with these two course professors teaching online mathematics courses, two additional
faculty members were also identified for the study. The snowball sampling
technique was pursued to find other possible participants for the study but
faculty members indicated that they did not know any other professors teaching
math courses online. Therefore, the search process was terminated and the study
was pursued with the identified four faculty members. The contact information
including e-mails and phone numbers of identified prospective participants were
found on the Internet. Initial contact was made with prospective participants
through e-mails and over the phone. The purpose of the study was explained and
prospective participants` participation was requested. All prospective participants
were accepted to contribute to the study. Faculty members’ involvement was
entirely voluntary. Open-ended interview questions were constructed based on
the literature on online courses. No rules can always be applied across all interview
ANALYSIS
A descriptive qualitative analysis of open-ended interviews involving four
faculty members was carried out in order to identify the current practices of
teaching mathematics online. The descriptive qualitative analysis resulted in nine
categories which were summarized in four themes. The main themes were online
course design, online course teaching, student assessment, and effectiveness of
online courses. Identified coding categories and themes were presented in Table 1.