Attitudes of faculty members toward teaching online courses: view from dissonance theory

Based upon the perspective of external justification in dissonance theory, a survey was conducted to identify possible predictors of faculty members' attitudes toward teaching online courses. The predictors of satisfaction with reward, effort, and personal freedom were positively correlated with participants' attitudes after teaching online courses but commitment and responsibility were not. These accounted for very little variance. The practical implications for motivating college teachers not initially interested in online courses are discussed in the context of dissonance theory.