Validation of a survey instrument for understanding online teaching dexterity in higher education

Online teaching competency has been treated as teachers' ability to execute standardised online teaching roles. This does not capture teachers' pedagogical agility for manoeuvring a variety of online teaching contexts. This study conceptualises online teaching dexterity as teachers' technical dexterity with managing learning technologies, and their pedagogical agility to implement online learning through subject domain online teaching dexterity, dexterity over online modalities, online assessment dexterity, and dexterity for manifesting care to both students and self. Through an international survey of 163 higher education academics from New Zealand and China, this five-dimension model was validated with exploratory factor analysis. Subsequent cluster analysis identified four distinct online teaching dexterity profiles - All-rounders, Teaching-driven, Tech-driven, and Care-driven. These profiles reveal different teacher professional development needs through their relative confidence in the technical and pedagogical dimensions of online teaching dexterity. The relevance of Online Teaching Dexterity surveys to higher education practices are discussed.