Examining Chinese beginning online instructors' competencies in teaching online based on the Activity theory

This study constructed an instrument based on the Activity theory to investigate the beginning online instructors' online teaching competencies from the perspective of the online teaching process and applied it to beginning instructors to examine the validity. Eighty-nine beginning online instructors from China participated in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics analysis, and regression are used in this study. The results indicated that the Activity theory fit the practice well and the instrument is reliable. Chinese beginning online instructors' online teaching competencies need to be improved, especially in preparing themselves to teach online and conducting meaningful appraisals of student learning. While beginning instructors' gender and age had no significant influence on their online teaching competencies, instructors' educational level, online teaching and learning experience had significant effects on their online teaching competencies. Most instructors perceived that designing and organizing online teaching, as well as evaluating students' performance are the biggest challenges to move traditional courses online. Additionally, implications of this study and recommendations for future research are provided.