching anxiety. They may be under the pressure of performance evaluation and academic promotion. Their online teaching anxiety might come from being perceived as under-performed by their line manager or receiving poor course evaluations from students due to inactive online student engagement. Therefore, the buddy system or the mentor system in the department may allow senior faculty members to help junior faculty members establish confidence in teaching by sharing effective practices.

5.5. Creating Task-Based University Program

Although Sunshine University has provided credit-based in-service training programs, participants expect to have more task-based training programs targeting specific pedagogical issues or stages of teaching. For example, student engagement is a popular teacher training topic, which could be specified into behavioral, social, cognitive, collaborative, and emotional elements. Teaching strategies and recommendations should be different, considering the unique features of each element. Workshops on learning theories and general pedagogies are less efficient than a hands-on activity of problem-solving. Besides the taught training programs, instructors can benefit from peer learning at the university level. Community of practice and teaching showcase events themed on specific teaching challenges have many potentials.

5.6. Limitations and Future Studies

Although this study has promising and inspiring findings, there are two limitations that the readers should be aware of. First, our interview questions asked participants to describe their teaching anxiety. Participants used the words “strong,” “high,” or “low” to describe their self-perceived anxiety and changes in teaching anxiety over time. Our focus was to illustrate the changes in teaching anxiety over the academic year that were associated with key moments rather than compare the anxiety level of participants with each other. Future studies could utilize an existing instrument or develop a new instrument to measure faculty’s online teaching anxiety with a quantitative approach and compare individuals’ anxiety levels with each other across discipline and teaching experiences. Second, due to the pandemic prevention, all of the interviews were conducted online instead of in person. If we were to have an opportunity for in-person interviews, the authors could be more observant of the interviewees’ facial expressions and body language.

Building on this study, we will expand our study by furthering the qualitative approaches with a larger faculty sample size. In addition, a quantitative approach may also be added to the existing qualitative study in a mixed-method study in the future. First, a quantitative approach can be employed to measure online student engagement, specifically, social engagement, cognitive engagement, behavioral engagement, collaborative engagement, and emotional engagement. Under these five dimensions, we will also focus on online student engagement with the curriculum, instructors, and peers. Second, the teaching anxiety level is related to the extent of student engagement in the above five dimensions with the anxiety level using the quantitative approach. This method will allow authors to confirm the findings about student engagement and online teaching anxiety. Third, future studies may create a predictive module with various factors that may influence junior faculty’s online teaching anxiety.

6. Conclusions

As online-onsite blended teaching and learning become the new normal in higher education globally in the pandemic era, faculties are constantly observing and reflecting on their own approaches and experiences in online teaching and seeking strategies to cope with online teaching anxiety. Online teaching anxiety may occur at the beginning of the semester or during a large amount of assessment and marking and can also occur with student complaints and inactive online engagement of students. Student engagement is the most challenging pedagogical issue during online teaching, especially social and emotional engagement. It is recommended that universities and departments should encourage peer mentoring among faculties members for peer support and come up with strategies and resources to leverage online student engagement. Finally, the pedagogy training and support should provide faculty with hands-on activities of problem-solving toolkits that they can take away to their own teaching.