The purpose of this study was to examine the job structure of online facilitators and validate the core dimensions within the role. Contextually, the job structure of the online facilitators is influenced by the LMS as a major component of online education in HEIs (Pandit & Agrawal, 2022). Playing their role, online facilitators must structure and lead content using the LMS and provide educational support services to virtual students who are geographically dispersed (Berge, 2008; Govender, 2018; Martin et al., 2019). In offering their support services, they are the first point of contact to socialise and conscientise students within their online learning community (Dennen & Arslan, 2022; Grant, 2021). The role requires them to implement the interplay between pedagogy and technology (Derakhshan et al., 2023); hence, their job role is heavily embedded within the institutional LMS. However, several studies that have evaluated the use of the LMS have reported challenges in accurately measuring work outputs and contributions to student success with online education (Kipp, 2018; Mehta, 2022; Rhode et al., 2017). Simmons et al. (2023) also pointed out that web-based structures present difficulties in gaining real-time feedback and thus place users’ motivation at risk. The challenges extend to limited knowledge about the core job dimensions within the online facilitation role and could render the job structure fluid. The predicament creates a job design dilemma that lends itself to scrutiny; hence, the main objective of this study is to validate the job dimensions within the job structure of online facilitators.

The theoretical model of job design represents comprehensive measures of work based on a four-component structure, namely, task characteristics, knowledge characteristics, social characteristics and work context. Specifically, the task characteristics embody the core dimensions within a particular job structure (García-Izquierdo & Castaño, 2022). Over the years, the five core job dimensions have provided a stable model for studying the essential nature of work (Oldham & Fried 2016), and it is widely used to assess the scope of jobs in diverse work contexts (Khandan et al., 2018). The dimension of autonomy showcases online facilitators’ freedom to decide how to perform tasks and activities. The dimension reflects the extent to which using the LMS allows discretion to schedule work, make decisions and choose the methods used to perform a variety of tasks irrespective of the work context (Oldham & Fried, 2016). Task variety, therefore, captures wide-ranging activities that online facilitators need to perform to facilitate effectively (Hidayah et al., 2017). This includes performing instructional design using diverse learning materials, teaching resources, interactive technologies and rich media to deliver online lessons and tutorials (Govender, 2018). Task significance, on the contrary, showcases the response to the diverse needs of service recipients (Parker et al. 2017). Therefore, the dimension represents how well the jobholder’s efforts have a positive impact on the recipients of the respective services offered within the job (Wegman et al., 2016). Hence, the facilitation role is significantly geared towards making a positive impact by providing student support services within online education. The impact should also be reflected in the dimension of task identity, which requires online facilitators to produce an identifiable piece of work showing interrelated activities performed from start to finish (Christensen et al., 2022). Accordingly, online facilitators have the opportunity to complete the whole piece of work, starting from the planning of the online delivery of module content, facilitating using various web-based tools, providing adequate technical support to virtual students and ending with assessment for successful module completion (Martin et al., 2019). Naturally, constructive criticism of facilitators’ performance is necessary, and part of such criticism involves gaining feedback about the outcomes of the actual facilitation of learning (Maré & Mutezo, 2020). The presence of these core job dimensions creates job enrichment, leading to meaningful work experiences, feeling responsible for the work outcomes and acquiring knowledge for work improvement (Simmons et al., 2023). Therefore, the core job dimensions provided a solid theoretical model and motivation used in this study to validate the job structure of online facilitators. The contextual application of the model, therefore, captured the essence of online facilitators’ work based on autonomy, task variety, task identity, task significance and job feedback within the virtual work setting in higher education. Mainly, the goal was to gain insight into the scope and nature of their work.

A convergent mixed-method approach was used to gain strong credibility and rigorous application using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The research questions raised in this study prompted the convergence design (Creswell & Creswell, 2022). The aim was to gain objectivity and subjectivity in the methodological application as suggested by Creamer (2018). To achieve this objective, converging lines of inquiry were implemented to test the hypothesis and to answer the parallel research questions under the qualitative strand. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) under statistical tests was conducted for validity measures and model fitness. The following hypotheses were posed to test the validity and fitness of the model:

The statistical results were corroborated by the thematic analysis procedure as per the guidelines shared by Skamagki et al. (2024). The objective was to find out to what extent qualitative findings help to explain quantitative results. The parallel open-ended questions were posed and translated into sub-objectives to corroborate and support the statistical results while maintaining rigour (Maxwell, 2020). The sub-objectives were:

Ethical approval to conduct this study was obtained from the University of South Africa Ethics Review Committee (ERC), No. 2020_CRERC_028 (FA), and the study was conducted according to the university’s research ethics policy and procedures. Respondents gave written consent to participate in the study. Participation was completely voluntary, and privacy was maintained at all times. The data used in this study have been anonymised. No information on the dissemination of the research findings can be traced back to the participants.

The composite reliability (CR), convergent validity and discriminant validity of the model were also established. Convergent validity indicates how well item indicators correlate with each other within the observed factor. If items correlate highly with variables outside the observed factor than with variables inside the observed factor, then the model will have discriminant validity issues. The results in Table 1 show the model achieved good CR (> 0.07) for autonomy, task variety, task significance and feedback from the job. This means that the total error variance of the latent variables consists of less than 30% of the variance, which is the recommended value (Cheung et al., 2023). However, the Omega-H did not achieve a good reliability score, that is, 0.069 for task identity, which is less than the recommended value of 0.07. The average variance extracted (AVE) score of 0.49 also did not confirm strong convergent validity for task identity, that is, the latent factor is not well explained by its observed variables, particularly item JD19-TaskID, which achieved the lowest score under factor loadings. Table 1 lists the measures that were helpful based on Fornell and Larcker (1981) criterion.

The other observed variables in Table 1 show that the model achieved good AVE scores, that is, > 0.05, and CR was > AVE; therefore, CR and convergent validity were achieved for autonomy, task variety, task significance and feedback from the job. Discriminant validity was also assessed with maximum shared variance (MSV) (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). All variables achieved good discriminant validity scores, including task identity, that is, AVE > MSV for all observed variables, which is an indication of good discriminant validity. Another evidence of discriminant validity is diagonal values in brackets, which represent the square root of AVE greater than inter-construct correlations. This is an indication that no latent variable is better explained by some other variables than by its observed variables (Cheung et al., 2023). Overall, the five-factor model confirms and validates the dimensions of autonomy, task variety, task significance and feedback within the job structure of online facilitators; however, with task identity dimension, lower reliability scores were achieved in the Omega-H tests and the AVE.

In sharing their experiences about gaining work outputs, online facilitators expressed that being able to complete a piece of work with an obvious beginning and end is challenging for various reasons. To start with, their work transpires in both online and offline modalities; however, more emphasis is being placed on the online mode activities and less on what transpires offline (Martin et al., 2019). Despite greater emphasis on gaining work outputs from online activities, getting timely access to the LMS that serves as their facilitation site is problematic. They work on the contingent work arrangement; therefore, many encounter late allocation of student groups and late contract renewals. In real-time measures, work output in an online mode can be seen in the number of weekly tutorial activities assigned to students in conjunction with the level of participation in the lessons, activities and threaded discussions. This is statistically captured on the LMS dashboard (Kipp, 2018). However, late student groupings and activation on the LMS lead to insufficient time to complete all facilitation tasks throughout the academic semester. Moreover, they receive little technical assistance when faced with information and communication technology (ICT) difficulties:

The challenges encountered hindered effective knowledge transfer within the LMS and the much-needed student support. The rigorous analysis revealed more insight that although convergent validity and discriminant validity were achieved within the feedback dimension, there were also challenges with the job dimension. Figure 2 illustrates the challenges.

Task identity challenges had an adverse impact on gaining feedback from the job. The minimal work output also meant that online facilitators had limited information about their job performance. In their reality, there is no regular communication about their job performance, and this created challenges in identifying areas for growth and improvement. This is worsened by a lack of engagement in complete phases of facilitation, which is attributed to late access to their facilitation site and limitations in assessing student work:

These findings reveal that the statistical report generated by the LMS is limited, particularly regarding the actual time spent on the job to produce online activities. The imbalanced emphasis on online tasks disregards work done offline (Finne et al., 2022; Mehta, 2022). Time spent on lesson planning and development, as well as research that occurs offline to enhance learning material, is neither explicitly documented nor recorded in any system. As such, these offline job activities remain invisible:

Considerably, the statistical report does not accurately represent the entire piece of work produced by the online facilitators, making it difficult to identify the tasks performed offline or to use it as a useful tool for effective or constructive job performance feedback (Knight & Parker, 2021). As a result, task identity and feedback dimensions were not fully supported. In terms of the other dimensions, the thematic analysis procedure supported the statistical results for autonomy, task variety and task significance. Taken as a whole, the findings for all the dimensions were integrated to determine the extent to which qualitative findings help to explain quantitative results (Creswell & Creswell, 2022).

The two results gained from both methods were integrated, looking for convergence (Creswell & Creswell, 2022; Skamagki et al., 2024). The endeavour was done to corroborate and validate the job structure of online facilitators based on autonomy, task variety, task significance and task identity. Table 2 presents the integrated results for all dimensions examined within the job structure of online facilitators.

The data integration procedure allowed us to gain a certain level of confirmability for the dimensions of task identity and feedback from the job. Given the challenges encountered within these dimensions, the integrated results showed that convergence was partly achieved. The integration of the quantitative and qualitative findings expanded knowledge about the adverse encounters faced by online facilitators when performing their tasks using the LMS. Mainly, limited access to facilitate the entire curriculum meant that online facilitators could not engage fully with the students and support them adequately to understand their educational content. Their work output was also adversely impacted by the lack of performance measures for offline activities. The statistical report generated from the LMS does not fully account for their job performance therefore, it underscores their total work output. As a result, online facilitators encountered difficulty in identifying a complete piece of work generated from both online and offline tasks. The difficulties extended to receiving feedback about their own job performance.

Convergence was also examined to gain confirmability for other dimensions. The corroboration of the statistical results and the emergent themes was concordant for autonomy, task variety and task significance. Convergence for autonomy, task variety and task significance was fully supported, and there were common concepts across the results. The description of how autonomy was experienced by online facilitators confirmed the validity of the dimension. Their job gives them the freedom to present educational content within the specified framework and guidelines; however, it is not set in stone. They have the freedom to plan for the online classes and schedule facilitation time within the allocated course timeline. The freedom to schedule work was greatly interlinked with decision-making. They have the latitude to choose the types of resources they make available to their students, and these can be as engaging as they choose. Most of them have industry experience, and they were able to incorporate their knowledge and skills to broaden students’ understanding of the course content. Many aimed to use multiple methods to meet the diverse learning needs of their students. For instance, they applied Gardner’s multiple intelligence model, and they use audio material or have live group chats, present case studies with probing questions, post lesson plans or slideshows, and provide students with the opportunity to interact with each other, which helps to model their learning (Camilleri & Camilleri, 2022).

The validity measures for the dimension of task variety were supported by the emergent themes, that is, both online and offline activities were transparent in patterns of data. The description of wide-ranging activities performed online reflected the pedagogical role that transpired in the LMS and further required facilitators to maintain an online social presence to support and engage with the students in threaded group discussions (Khurshid, 2020; Kulikowski et al., 2022). The provision of additional resources such as open textbooks, educational blogs and links to other recommended open educational resources (OERs) enrich the process. The live presentation of lessons using interactive platforms such as Microsoft Teams amplifies the facilitation process and allows online facilitators to deliver simplified educational content to meet the learning needs of diverse students. Fundamentally, efficiency in these activities requires doing a significant amount of research and reviewing learning material and activities for better planning and development of educational content. Most of these activities are administrative, time-consuming and occur offline. Therefore, the converging line of enquiry supported the dimension of autonomy and task variety gained by performing online and offline activities.

In essence, the findings show the significant role played by online facilitators and thus demonstrate task significance. Both statistical measures and expressions of meaningful experiences within the role support the dimension of task significance. Facilitators see themselves as having a significant influence by assisting course leaders in facilitating knowledge transfer and providing student support, thereby growing their skills. They also bridge the educational distance by supporting students who may feel isolated in their virtual learning environment while trying to balance other work–life demands (Grant, 2021; Simmons et al., 2023). Overall, quantitative and qualitative data integration and thematic findings strengthened the validity measures within the job structure and with strong support for the dimensions of autonomy, task variety and task significance.

The web-based tools used to capture a variety of tasks performed by facilitators during the course of an academic semester have practical drawbacks. In particular, a statistical record of the activities on the LMS does not accurately represent the amount of time spent on the job and work done offline to produce work outputs. The difficulty in capturing a complete piece of work underscores total work outputs, which leads to a lack of recognition (Camilleri & Camilleri 2022; Kulikowski et al., 2022). This lack of recognition is detrimental to internal work motivation and could have a negative influence on the critical psychological state of the online facilitators. In the long run, this might hamper their ability to offer effective facilitation services and support students accordingly. To overcome this predicament, there is a need to review the job dimensions of online facilitators to improve their overall performance and virtual working conditions that come with using the LMS as a facilitation site. The endeavour requires collaboration between human resource management (HRM) practitioners, such as organisational development (OD) specialists and top management, to redesign the online facilitation role with the goal of creating job enrichment and internal work motivation (Derakhshan et al., 2023; Van Beurden et al., 2024). One possible way of attaining this is to design and implement job performance standards with accurate measures to improve work outputs transpiring in both online and offline modalities. The endeavour could be done in four ways: The first way is to allow progression into a complete work cycle to preserve the task identity of the online facilitators (Christensen et al., 2022; Foreman-Brown et al., 2023). A complete work cycle of the facilitation role has four phases, which begins with learning analytics (Martin et al., 2019; Rodés et al., 2021). This phase requires constant access to the LMS to critically review learning tools and materials to improve student learning experiences. Access to this type of data will enable facilitators to judge whether students need extra support and motivation to achieve learning outcomes. However, the effective planning and implementation of the facilitation strategies require constant presence to connect and engage with the students (Martin et al., 2019; Rodés et al., 2021). Therefore, orientation is another critical phase that allows online facilitators to make the necessary connections and establish an online social presence to support students effectively. This phase will allow facilitators to create an online learning community where students feel valued and respected for their ideas (Derakhshan et al., 2023; Foreman-Brown et al., 2023; Pandit & Agrawal, 2022). Engagement in these phases leads to an effective use of the LMS, provided student groupings and early access are granted to begin the actual facilitation of learning. The effective facilitation can be depicted through communicating key principles in the subject matter and impactful presentation of online lessons amplified by rich media and visuals (Dennen & Arslan, 2022). Following a progression through these three phases, a final phase is reached where assessment measures are used to execute a systematic evaluation of knowledge transfer. The completion of these critical phases in a work cycle will showcase the facilitators’ best practices, performance standards, competence and dedication to help students master the learning outcomes and thus lead to job enrichment (Dennen & Arslan, 2022; Grant 2021; Kipp, 2018).

The second way is to implement an inclusive system that records total work output emanating from a completed work cycle. Moreover, recording total work outputs depicts the knowledge, skills and competencies of the facilitators through the quality and richness of learning materials developed offline and shared online with the students. Similarly, a role without a clear communication and support structure is futile in a job design perspective. This shows a lack of clear constructive feedback and thus demonstrates a communication breakdown (Knight & Parker, 2021; Oldham & Fried, 2016). Constructive feedback is, therefore, the third way needed to expand and restore communications to improve job performance. The information must be direct and clear to online facilitators (Khurshid, 2020; Oldham & Hackman, 2010). Feedback providers, who are most likely to be line managers, must have a clear intention. The goal must be aimed at supporting online facilitators to become more proficient at using the LMS to transfer knowledge (Maré & Mutezo, 2020). The endeavour will also evoke positive and affective responses from online facilitators. Their motivation to exercise autonomy to perform a variety of facilitation tasks effectively will be heightened. In this case, the expansion of job performance feedback should include regular communication in all phases of facilitation. The fourth way is to showcase organisational support through tailored training to improve job mastery. The results from other studies have shown that job mastery in the delivery of online education has a significant influence on knowledge transfer and successful course completion in higher education (Hidayah et al., 2017; Kadhim et al., 2023; Simmons et al., 2023). By and large, provision of organisational support will improve the virtual working conditions in higher education, thereby mitigating feedback and task identity challenges within the online facilitation role (Foreman-Brown et al., 2023; Rhode et al., 2017).

The researchers encountered limitations in choosing equal sampling sizes to merge quantitative and qualitative strands. However, rigorous procedures in the thematic analysis corroborated the statistical results and strengthened the credibility of the research findings. Future research should focus on the knowledge, skills and competencies required to facilitate through the use of web-based technologies in the higher education context.