An Investigation of Effective Factors in Teachers’ Innovative Teaching in Online Environments: A Qualitative Study

The aim of this research was to identify the effective factors in innovative teaching in the online environment. This study adopted a qualitative design. The statistical population of the study included exemplary and successful faculty members who had the experience of holding classroomsin online platforms using creative and innovative methods in the year 2021. Of these faculty members, 15 were selected as the study participants using the purposive sampling method. Interviews were conducted to collect data and continued until theoretical saturation was reached. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Based on the findings, the effective factors involved in the faculty members’ innovative teaching in online spaces were classified into five global themes, 10 organizing themes, and 84 basic themes. Based on the findings, faculty participants’ digital competence included the two organizing themes of personal competence and professional competence. Students’ engagement in online learning included two the themes of interests and virtual interactions. In addition, online content included the two themes of content quality and content organization. Finally, online learning-teaching strategies included the two themes of the manner of implementation and effective implementation, and feedback consisted of the two themes of evaluation and motivational feedback. The results indicated that effective teaching in online environments requires the provision of necessary infrastructures and platforms, especially those conducive to the development and improvement of faculty members’ professional, digital, and communication skills and competencies. All these measures should be taken with the aim of enhancing the quality of knowledge transfer and improving students’ academic engagement and achievement in online environments.