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  • Published: 25 January 2021

Online education in the post-COVID era

  • Barbara B. Lockee 1  

Nature Electronics volume  4 ,  pages 5–6 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The coronavirus pandemic has forced students and educators across all levels of education to rapidly adapt to online learning. The impact of this — and the developments required to make it work — could permanently change how education is delivered.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to engage in the ubiquitous use of virtual learning. And while online and distance learning has been used before to maintain continuity in education, such as in the aftermath of earthquakes 1 , the scale of the current crisis is unprecedented. Speculation has now also begun about what the lasting effects of this will be and what education may look like in the post-COVID era. For some, an immediate retreat to the traditions of the physical classroom is required. But for others, the forced shift to online education is a moment of change and a time to reimagine how education could be delivered 2 .

research papers on online education

Looking back

Online education has traditionally been viewed as an alternative pathway, one that is particularly well suited to adult learners seeking higher education opportunities. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has required educators and students across all levels of education to adapt quickly to virtual courses. (The term ‘emergency remote teaching’ was coined in the early stages of the pandemic to describe the temporary nature of this transition 3 .) In some cases, instruction shifted online, then returned to the physical classroom, and then shifted back online due to further surges in the rate of infection. In other cases, instruction was offered using a combination of remote delivery and face-to-face: that is, students can attend online or in person (referred to as the HyFlex model 4 ). In either case, instructors just had to figure out how to make it work, considering the affordances and constraints of the specific learning environment to create learning experiences that were feasible and effective.

The use of varied delivery modes does, in fact, have a long history in education. Mechanical (and then later electronic) teaching machines have provided individualized learning programmes since the 1950s and the work of B. F. Skinner 5 , who proposed using technology to walk individual learners through carefully designed sequences of instruction with immediate feedback indicating the accuracy of their response. Skinner’s notions formed the first formalized representations of programmed learning, or ‘designed’ learning experiences. Then, in the 1960s, Fred Keller developed a personalized system of instruction 6 , in which students first read assigned course materials on their own, followed by one-on-one assessment sessions with a tutor, gaining permission to move ahead only after demonstrating mastery of the instructional material. Occasional class meetings were held to discuss concepts, answer questions and provide opportunities for social interaction. A personalized system of instruction was designed on the premise that initial engagement with content could be done independently, then discussed and applied in the social context of a classroom.

These predecessors to contemporary online education leveraged key principles of instructional design — the systematic process of applying psychological principles of human learning to the creation of effective instructional solutions — to consider which methods (and their corresponding learning environments) would effectively engage students to attain the targeted learning outcomes. In other words, they considered what choices about the planning and implementation of the learning experience can lead to student success. Such early educational innovations laid the groundwork for contemporary virtual learning, which itself incorporates a variety of instructional approaches and combinations of delivery modes.

Online learning and the pandemic

Fast forward to 2020, and various further educational innovations have occurred to make the universal adoption of remote learning a possibility. One key challenge is access. Here, extensive problems remain, including the lack of Internet connectivity in some locations, especially rural ones, and the competing needs among family members for the use of home technology. However, creative solutions have emerged to provide students and families with the facilities and resources needed to engage in and successfully complete coursework 7 . For example, school buses have been used to provide mobile hotspots, and class packets have been sent by mail and instructional presentations aired on local public broadcasting stations. The year 2020 has also seen increased availability and adoption of electronic resources and activities that can now be integrated into online learning experiences. Synchronous online conferencing systems, such as Zoom and Google Meet, have allowed experts from anywhere in the world to join online classrooms 8 and have allowed presentations to be recorded for individual learners to watch at a time most convenient for them. Furthermore, the importance of hands-on, experiential learning has led to innovations such as virtual field trips and virtual labs 9 . A capacity to serve learners of all ages has thus now been effectively established, and the next generation of online education can move from an enterprise that largely serves adult learners and higher education to one that increasingly serves younger learners, in primary and secondary education and from ages 5 to 18.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also likely to have a lasting effect on lesson design. The constraints of the pandemic provided an opportunity for educators to consider new strategies to teach targeted concepts. Though rethinking of instructional approaches was forced and hurried, the experience has served as a rare chance to reconsider strategies that best facilitate learning within the affordances and constraints of the online context. In particular, greater variance in teaching and learning activities will continue to question the importance of ‘seat time’ as the standard on which educational credits are based 10 — lengthy Zoom sessions are seldom instructionally necessary and are not aligned with the psychological principles of how humans learn. Interaction is important for learning but forced interactions among students for the sake of interaction is neither motivating nor beneficial.

While the blurring of the lines between traditional and distance education has been noted for several decades 11 , the pandemic has quickly advanced the erasure of these boundaries. Less single mode, more multi-mode (and thus more educator choices) is becoming the norm due to enhanced infrastructure and developed skill sets that allow people to move across different delivery systems 12 . The well-established best practices of hybrid or blended teaching and learning 13 have served as a guide for new combinations of instructional delivery that have developed in response to the shift to virtual learning. The use of multiple delivery modes is likely to remain, and will be a feature employed with learners of all ages 14 , 15 . Future iterations of online education will no longer be bound to the traditions of single teaching modes, as educators can support pedagogical approaches from a menu of instructional delivery options, a mix that has been supported by previous generations of online educators 16 .

Also significant are the changes to how learning outcomes are determined in online settings. Many educators have altered the ways in which student achievement is measured, eliminating assignments and changing assessment strategies altogether 17 . Such alterations include determining learning through strategies that leverage the online delivery mode, such as interactive discussions, student-led teaching and the use of games to increase motivation and attention. Specific changes that are likely to continue include flexible or extended deadlines for assignment completion 18 , more student choice regarding measures of learning, and more authentic experiences that involve the meaningful application of newly learned skills and knowledge 19 , for example, team-based projects that involve multiple creative and social media tools in support of collaborative problem solving.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, technological and administrative systems for implementing online learning, and the infrastructure that supports its access and delivery, had to adapt quickly. While access remains a significant issue for many, extensive resources have been allocated and processes developed to connect learners with course activities and materials, to facilitate communication between instructors and students, and to manage the administration of online learning. Paths for greater access and opportunities to online education have now been forged, and there is a clear route for the next generation of adopters of online education.

Before the pandemic, the primary purpose of distance and online education was providing access to instruction for those otherwise unable to participate in a traditional, place-based academic programme. As its purpose has shifted to supporting continuity of instruction, its audience, as well as the wider learning ecosystem, has changed. It will be interesting to see which aspects of emergency remote teaching remain in the next generation of education, when the threat of COVID-19 is no longer a factor. But online education will undoubtedly find new audiences. And the flexibility and learning possibilities that have emerged from necessity are likely to shift the expectations of students and educators, diminishing further the line between classroom-based instruction and virtual learning.

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Lockee, B.B. Online education in the post-COVID era. Nat Electron 4 , 5–6 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-020-00534-0

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research papers on online education

Online education amid COVID-19 pandemic and its opportunities, challenges and psychological impacts among students and teachers: a systematic review

Asian Association of Open Universities Journal

ISSN : 2414-6994

Article publication date: 21 October 2022

Issue publication date: 9 December 2022

The global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the complete lockdown of almost every part of the world, including all educational institutions, resulting in the prompt implementation of online education to facilitate the students to carry on their learning. These conditions made the researchers study the experiences of online education among students and teachers. The influences of online teaching-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly offered numerous opportunities besides raising some challenges which impacted the overall psychology of students and teachers. So, this paper aims to conduct a systematic review of the research papers focussing on opportunities, challenges and psychological impacts raised due to the sudden shift to online education among students and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

To conduct this systematic review, 19 articles published between July 2020 and May 2021 were considered and reported by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA).

It was found that online education influenced the interests and experiences of the students and teachers and has immensely impacted their overall psychology. So, for the effective implementation of online and blended education, psychological well-being of students and teachers should be taken care of with properly designed instructions, adequate infrastructure or resources and satisfactory technological skills.

Research limitations/implications

In the present study, the students were not categorised according to their subjects or streams, i.e. science, commerce, humanities, medical, dental, postgraduate or undergraduate. All the students were categorised into two categories only: (1) college students and (2) school students. And also, teachers were not categorised and were presented as a whole, as school, college or university teachers.

Practical implications

The current research identified the abrupt implementation of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, which raised various challenges and psychological impacts among students and teachers besides offering them many opportunities in times of crisis.

Social implications

Students and teachers constitute the educational community of society. They should get ample opportunities to develop skills for online education; challenges faced during online education should be identified and tackled, and the issues concerning the psychological well-being during online education for both teachers and students should be addressed to achieve sustained development of online education–blended learning environments.

Originality/value

The paper is the original research work based on the systematic review and concludes with suggestions for the future of online and blended pedagogy while taking care of the psychological needs of students and teachers in online and blended learning environments.

  • COVID-19 pandemic
  • Online education
  • Opportunities
  • Psychological impacts
  • Systematic review

Aisha, N. and Ratra, A. (2022), "Online education amid COVID-19 pandemic and its opportunities, challenges and psychological impacts among students and teachers: a systematic review", Asian Association of Open Universities Journal , Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 242-260. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAOUJ-03-2022-0028

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Noor Aisha and Amiteshwar Ratra

Published in the Asian Association of Open Universities Journal . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ legalcode

Introduction

The global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the complete lockdown of almost every part of the world, including all educational institutions in order to minimise and limit the gatherings/physical contacts in educational institutions to control the spread of the COVID-19 infection. This sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown confined everyone within the four walls of home for a long time, which became a major challenge to the whole educational community ( UNESCO, 2020 ) in their educational endeavours, which resulted in the sudden start of online delivery of instruction, in order to facilitate and continue the learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic. It consequently reduced the physical activity and increased the inactive behaviour ( Yarımkaya and Esentürk, 2020 ) of students as well as teachers which induced serious impacts on the overall quality of life, education, teaching-learning schedules and their psychological well-being.

Although online learning has been a ubiquitous part of our education, before the onset of the COVID-19, pandemic students and teachers had relied more on traditional forms of education. However, during the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, students and teachers had to experience complete online teaching-learning with no other options. Almost all the educational institutions took only a little time in switching to entirely online, distance or remote teaching-learning with whatever possible resources and infrastructure they had in order to control and minimise the educational loss of the students during the pandemic. Thus, such a situation has resulted to influence the overall psychology. It was the very first time for the students and teachers to involve in the complete online, distance or remote teaching-learning experience. In the educational scenario prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the students were familiar with the conventional classroom or face-to-face system of education, and online, distance or remote education was just an alternate and assistive tool for all the students. Therefore, these conditions made researchers all around the world conduct various research studies to study the experiences of online education among students and teachers. The influences of the online teaching-learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic on the one hand offered numerous opportunities, while on the other hand, it posed some challenges which impacted the overall psychology of students and teachers. So, the present paper systematically reviews the research papers focussing on opportunities, challenges and psychological impacts raised due to the sudden shift to online education among students and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Online education and the COVID-19 pandemic

Technological interventions in education have impacted the whole educational system. Technological advancements have made it possible to connect online globally. Online education offers the flexibility of time, pace and place for education to students ( Huang, 1997 ; Jindal and Chahal, 2018 ), and acceptance of online education increased with its acceptability in the instructional transactions in no time ( Huang, 1997 ; Jindal and Chahal, 2018 ). Technological advancements, Internet penetration, sustainable utilisation of resources by saving time and money, providing flexibility and conveniences to study ( Huang, 1997 ; Livingstone and Bober, 2004 ), support from the authorities like institutions and government and development of skills were the prospects that online education promoted ( Jindal and Chahal, 2018 ). However, online education had many challenges ( Mäkelä et al., 2020 ) when it came to its implementation which includes insufficient digital infrastructure such as lack of availability of digital devices and low accessibility with poor technological skills ( Jindal and Chahal, 2018 ). Online education requires to be accessed from the home, office or a single quiet place to facilitate learning with concentration and without the physical presence of any facilitator or instructor, which ultimately creates a situation of isolation or limited social interaction ( Rakes and Dunn, 2010 ; Yarımkaya and Esentürk, 2020 ) and that may consequently lead to inactivity ( Yarımkaya and Esentürk, 2020 ) and low motivation and decreased self-regulation among students ( Rakes and Dunn, 2010 ).

Technical issues may also cause frustration ( Rakes and Dunn, 2010 ). Also, to some extent, credibility of degrees or certificates earned online was looked upon since it did not get institutional acceptance and authoritative support for their implementation ( Jindal and Chahal, 2018 ). But, over time this issue has been tackled ( University Grant Commission, 2022 ). Online education was earlier considered to play supportive and assistive roles ( Huang, 1997 ; Jindal and Chahal, 2018 ), and the COVID-19 pandemic forced the students and teachers to deal with fully online teaching-learning methods and experiences. The sudden adoption of online education made the students and teachers face various challenges and developed a situation of psychological distress. Therefore, the present systematic review attempts to report the opportunities that online education offered during the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges that hindered the way to the successful and easy adoption of online education and the subsequent psychological impacts developed among students and teachers.

to study the opportunities, mentioned in the literature, that online education during the COVID-19 pandemic created for students and teachers.

to study the challenges, described in the literature, that students and teachers faced in the rapid implementation of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

to study the psychological impacts, reported in the literature, raised among students and teachers while switching rapidly to completely online education amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology

Review protocol.

This systematic review article follows the quality reporting guidelines set out by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) ( Page et al. , 2021 ) to ensure clarity and transparency of review reporting.

Sources and search strings: The search process started in May 2021, by consulting the following sources: PubMed, ScienceDirect and Wiley Online Library.

“Opportunities and Challenges” AND “online education” AND (“teachers” OR “students”) AND “COVID-19”

“Psychological impacts” AND “online education” AND (“teachers” OR “students”) AND “COVID-19”

Psychological impacts of COVID-19”; “Psychological impacts of COVID-19 on students”; and “psychological impacts of COVID-19 on teachers.

Selection criteria

The research papers were searched through the application of the abovementioned keywords and search strings.

Exclusion criteria

EC1: Papers that are found common in all the searched databases (removal of duplicates).

EC2: Generally explained psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

EC3: Research papers that include impacts of online teaching-learning but do not include psychological impacts due to online teaching-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

EC4: Reports not retrieved

R 2 = Research papers that have no direct linkage with online learning, that is, which do not explicitly describe the psychological impacts of online teaching-learning

R 3 = Research papers that do not fit well in the criteria/pattern of the present systematic review (it was either a qualitative study or a comparative study of two countries, conducted on various groups altogether, etc.)

Inclusion criteria

The inclusion criterion (IC) for the selection of the research papers for the present systematic review was limited to only those research articles that explicitly explained psychological impacts related to online teaching-learning on either teachers or students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and some studies were used for extracting opportunities and challenges raised due to the sudden shift to online teaching-learning, published from July 2020 to May 2021.

Data analysis

The studies for the systematic review were identified online through three databases (PubMed, ScienceDirect and Wiley Online Library) and random online searches. Then an analysis was conducted by inspecting each article’s title, abstract and keywords. Further, after the application of all ECs (EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4 and EC5), only 53 reports were found which were further taken for full-paper review. The whole process of data analysis was done manually with the utmost care, and no software was used for analysing the content of the selected studies for the systematic review. Thus, a total of 19 studies were identified after the application of IC and ECs as presented in Figure 1 . The research papers included in this systematic review were identified, screened and included by following the PRISMA guidelines ( Page et al., 2021 ).

The finally identified research studies were carefully analysed, and it was observed that the research studies were focused on the broader categories of students and teachers. On further analysis, the selected research studies on students were found to be in sufficient numbers to be categorised as college students and school students. However, the studies on teachers were not found in sufficient numbers to make more categories, and so, the teachers were put in one category altogether.

In the present study, the students were not categorised according to their subjects or streams that is science, commerce, humanities, medical, dental, postgraduate or undergraduate, etc. All the students were categorised into two categories only: (1) college students and (2) school students. And here, teachers were taken and presented all together in one category, may it be of school, college or university teachers.

Thus, the present systematic review was carried out by categorising the sample into three categories, viz., college students, school students and teachers, to study the opportunities, challenges and subsequent psychological impacts that were developed by the sudden shift to online teaching-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The opportunities, mentioned in the literature, that online education during COVID-19 pandemic created for students and teachers

The data provided in Table 1 present the identified opportunities that online education offered to the students and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning came up as an alternative ( Qanash et al. , 2020 ; Haider and Al-Salman, 2020 ; Hasan and Bao, 2020 ) which helped in adopting secure lockdown and controlling infections during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Hossain et al. , 2021 ; Khawar et al. , 2021 ; Akour et al. , 2020 ; Chaturvedi et al. , 2021 ) and, as well as in implementing “social-distancing” along with the continuation of learning ( Shrivastava et al. , 2021 ), in such a critical time. The online teaching-learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic promoted students' engagement in learning ( Unger and Meiran, 2020 ) with satisfaction ( Ma et al. , 2021 ). It also led to development of innovative ways ( Cuschieri and Agius, 2020 ) for learning, acquisition of new skills ( Cuschieri and Agius, 2020 ), and options for good communication among teachers and students for better student-teacher relationship ( Truzoli et al. , 2021 ; Stachteas and Stachteas, 2020 ; Ma et al. , 2021 ) that enhanced the whole educational process. The COVID-19 pandemic enforced  adoption to new educational technology environments which would act as a catalyst for new changes in education ( Nishimura et al. , 2021 ; Chaturvedi et al. , 2021 ) in future.

Also, educators, as a professional group, were predominantly possessed by optimism about the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was prevalent, and the unprecedented emergency implementation of distance learning did not cause them particular concern ( Stachteas and Stachteas, 2020 ). However, it was observed that students were found interested in online examinations as well as in both online with face-to-face examinations ( Dhahri et al. , 2020 ).

The challenges, described in the literature, that students and teachers faced in the rapid implementation of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rapid implementation of online education posed various challenges to all the stakeholders. Most of the students were inexperienced and new to distance and online learning ( Ma et al. , 2021 ; Qanash et al. , 2020 ); due to pandemic-forced online learning, emergency preparedness ( AlAzzam et al. , 2021 ; Unger and Meiran, 2020 ); use of same curricula as of face-to-face teaching during prompt implementation of remote and online classes ( Sundarasen et al. , 2020 ; Stachteas and Stachteas, 2020 ; Nishimura et al. , 2021 ; Chaturvedi et al. , 2021 ; AlAzzam et al. , 2021 ); inadequate learning approach that posed challenges; e-learning content costs were significantly associated variables for more serious psychological distress ( Hasan and Bao, 2020 ); changed instructional delivery and uncertainty ( Browning et al. , 2021 ; Cuschieri and Agius, 2020 ); lack of necessary technological and financial support in developing nations ( Hossain et al. (2021 ; Stachteas and Stachteas, 2020 ) to buy necessary technological tools ( Haider and Al-Salman, 2020 ; Kim and Asbury, 2020 ); lack of concentration, issues of audibility during online sessions, etc. ( Shrivastava et al. , 2021 ); familiarity with digital gadgets, type and quality of Internet connection and socio-economic status ( Khawar et al. , 2021 ; Stachteas and Stachteas, 2020 ) were quite challenging. Also, it took more time to design online instruction than the traditional material, and millennial students were found to be more comfortable although the older faculty members faced many challenges in designing instructions and in the assessment process due to their lack of practice of digital tools. Challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic situation were probing troubles to manage the educational needs by both teachers and students.

The data presented in Table 2 show the identified challenges the students and teachers face due to the sudden and abrupt shift to complete online education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic lockdown made the educational institutions implement online learning abruptly ( Kim and Asbury, 2020 ; Stachteas and Stachteas, 2020 ; Sundarasen et al. , 2020 ) with a limited resource ( Hossain et al. , 2021 ), with little planning ( Sundarasen et al. , 2020 ; Dhahri et al. , 2020 ) and without designing proper online instructions ( Cuschieri and Agius, 2020 ). This also resulted in a delay in the start of online teaching, leading to an unsatisfactory setup for online teaching ( Dhahri et al. , 2020 ).

To study the psychological impacts, reported in the literature, that were raised among students and teachers while switching rapidly to completely online education amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data presented in Table 3 show the identified psychological impacts developed among the students and teachers due to various challenges in adapting to the abrupt shift to complete online education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data presented in Table 4 show the empirical evaluations of psychological impacts due to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic among students and teachers that were presented in the selected studies for this systematic review.

Thus, difficulties in online education were one of the significant predictors of depression and anxiety. Closure of institutions and delayed or abrupt online teaching raised depressive symptoms and overwhelming experience of uncertainty among students’ confidence ( Dhahri et al. , 2020 ). It was observed that the majority of students were reported to have severe to mild psychological distress which was due to the challenges they faced. Students were found to have concerns about the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their future and career prospects ( Nishimura et al. , 2021 ). The reasons for these concerns included the belief that online education may not be as effective as on-site education, anxiety about finding online learning more time-consuming and consequently slow retention in learning online ( Unger and Meiran, 2020 ); lack of satisfaction ( Truzoli et al. , 2021 ); the possible resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak leading to a sudden change in the curriculum and decreased clinical exposure and technical support for online education ( Nishimura et al. , 2021 ); decreased income ( Browning et al. , 2021 ); low quality of Internet service ( Akour et al. , 2020 ); lack of study area that has a conducive environment for learning, retention of information through online learning and loss of direct contact with teachers; lack of regular and routine activities ( Hossain et al. , 2021 ) and a desire to return to the previous methods of work ( Stachteas and Stachteas, 2020 ) were the significant challenges which made it more stressful. Teachers also felt distressed for being unable to help their students, faced hard times rethinking their approach to engaging the students; consequently, they felt isolated and complained about an imbalance between work and home and dismay about their professional identity in online interactions ( Kim and Asbury, 2020 ) was also observed. Despite teachers’ best efforts, the students continuously experienced increased levels of distress due to uncertainties ( AlAzzam et al. , 2021 ), and psychosomatic disorders were also significantly observed ( Haider and Al-Salman, 2020 ) among teachers also.

The COVID-19 pandemic had been a period that highlighted all these aspects of online education viz. , opportunities, challenges and psychological impacts simultaneously. From the present systematic review, it has been observed that online education alone has undoubtedly offered opportunities at all times; however, the challenges were only due to poor planning, inexperienced or unskilled handling and lack of resources and insufficient authoritative support, which ultimately has an adverse effect on the mental health. However, a well-planned and properly designed integration of digital technologies will foster learning activities ( Sevillano-García and Vázquez-Cano, 2015 ), thereby suggesting and supporting the idea of blended learning in our education system as blended learning can fill the gaps that face-to-face and online education cannot accomplish alone ( Owston, 2018 ). Therefore, in view of the present systematic review, the present study suggests adopting blended learning methodologies at various levels of education, in order to provide a healthy and well-planned balance of digital and face-to-face or in-person interactions ( Wycoff, 2018 ) as blended learning methodologies offer various models that can be used to cater to the learning needs of a learner while taking care of the psychological well-being and social-emotional support of students ( Wycoff, 2018 ), thus offering the balanced essence of online/distance/remote and face-to-face or in-person education. However, it needs to be explored further and deeper through research.

The research studies selected for the present systematic review were found to have been conducted in different scenarios and contexts of various countries of the world, which are presented in Table 5 . It revealed that most of the countries were developing nations ( Dhahri et al. , 2020 ; Hossain et al. , 2021 ; Shrivastava et al. , 2021 ) with limited resources, struggling with basic infrastructural issues, and comparatively a larger population with heterogeneity in their geographical and demographic situations. In addition to this, a major concern for such developing nations had been the socioeconomic circumstances such as larger families, low income and other such issues. Also, a few studies were identified from the developed nations ( Unger and Meiran, 2020 ; Kim and Asbury, 2020 ; Truzoli et al. , 2021 ; Nishimura et al. , 2021 ; Ma et al. , 2021 ). However, the single common component among the developed and developing nations that influenced the psychological impacts of the students and teachers was that adapting to a complete online learning environment had been a new challenge for all and everywhere, although online learning has been always there, but in a supporting and assistive role. And, many research studies identified/suggested that students and teachers would be more comfortable when online learning will be provided with some assistance or in-person training.

The major findings with respect to the opportunities, challenges and psychological impacts due to sudden online education amidst the COVID-19 pandemic are comprehensively presented in Table 6 .

Thus, the present study also revealed that the students demanded the physical presence or proper personalised interactions of teachers and peer students for an improved and enhanced learning environment, which suggests blended learning environments ( König et al. , 2020 ) by combining various educational design patterns, mobile technologies and software tools ( Milrad et al. , 2013 ). However, a well-planned and healthy balance between digital and in-person interactions purposefully implemented ( Wycoff, 2018 ) seems beneficial for the students to deal with the mental health crisis in the technologically dependent scenarios in the educational world.

The education system throughout the globe implemented online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic had been a global crisis; it posed various challenges and caused numerous psychological impacts, but like the famous saying of Albert Einstein, “ in the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity ”, it all made the stakeholders familiarise with the new innovative and advanced approaches to education and acquisition of new skills. In today’s world, when inculcating 21st-century skills in the students is ever demanded ( National Education Policy, 2020 ), this motive cannot be fulfilled without online education and digital skills. The influences of the online teaching-learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic offered opportunities and challenges simultaneously which impacted the overall psychology of students as well as teachers. The current research identified the abrupt implementation of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic and raised various challenges and psychological impacts among students and teachers besides offering them many opportunities in a time of crisis. Teaching-learning requirements differ in relation to the degree/course, physical education, sport, gender, socioeconomic factors, etc. Therefore, it is suggested to adopt the ways for better learning and teaching for the students and teachers, respectively, and most importantly keeping the psychological well-being of the students and teachers. Thus, the present systematic review study concluded that the quality of online education should be enhanced and must be student-centred to meet their educational requirements. Furthermore, there is a need for regular counselling and other measures to enhance the students’ experiences which would be free from psychological stresses. Students and teachers constitute the educational community of society. They should get ample opportunities to develop their skills; their challenges should be tackled, and the issues harming their psychological well-being should be addressed to achieve sustained development. Moreover, it is suggested that the blended learning methodologies should be considered as it offers strategies and models that allow the students to become a part of a resilient education system in a comfortable manner that does not exert excess stress on a monotonous learning environment. Furthermore, it is recommended for the future of online and blended pedagogy to take care of the psychological well-being of both students and teachers in the teaching-learning process. It is suggested that future research may be undertaken by categorising the students and teachers according to different steams or subjects; also, teachers could be further categorised as school teachers and college or university teachers to know their opinions and situations of psychological well-being so that this aspect could also be considered while making policies and designing curriculum for students.

research papers on online education

Selection process undertaken for the application of ECs and IC for data analysis

Identified opportunities from selected research papers

Identified challenges from selected research papers

Identified psychological impacts from selected research papers

Empirical evaluation of psychological impacts in the selected studies

Identified countries from the selected studies

Rapid implementation of online education amid COVID-19

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Kim , L.E. and Asbury , K. ( 2020 ), “ Like a rug had been pulled from under you: the impact of COVID-19 on teachers in England during the first six weeks of the UK lockdown ”, British Journal of Educational Psychology , Vol.  90 , pp.  1062 - 1083 , doi: 10.1111/bjep.12381 .

König , J. , Jäger-Biela , D. and Glutsch , N. ( 2020 ), “ Adapting to online teaching during COVID-19 school closure: teacher education and teacher competence effects among early career teachers in Germany ”, European Journal of Teacher Education , Vol.  43 No.  4 , pp.  608 - 622 , doi: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1809650 .

Livingstone , S. and Bober , M. ( 2004 ), “ Taking up online opportunities? Children’s uses of the internet for education, communication and participation ”, E-learning and Digital Media , Vol.  1 No.  3 , pp.  395 - 419 , doi: 10.2304/elea.2004.1.3.5 .

Ma , Z. , Idris , S. , Zhang , Y. , Zewen , L. , Wali , A. , Ji , Y. , Pan , Q. and Baloch , Z. ( 2021 ), “ The impact of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak on education and mental health of Chinese children aged 7-15 years: an online survey ”, BMC Pediatrics , Vol.  21 No.  95 , doi: 10.1186/s12887-021-02550-1 .

Mäkelä , T. , Mehtälä , S. , Clements , K. and Seppä , J. ( 2020 ), “ Schools went online over one weekend – opportunities and challenges for online education related to the COVID-19 crisis ”, Proceedings of EdMedia + Innovate Learning , Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) , The Netherlands , pp.  77 - 85 , available at: https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/217288/ ( accessed 25 July 2022 ).

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Nishimura , Y. , Ochi , K. , Tokumasu , K. , Obika , M. , Hagiya , H. , Kataoka , H. and Otsuka , F. ( 2021 ), “ Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological distress of medical students in Japan: cross-sectional survey study ”, Journal of Medical Internet Research , Vol.  23 No.  2 , e25232 , doi: 10.2196/25232 , PMID: 33556033; PMCID: PMC7894621 .

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

An observational study of engineering online education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Biomedical Engineering, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America, Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

ORCID logo

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Engineering Management, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Chemical Engineering, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Engineering Management, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America, College of Engineering, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

  • Shadnaz Asgari, 
  • Jelena Trajkovic, 
  • Mehran Rahmani, 
  • Wenlu Zhang, 
  • Roger C. Lo, 
  • Antonella Sciortino

PLOS

  • Published: April 15, 2021
  • https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041
  • Reader Comments

Fig 1

The COVID-19 pandemic compelled the global and abrupt conversion of conventional face-to-face instruction to the online format in many educational institutions. Urgent and careful planning is needed to mitigate negative effects of pandemic on engineering education that has been traditionally content-centered, hands-on and design-oriented. To enhance engineering online education during the pandemic, we conducted an observational study at California State University, Long Beach (one of the largest and most diverse four-year university in the U.S.). A total of 110 faculty members and 627 students from six engineering departments participated in surveys and answered quantitative and qualitative questions to highlight the challenges they experienced during the online instruction in Spring 2020. Our results identified various issues that negatively influenced the online engineering education including logistical/technical problems, learning/teaching challenges, privacy and security concerns and lack of sufficient hands-on training. For example, more than half of the students indicated lack of engagement in class, difficulty in maintaining their focus and Zoom fatigue after attending multiple online sessions. A correlation analysis showed that while semi-online asynchronous exams were associated with an increase in the perceived cheating by the instructors, a fully online or open-book/open-note exams had an association with a decrease in instructor’s perception of cheating. To address various identified challenges, we recommended strategies for educational stakeholders (students, faculty and administration) to fill the tools and technology gap and improve online engineering education. These recommendations are practical approaches for many similar institutions around the world and would help improve the learning outcomes of online educations in various engineering subfields. As the pandemic continues, sharing the results of this study with other educators can help with more effective planning and choice of best practices to enhance the efficacy of online engineering education during COVID-19 and post-pandemic.

Citation: Asgari S, Trajkovic J, Rahmani M, Zhang W, Lo RC, Sciortino A (2021) An observational study of engineering online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0250041. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041

Editor: Mohammed Saqr, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SWEDEN

Received: November 22, 2020; Accepted: March 30, 2021; Published: April 15, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Asgari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: This research is partially supported by CSULB Champions program through Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1. Introduction

Engineering education has been traditionally content-centered, hands-on, design-oriented, and focused on the development of critical thinking or problem-solving skills [ 1 ]. Various pedagogical methodologies have shown efficacy in enhancement of engineering education including active learning [ 2 ], flipped classroom [ 3 ] and project-based learning [ 4 – 6 ]. Over the last decade, online education has become a viable component of higher education in engineering subfields such as electrical and computer engineering, computer science and information technology especially at the master’s or post-graduate level [ 7 ].

Although the online education has not been a new concept to educators in general, the COVID-19 pandemic introduced an unprecedented and global need to explore online teaching/learning opportunities within the entire spectrum of educational levels and majors. According to the UNESCO, since the onset of pandemic, more than 1.5 billion students worldwide (90.1% of total enrolled learners) have been affected by the COVID-19 closures and subsequent educational changes [ 8 ]. The sudden closure of most educational institutions around the world compelled the conversion of the face-to-face instruction into a fully online (or blended/hybrid) format in a short transitional time. As a result, academic institutions that were mainly focused on traditional face-to-face instructions encountered various challenges in this transition [ 9 ].

Urgent, careful and evidence-based planning is needed to mitigate the impact of pandemic on engineering education especially for vulnerable, disadvantaged and underrepresented students facing substantial challenges beyond their academic responsibilities, including family obligations, financial burden and additional employments [ 10 – 12 ]. Additional efforts need to be taken to guarantee that the online instruction of engineering courses still meets the rigorous requirements of the program accreditations such as Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

Despite the existing literature on online engineering education, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no thorough (quantitative and qualitive) analysis of challenges and factors affecting the pandemic online engineering education in the universities that were mainly offering face-to-face classes pre-pandemic. This work is aimed for addressing this gap by considering the following two questions:

  • What are the main challenges influencing online engineering education during COVID-19 pandemic for institutions that were mainly focused on traditional face-to-face instruction pre-COVID?
  • What are the empirical insight and recommendations to address these challenges?

Sloan’s online learning consortium has defined the five pillars of high-quality online education as: learning effectiveness, student satisfaction, faculty satisfaction, access, scale, and cost [ 1 ]. Given these factors, we designed and conducted surveys among engineering faculty members and students at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) to systematically investigate the challenges encountered during the abrupt transition from face-to-face to the online mode of instruction in Spring 2020. This paper presents the results of the conducted surveys and propose solutions for the improvement of online engineering education. Sharing the results of this observational study with other educators can facilitate a more robust continuity of engineering education during ongoing pandemic. It can also aid with overall improvement and consequently further promotion of online engineering education in the post-pandemic era especially for universities that were previously focused on traditional face-to-face instruction. CSULB is one of the most diverse universities in the U.S. in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, financial and cultural characteristics (e.g. with a large percentage of first-generation or low-income students). Thus, the results of this study can especially help the institutions with similar demographics to enhance their online engineering education during and post-pandemic.

1.1. Related work

The existing literature has identified several challenges that need to be considered for the effective design and offering of online courses:

  • Converting a course from conventional face-to-face to the online format is time consuming and requires the instructor’s familiarity with (or willingness to learn about) online learning pedagogy and instructional tools, including the learning management system (LMS) [ 13 ].
  • Some students prefer to learn difficult concepts face-to-face [ 14 ] and believe that face-to-face instructions provide deeper level of learning compared to the online [ 15 ].
  • Designing a fair, equitable, and rigorous assessment to minimize cheating and plagiarism is difficult in online environment [ 16 ].
  • A successful education requires creating and maintaining a reliable and robust infrastructure that supports both faculty and students [ 7 , 17 – 19 ].
  • Hands-on training to work with equipment, instruments, and materials in a controlled laboratory setting is an inherent and necessary aspect of a successful engineering education [ 1 , 10 ]. Addressing this essential aspect within a fully online teaching platform is challenging particularly at the undergraduate level.

Recently, several studies have tried to identify the major factors and best practices that contribute to the acceptance, assimilation and success of online education including course design, course content support, instructor’s personal characteristics and students’ familiarity with and access to technical resources [ 20 – 22 ]. Due to sudden conversion to online instructions, caused be COVID-19, faculty and students at academic institutions, mainly focused on traditional face-to-face instruction, encountered various challenges. As the pandemic continues, a small body of literature on educational impact of COVID-19 is starting to emerge. A group of investigators conducted a U.S. nationwide survey study among faculty and students of STEM fields in June 2020. Their results highlighted the gender disparities in online learning during pandemic: female faculty and students reported more challenges in technological issues and adapting to remote learning compared with their male peers [ 12 ].They also found out that 35.5% of doctoral students, 18.0% of master’s students and 7.6% of undergraduate students would have a delayed graduation due to pandemic [ 11 ]. Hispanic and Black undergraduates were two times and 1.7 times more likely, respectively, to delay graduation relative to Whites.

Dhawan presented a comprehensive literature review on the existing pedagogical approaches for the online instruction while identifying the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of adopting each approach for the online education during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 9 ].

Vielma and Brey conducted a qualitative surveying from 170 students who took asynchronous classes within two engineering departments (biomedical engineering and chemical engineering) at a U.S. Hispanic-serving institution [ 10 ]. The goal was to assess the effectiveness of their online education during pandemic. Their results indicated the students’ need in having synchronous instructional content (in addition to asynchronous content) to enhance the social component of learning.

Almaiah et al. conducted a semi-structured interview (using a list of general topics as interview guideline instead of a structured list of questions) with 30 students and 31 experts in the field of information technology from six universities in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Their goal was to identify the challenges that impede the successful employment of online education during pandemic in developing countries and provide educational stakeholders with useful guidelines to enhance education efficacy.

Our work conducts a thorough ( quantitative and qualitive ) analysis of challenges and factors affecting the online education of engineering courses by conducting surveys among students and faculty members from various engineering subfields at one of the largest and most diverse four-year U.S universities (CSULB). Thus, the presented work has several unique aspects that distinguish it from the few existing studies focused on online education during pandemic, such as the use of both quantitative and qualitative survey questions, and participation of large number of engineering students and faculty from various subfields and diverse backgrounds. Our observational study provides empirical evidence for various solutions we propose to enhance online engineering education during and post-pandemic, especially for those universities with limited resources, or with a large population of minority, first-generation and low-income students.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. engineering education at csulb.

California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is one of the largest and most diverse four-year universities in the U.S. Approximately 52% of CSULB student body are NSF-defined underrepresented minority including 59.2% female, 46.9% Hispanic, 4.5% African American and 1% Native American [ 23 ]. As a result, CSULB is recognized as a minority serving institution: namely Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander-Serving Institution. Also, more than half of our students are low-income or first-generation college students. CSULB College of Engineering (COE) currently has more than 250 faculty and 5000 students (undergraduate and graduate). COE offers a total of 11 programs that are hosted by six departments: Biomedical Engineering (BME), Chemical Engineering (CHE), Civil Engineering & Construction Engineering Management (CECEM), Computer Engineering & Computer Science (CECS), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (MAE). The majority of the courses in COE were offered face-to-face prior to pandemic. Since 2010, CSULB has been using an LMS called BeachBoard (BB) – a customized version of "Brightspace" platform developed and supported by "Desire 2 Learn" company. BB provides various features to facilitate the course instruction, including a robust platform for communication between the instructor and students, sharing course materials and recorded lectures with students, discussion forums, design and management of assessments, assignments and grades. Prior to pandemic, while some CSULB faculty members had been employing (at least some of) BB features (e.g. gradebook) for their instruction on a regular basis, many others had opted out as its usage has not been mandatory.

The unprecedented circumstances of global COVID-19 pandemic forced the swift conversion of the mode of instruction from face-to-face to fully online for all CSULB engineering programs (including 349 courses for a total of 1004 sections) within a transitional period of 10 days in March 2020. Hence, the teaching materials and assessment methods had to be developed “on the fly”. CSULB advised instructors to mainly focus on learning/using BB (and Zoom videoconferencing) to convert their instructions to the online format. This recommendation seemed reasonable given the availability and practicality of BB features. However, both our students and faculty encountered various challenges during the online instruction in Spring 2020. By the end of the semester in May 2020, CSULB announced that Fall 2020 semester was also going to be in the alternative mode of instructions. Thus, 313 engineering courses were scheduled to be offered in synchronous fully online format. 18 additional classes were exempted and offered in hybrid/blended format. These were the classes where the face-to-face component is considered essential to meet the course learning outcomes and therefore could not be conducted fully online, (e.g. laboratories and senior design capstone projects).

2.2. Surveys

Our goal was to identify and study the magnitude of various issues that our faculty and students encountered during the six weeks of online instruction in Spring 2020 (March 23-May 8) and plan for an enhanced online instruction in Fall 2020. The faculty and student surveys were designed holistically considering the overall verbal feedback received from stakeholders during the Spring 2020 online instruction. The faculty survey consisted of 10 multiple-choice and 2 free-response questions, while student survey included 8 multiple-choice questions with fill-in or additional comment options for each question.

The faculty survey questions covered a variety of online teaching issues including, but not limited to, the lack of access to necessary hardware (e.g. computer/tablet, stylus, scanner/printer, microphone/headset, camera), software and reliable internet connection. Some questions focused on various learning assessment methods that instructors used in Spring 2020 (or the ones they were planning to use in Fall 2020) including open-book or closed-book exams, synchronous or asynchronous exams, fully-online exam (using randomized questions on BB) or semi-online exams (where students solve the assigned problems on a paper, then scan and upload their solutions on BB). Some questions focused on proctoring exams and the instructors’ perceived prevalence of cheating/plagiarism. Faculty were also asked to indicate the topics that they were interested to enhance their skills on, e.g., basic or advanced BB features, Zoom features, automatic grading, etc. The two open-ended questions provided instructors additional opportunities to comment about their online teaching experience and make any suggestion or request to COE that could help with improvement of online instruction in Fall 2020.

The student survey was designed to identify the challenges students confronted during online instruction in Spring 2020, including lack of access to hardware, software, reliable internet connection, quiet/private space to study, potential issues of balancing study with work and family duties, and stress management. The students were also asked about the difficulties they had during the synchronous classes on Zoom (e.g., lack of focus or engagement, instructor’s lack of familiarity with technology) or during the online exams (e.g., time management, issues with methods of proctoring using camera). Copies of faculty and student surveys are enclosed in the S1 Appendix for the readers’ further reference.

The faculty survey was conducted using Qualtrics over a three-week period (June 20-July 10). Similarly, the student survey was designed and conducted in Qualtrics afterwards (July 27-August 12). This later timeframe was decided based on the assumption that more students (including the incoming students) might be available to participate in the survey closer to the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester (August 21). Participation in both surveys were anonymous.

A total of 110 instructors took the survey where 43% of them were full-time including tenured/tenure track faculties and the rest were part-time lecturers. Also, 627 students participated in the survey: First-year students (4%), Sophomore (14%), Junior (30%), Seniors (35%) and graduate students (17%). Fig 1 shows the distribution of survey participants among various departments within the COE (question #1 on both surveys). We observe that all departments have relatively similar representations in terms of percentage of faculty and student participants in respective surveys (9% BME, 5–10% CHE, 15–23% CECEM, 19–22% CECS, 18–22% EE, and 21–26% MAE).

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Distribution of the survey participants among various departments within the college of Engineering: (A) Faculty participants; (B) Student participants.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.g001

These percentages are consistent with the size of our departments in terms of total number of faculty and students. Therefore, our survey sample population could be a good representative of the general COE populations in terms of existing majors.

3.1. Logistical challenges for both students and faculty

Fig 2 shows the percentages of survey respondents who indicated various logistical challenges they had during the online instruction period of Spring 2020 (question #3 on the faculty survey and question #3 on the student survey). Close to 15% of the faculty had issues with software license or no access to personal computer/tablet. About 20% of the faculty did not have access to microphone/headset or printer/scanner. 23% of faculty had no reliable internet connection, while 32% had no access to webcam or camera for the online instruction. Finally, 47% of the faculty indicated that they had no access to or had technical difficulties with online writing tools. Among the student respondents, 1% had no access to any computer/tablet, while close to 5% had only access to a shared computer at home. 3% had no internet connection, while 26% had issues with reliability of their internet. 28% indicated having issues with software access, while 26% had no printer/scanner at home.

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The horizontal access represents the percentage of survey participants who indicated the corresponding challenge. (A) Faculty respondents; (B) Student respondents.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.g002

3.2. Students challenges with online instruction

Fig 3 summarizes the prevalence of challenges students had with online instruction during Spring 2020 (questions # 3–6 on the student survey). About 70% of students indicated difficulty in maintaining their focus or experiencing Zoom fatigue after attending multiple online sessions. 55% of students felt social disconnection from their classmates/peers, while 64% did not feel engaged during the online classes. 60% of the students felt there was a lack of clear guidance or communication from the instructors. Also, a quarter of students had issues with online submission of assignments and exams, mainly due to the lack of access to printer/scanner as we learned from students’ optional comments. About 40% of students had technical difficulty and ineptness issues with using or navigating through Zoom or BB. 48% of the students experienced time management issues during the online exams. In optional comments, some students expressed their frustration with not being able to go back to previous questions (a BB feature for the instructors to limit cheating). 23% of the students indicated that the unavailability of the instructor during the online exam (in contrast to in-person exam) caused challenges.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.g003

48% of the students specified that they either do not have camera or feel uncomfortable turning the camera/microphone on during the class or online exams (question #7 on the student survey). Optional comments revealed that many participants have privacy concerns with usage of camera/microphone or being recorded, especially if they were living in a crowded home or shared space. Furthermore, some students experienced an increased level of anxiety being watched on camera that hindered their focus and lowered their performance during the online exams. 28% of the students indicated that they had difficulty with balancing work and study. From the optional comments, we understood that the latter issue has been escalated for many during pandemic. Some parents had lost their jobs and consequently the whole family was relying on the part-time jobs of the younger adults (students) to survive financially.

Our survey also indicated that more than 50% of our students did not have access to a private or quiet space to attend the online classes or to study. 55% of students also lacked motivation to study (question #3 on the student survey). The optional comments shed further light onto the lack of motivation: the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and loss of peer interaction/support were identified as the major contributing factors. Finally, 24% of the students rated their overall experience of online instruction (question #8 on the student survey) as satisfying, 37% found it dissatisfying, while the rest (39%) were neutral.

3.3. Assessment methods used during emergency online instruction

Table 1 shows the prevalence of various methods that the faculty used to assess students’ learning during the online instruction of Spring 2020. Semi-online refers to an exam where students solve the assigned problems on a paper, then scan and upload their solutions. Asynchronous exam refers to a take-home exam while a synchronous exam is the one conducted during the scheduled class or exam time. The survey allowed respondents to choose more than one assessment method per question (because faculty might have taught multiple classes, held more than one exam during the semester or applied multiple assessment methods in the same class), thus the sum of the percentages would not equal to 100.

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The respondents could choose more than one option for each question depending on the number of exams administered during the semester.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.t001

We observe that the fully online exams such as the BB quizzes were used by 63% of the faculty. BB quizzes provides the faculty with the convenient option of randomizing the order and/or the parameter values of the questions. The instructor can also limit the view to one question per page for students and prevent them from going back to previous questions. The effectiveness of these options in limiting cheating/ plagiarism, and consequently the reduced need for further proctoring, might have contributed to the high popularity of this assessment method among the faculty.

The remaining assessment methods in the decreasing order of their prevalence were project/term paper (50%), semi-online synchronous exam (40%), oral presentation/exam (33%), and semi-online asynchronous exam (28%). Our survey also revealed that 70% of the faculty used the open-book/open-note exam while 33% tried closed-book/closed note exams. The preference of open-book/open-note exam among faculty could be also justified by the decreased need for proctoring tools. In fact, our data (faculty survey question #7) revealed that among those faculty who employed open-book/open-note exam, only 27% used Zoom camera and microphone for proctoring of the exam. 21% used lockdown browsers (e.g. respondus), while 61% did not have any proctoring. However, when the exams were closed-book/closed-note, 56% of the faculty decided to proctor the exam using Zoom camera and microphone, 18% chose to use the lockdown browsers and 35% did not proctor. We also evaluated the association of instructors’ perception of cheating/plagiarism with various assessment methods by calculating the Pearson correlation of faculty’s assessment methods with their trichotomized perception of online cheating (less cheating, the same, more cheating) relative to that of face-to-face (faculty survey question #9). The results revealed no statistically significant correlation between perception of cheating and assessment methods except for the following: Semi-online asynchronous exam (correlation = 0.23, p-value = 0.01) and Closed-note/Closed-book (correlation = 0.21, p-value = 0.03). This data analysis shows that semi-online asynchronous and closed-book exams were associated with an increase in the perceived cheating,

3.4. Perceived faculty skills that needed enhancement

Faculty indicated various topics that they were interested to enhance their skills in, as summarized in Table 2 .

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Respondents could choose as many topics as they were interested to learn.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.t002

About 60% of the faculty needed to learn about the advanced features of BB (e.g. how to create online surveys or make quizzes with randomized questions or personalized parameter values). Also, more than half of the faculty were interested in learning about semi-automatic grading tools (e.g. Gradescope). Close to 40% of the faculty needed to learn how to create a syllabus for an online class or become more competent with using Zoom features. A similar percentage of participants indicated interest in enhancing their multimedia skills (e.g. working with Kaltura Capture, Camtasia or Snagit). Finally, 26% of the faculty needed more training to become familiar with basic features of BB. In the optional comments (faculty survey questions #11–12), some faculty members expressed their concerns about the delivery of the hands-on components of their courses and requested some general guideline on how to address this issue for an online instruction.

4. Discussion

In this section, we will discuss the challenges we identified and propose relevant interventions to improve the online delivery of engineering courses during pandemic.

4.1. Student challenges

Our results revealed that a quarter of our students did not have access to reliable internet connection, triggering a concern about widening of the digital equity gap among students due to COVID-19 pandemic. With COVID-19 and the abrupt transition to online teaching, access to reliable internet connection and personal computer/tablet have become major factors affecting the learning outcomes for students. To address this issue, institution can provide WiFi access on campus’s open areas and well-ventilated buildings while monitoring for social distancing and sanitizing the surfaces frequently. For those who require computing devices, a loaner program can be implemented where students can borrow laptops for a certain period of time to access the course materials and complete the course requirements. The institution can also provide a virtual desktop environment for students to access all necessary software. Using free scanning applications on smartphones or tablets can address the lack of access to scanners.

Our survey also indicated that about 30% of engineering students had work-life balance issues, while 55% of students lacked motivation, and 50% did not have access to a private space to attend classes. These results are consistent with those reported in a recent study conducted at Biomedical and Chemical Engineering departments of a Hispanic-serving institution [ 10 ]. While the percentage of our students who had issues with lack of motivation or private space seemed to be higher, both studies highlight the necessity of providing more socio-emotional support for students during the difficult times of pandemic.

Students identified various challenges they experienced in online synchronous instruction of courses through Zoom including lack of peer-support/interaction, focus, engagement, and clear guideline from instructors. They also indicated difficulties with time management and Zoom fatigue. Peer-support/interaction has shown to improve the success rate of students especially those from underrepresented groups [ 24 ]. Lack of peer-support during the online instruction in the COVID-19 era negatively affects the motivation of the students. However, the remaining raised issues could be addressed in part by employing appropriate teaching techniques by faculty as follows: breaking down a long lecture into shorter segments with more frequent breaks, encouraging group discussion among students, making themselves available during the exams, providing students with a clear roadmap for the online course, making the recordings of the live lectures available after the lecture is over. The latest would help struggling students to learn at their own pace [ 10 ]. To assist with the time management issue during the exams, faculty can design practice exams to allow students to familiarize themselves with the questions’ setup and adapt with the exam’s style before the actual exam.

Pandemic has caused educational loss, delayed graduations, cancelled internships and lost job offers. The new generation of students who have been away from face-to-face instructions may lack certain learning experiences. For example, there might be a generation of engineering students who performed the majority of their lab activities virtually and thus, lacks true hands-on skills. While the pandemic educational gap will affect everyone, it is likely to impact under-privileged students (e.g. first generation, low income or care givers) more profoundly [ 25 ]. As a result, the socioeconomic factors would constitute key mediators in explaining the potentially large and heterogeneous educational gap. This gap may have long-lasting implications for income inequality and health disparities [ 26 ].

To reduce the educational gap, universities could adopt the practice of developing and implementing diagnostic tools to learn where and how large the deficiencies are. Based on the acquired knowledge, they could offer short remediation programs with long-term reorientation of curriculum to align with student’s learning levels [ 27 ]. For example, a summer session that deals with hands-on aspects of lab safety or experimentations could be implemented. In some cases, close coordination between the instructors who teach the courses in a sequence may be required, so they can develop extracurricular materials or propose activities that would help students bridge a gap in a specific topic. As the pandemic progresses, the flexibility of university policies could also help with narrowing down the educational gap especially for those students with lower socioeconomical status. Allowing students to adjust their course load, timing of assignments and tuition payment schedule would enable them to make reactive decisions to mitigate the educational loss [ 25 ]. A need for further research on this top is undeniable.

4.2. Faculty challenges

Establishment of institutional quality standards related to online education is of paramount importance in online education. Effective communication is the key factor in bridging the divide and reconciling administrator and faculty for an enhanced online education [ 28 ]. A considerable number of our faculty reported lack of access to hardware, software and necessary tools for online instruction. Especially, in the absence of traditional in-class whiteboard, many faculty members indicated lacking an online writing tool. This issue can be addressed by institution’s budget allocation to acquire necessary hardware and tools (e.g. personal computer/tablet with web camera, digital pen for touch screen devices, digital clipboard, document camera).

Development of online learning assessment methods as rigorous as in conventional face-to-face setting to prevent cheating/plagiarism is not straightforward [ 16 , 29 ]. While one cannot propose a single assessment method that would work ideally for all engineering courses and classroom sizes, it would still be interesting to study how various online exams and assessment methods (e.g. online quiz tools within the LMS, open-book or take-home examinations, student presentations, peer-reviewed activities, cooperative quizzes [ 30 ], oral assessments [ 31 ], course summary papers or online portfolios) stack up against each other. Since the onset of pandemic, a limited number of studies (mainly within the fields outside the engineering) have been conducted to evaluate the successes and challenges of the online assessments. The study in [ 32 ] revealed that although the majority of undergraduate Management students required more time and effort to prepare for the online exams (compared to the traditional exams), they regarded the clarity and prompt grading and feedback features of the online exams substantially advantageous. Another recent study revealed that cheating remains one of the major concerns for the online examinations and needs to be addressed using available techniques including online proctoring and randomizations of the exam questions [ 33 ]. Few other studies showed that the online examinations increased the level of stress and anxiety among medical students [ 34 , 35 ]. The added stress was in part caused by the lack of a robust examination platform (i.e., reliable LMS) as well as not providing students with sample online practice exams. Finally, a survey conducted among civil engineering students showed that high-achieving students performed significantly better than low-achieving students in online examinations and there was a significant increase in the students’ dropout rate in the 2020–2021 academic year relative to the previous ones [ 36 ].

Our student survey results indicated that the use of camera/microphone to proctor the online exams can raise equity concerns (for those who do not have access to camera and cannot afford it) and privacy concern (for monitoring students’ private space). To address these valid concerns, faculty are advised to choose alternative methods for reducing cheating during online exams. Randomizing the exam questions by shuffling both the problem statements and the multiple choices, and randomly selecting a subset of questions from a question library with individualized/randomized input variables are viable practical solutions. Fortunately, most LMS provide these options. However, although 99% of postsecondary US institutions have an LMS in use, only approximately half of faculty at those institutions have been using it on a regular basis [ 37 ]. As a result, many faculty members were not familiar with the basic or advances features of the LMS or other tools for effective online instruction. Our survey result confirmed this observation. In fact, our faculty identified a broad range of topics related to BB or other online teaching tools that they felt the need to enhance their skills in. Institutions could address this issue by organizing training workshops, webinars, short-courses, and discussion panels for the faculty to enhance their online teaching skills. At CSULB, stipends were offered in summer 2020 to further incentivize faculty participation in these professional development programs.

Hands-on training is an integral component of engineering education. Following the abrupt conversion of classes to the online format in Spring 2020, many instructors adopted simulations or processing of already acquired data for engineering students to complete their course projects. Our survey indicated the faculty’s need to learn about additional effective ways for providing hands-on training/experience. Depending on the content of the course, employment of “home lab kits” and recording of the lab experiments could partially help. However, design, preparation, distribution/collection of the lab kits or recording of the experiments can be extremely time consuming for faculty especially given all the access restrictions to on-campus labs and additional safety precautions imposed by COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual labs might be a more effective solution. Additionally, remotely accessible labs where the experiment setup is on campus and students use tools for remote control and managing of the setup can be employed, whenever possible [ 10 ].

4.3. Summary of proposed interventions

From the analysis of the survey results we propose several intervention strategies that can be employed by stakeholders at different levels to improve the online instruction of engineering courses. The proposed strategies (the targeted issues and the survey questions that identified them) are summarized as follows:

  • Budget allocation to provide basic equipment for the online instruction to both faculty and students in need. Examples of such equipment include personal computer/tablet preferably with webcam/camera, online writing tool, reliable internet connection (to address the logistical challenges indicated by students and faculty in response to question # 3 of both surveys)
  • Creating a virtual desktop environment and allowing faculty and students to access necessary software (addressing technical access challenges of online instruction indicated in response to questions # 3, #7 and # 11 from the faculty survey, and question #5 from the student survey)
  • Organizing training workshops for faculty/students to further familiarize with online teaching/learning technology and tools (addressing technical skills that were indicated in response to question #10 of the faculty survey and question #5 of the student survey)
  • Providing a syllabus template for online courses including all the important information needed for ABET accreditation (addressing lack of clear communication or instruction indicated in response to question #10 of the faculty survey and question #5 of the student survey)
  • Development and organization of systematic repository of resources pertinent to engineering online instruction (to enhance the faculty’s online teaching skills as the need was indicated in response to questions #10–12 of the faculty survey)
  • Leveraging on the institution’s LMS to manage the course, grades, forum discussions and exams (to enhance the faculty’s online teaching skills as the need was indicated in response to questions #10–12 of the faculty survey)
  • Breaking down a long lecture into shorter segments with more frequent breaks (addressing Zoom fatigue indicated in response to question #4 of the student survey)
  • Encouraging group discussion or problem-solving activities among students such as Zoom breakout rooms (addressing the lack of social interactions with peers as indicated in response to question # 4 of the student survey).
  • Being available during the exams (e.g. on Zoom) to answer students’ questions (addressing the lack of access to the instructors during exams as indicated in response to question # 4 of the student survey).
  • Providing students with a clear roadmap and instruction for the online course (addressing lack of clear communication or instruction indicated in response to question #5 of the student survey)
  • Making the recordings of the live lectures available after the lecture (addressing online instruction challenges and lack of access to reliable internet indicated in response to question #4 and question #3 of the student surveys, respectively)
  • Administering practice exams for students (addressing issues with the online exams indicated in response to question #6 of the student survey)
  • Using open-book/open-note and synchronous assessment methods that support academic integrity. Examples include randomized questions/ restricted time/ question pools on LMS. (addressing the challenges with online assessment methods indicated in response to questions # 4, #7–9 of the faculty survey)
  • Avoiding using camera/microphone to proctor exams (addressing privacy issues with the indicated in response to question #7 of the student survey)
  • Employment of “home lab kits”, recording of the hands-on experiments and virtual labs to partially address the hands-on training aspect of the course (enhancing online instruction as indicated in response to questions # 11–12 of the faculty survey)
  • Using free scanning applications on their smartphones (addressing lack of access to scanner as indicated in response to questions # 6 of the student survey).

Most of the proposed solutions were implemented at the CSULB college of Engineering in preparation for Fall 2020 semester. Our future work will include evaluation of the efficacy of the implemented interventions by conducting a post-intervention survey at the end of Spring 2021 semester.

This work contributes to the developing body of knowledge about the effect of pandemic on engineering education by investigating the challenges and obstacles faced by a large group of engineering students and faculty at CSULB which exemplifies an institution that previously taught face-to-face engineering classes (predominantly), with a large minority population and socio-economic gap. The recommended strategies for various educational stakeholders (including students, faculty and administration) aims to fill the tools and technology gap, enhance faculty skills in teaching online courses by taking full advantage of online learning management tools, and finally, propose effective assessment methods for online courses while considering the potential equity and privacy issues. These recommendations are practical approaches for many similar institutions around the world and would help improve the learning outcomes of online educations in all fields of engineering.

4.4. Potential limitations of the study

Some limitations should be addressed in this study. We investigated the challenges of engineering online education during Spring 2020 – when the pandemic started, and a global emergency occurred. Thus, the reported experiences and perceptions might have been affected by confounding factors related to the onset of pandemic. As the pandemic continues and various academic stakeholders explore and learn about new strategies to better adjust to the new normal , subsequent studies conducted in the near future might provide a more accurate picture of the online engineering education.

We advertised the surveys to all faculty and students of the CSULB college of Engineering by sending announcement emails to their university email accounts in summer 2020. While the faculty survey’s response rate was 44%, the student survey’s response rate was 12%. The low response rate of the students might have introduced some participation bias to the results.

Our main goal of conducting the surveys was to identify the urgent needs and challenges of the general body of our students and faculty without focusing on any specific underrepresented groups. Our assumption was that the demographics of survey participants are likely proportional to those of the college of Engineering. Further studies with inclusion of race, gender and socioeconomics demographics are needed to investigate the magnitude of educational challenges that underrepresented groups experienced during the pandemic in comparison with other groups. Consideration of some institutional data (e.g. grades, faculty/ student perception of learning, financial aid requests) from both pre- and during pandemic would enhance the study, as well.

The current work did not evaluate the degree of effectiveness and sustainability of each conducted intervention. It also did not compare the efficacy of various alternative assessment methods for engineering online education. A follow-up study is needed to address these limitations.

5. Conclusion

We conducted an observational study to identify challenges encountered due to abrupt transition to online instruction of engineering courses during COVID-19 pandemic by surveying (quantitively and qualitatively) students and faculty at our minority-serving institution. Various logistical, technical and learning/teaching issues were identified, and several interventions were proposed to address them. The results of this study add to the developing body of knowledge about the effect of pandemic on engineering education. This study also provides empirical evidence for the proposed strategies to enhance (and consequently further promote) the online engineering education during and post-pandemic. Our future work will include a thorough study on evaluating the efficacy and sustainability of each proposed intervention.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. questionnaire for both student and faculty surveys..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.s001

S1 Data. Students survey data in response to multiple choice questions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.s002

S2 Data. Faculty survey data in response to multiple choice questions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.s003

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Daniel Whisler, Dr. Shabnam Sodagari and Ms. Asieh Jalali-Farahani for their help with designing the surveys.

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column | Teaching and Learning

Online teaching is improving in-person instruction on campus, by robert ubell (columnist)     feb 22, 2024.

Online Teaching Is Improving In-Person Instruction on Campus

Golden Dayz / Shutterstock

Since the earliest days of colleges experimenting with teaching over the internet, the goal has been to replicate as closely as possible the physical classroom experience. After all, in-person was seen as the gold standard, and the question was whether that could be faithfully reproduced online.

But since the COVID-19 pandemic forced instructors around the world to try online education, something unexpected has happened: Professors have found that there are some online teaching methods that work better than what can be done in the limits of a physical classroom. And now that campuses are back from pandemic restrictions, many instructors are trying to incorporate those remote practices into their in-person teaching.

Actually, the phenomenon predates the pandemic. Even back in 2001, an in-depth study of an online-education effort at the State University of New York reported that most faculty who taught remotely found the techniques they discovered online positively impacted their campus instruction when they returned to the classroom. In fact a slew of research over the past two decades has found that teaching online makes professors better teachers in their classrooms, so much so that one 2009 study recommended that “faculty should be trained in distance education methods and technologies and should be encouraged to use those methods back in the classroom.”

It’s a message I’ve been arguing for a while. But now that so many educators and students have had direct experience with online formats, it’s a narrative that seems to be sinking in.

Now is the time to fully embrace how physical classrooms can be improved by online techniques.

Making Learning Active

Students, in particular, seem sold on the upsides of techniques they encountered during online learning. A recent Titan Partners survey found that students are eager to participate in on-campus courses with digitally embedded exercises. Students greatly favored hybrid options, and they preferred digital course materials over print textbooks.

“The online experience has changed student expectations, especially of time spent in class,” says Whitney Kilgore, chief academic officer at iDesign, a higher education service provider specializing in instructional design. “Many are busy adults who don’t want their time wasted.”

After teaching online in the pandemic, many savvy faculty members have recognized that students like the option of being able to watch a video of a lecture if they missed it — or if they just wanted to rewatch sections to review. And that has led more professors to experiment with flipped classrooms , where they can record short lecture videos that they ask students to watch as homework, leaving more class time for more active learning such as working in groups.

My own experience teaching at The New School, a small Manhattan college, supports this style of instruction. Each week, I’d assign several lectures I’d recorded earlier on video. Then, in real time, students and I would engage in extended discussions of the themes I’d covered in my recordings. None of our class time was given to me delivering lectures.

When professors teaching face-to-face adopt online pedagogy, the classroom is transformed into a “blended” experience, moving from conventional to active learning. And that helps students turn from passive to engaged participants in their own intellectual excursions.

Other industries have experienced similar histories as new technologies rolled in. Just think back to the fierce battles between movies and television in the 1950s, when Hollywood worried that TV would put it out of business. Today’s streaming services have led to an unexpected blurring between movies and television, and there’s less concern about which medium is more authentic or “better.”

These days, attitudes are similarly shifting when it comes to teaching.

“Face-to-face instruction is no longer the gold standard,” says Steven Goss, chair of Management and Technology in the business programs at New York University’s School of Professional Studies, where he teaches blended courses. “Faculty who say, ‘I only teach on campus,’ are doing themselves a disservice. Teachers who aren’t thinking about the variety of ways there are to teach aren’t thinking about their full capacity.”

Robert Ubell is vice dean emeritus of online learning at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering and a senior editor of CHLOE at Quality Matters. A collection of his essays on virtual education, Staying Online: How to Navigate Digital Higher Education , is published by Routledge. He can be reached at [email protected] .

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Students’ experience of online learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A province‐wide survey study

Lixiang yan.

1 Centre for Learning Analytics at Monash, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Clayton VIC, Australia

Alexander Whitelock‐Wainwright

2 Portfolio of the Deputy Vice‐Chancellor (Education), Monash University, Melbourne VIC, Australia

Quanlong Guan

3 Department of Computer Science, Jinan University, Guangzhou China

Gangxin Wen

4 College of Cyber Security, Jinan University, Guangzhou China

Dragan Gašević

Guanliang chen, associated data.

The data is not openly available as it is restricted by the Chinese government.

Online learning is currently adopted by educational institutions worldwide to provide students with ongoing education during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Even though online learning research has been advancing in uncovering student experiences in various settings (i.e., tertiary, adult, and professional education), very little progress has been achieved in understanding the experience of the K‐12 student population, especially when narrowed down to different school‐year segments (i.e., primary and secondary school students). This study explores how students at different stages of their K‐12 education reacted to the mandatory full‐time online learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic. For this purpose, we conducted a province‐wide survey study in which the online learning experience of 1,170,769 Chinese students was collected from the Guangdong Province of China. We performed cross‐tabulation and Chi‐square analysis to compare students’ online learning conditions, experiences, and expectations. Results from this survey study provide evidence that students’ online learning experiences are significantly different across school years. Foremost, policy implications were made to advise government authorises and schools on improving the delivery of online learning, and potential directions were identified for future research into K‐12 online learning.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

  • Online learning has been widely adopted during the COVID‐19 pandemic to ensure the continuation of K‐12 education.
  • Student success in K‐12 online education is substantially lower than in conventional schools.
  • Students experienced various difficulties related to the delivery of online learning.

What this paper adds

  • Provide empirical evidence for the online learning experience of students in different school years.
  • Identify the different needs of students in primary, middle, and high school.
  • Identify the challenges of delivering online learning to students of different age.

Implications for practice and/or policy

  • Authority and schools need to provide sufficient technical support to students in online learning.
  • The delivery of online learning needs to be customised for students in different school years.

INTRODUCTION

The ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic poses significant challenges to the global education system. By July 2020, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2020) reported nationwide school closure in 111 countries, affecting over 1.07 billion students, which is around 61% of the global student population. Traditional brick‐and‐mortar schools are forced to transform into full‐time virtual schools to provide students with ongoing education (Van Lancker & Parolin,  2020 ). Consequently, students must adapt to the transition from face‐to‐face learning to fully remote online learning, where synchronous video conferences, social media, and asynchronous discussion forums become their primary venues for knowledge construction and peer communication.

For K‐12 students, this sudden transition is problematic as they often lack prior online learning experience (Barbour & Reeves,  2009 ). Barbour and LaBonte ( 2017 ) estimated that even in countries where online learning is growing rapidly, such as USA and Canada, less than 10% of the K‐12 student population had prior experience with this format. Maladaptation to online learning could expose inexperienced students to various vulnerabilities, including decrements in academic performance (Molnar et al.,  2019 ), feeling of isolation (Song et al.,  2004 ), and lack of learning motivation (Muilenburg & Berge,  2005 ). Unfortunately, with confirmed cases continuing to rise each day, and new outbreaks occur on a global scale, full‐time online learning for most students could last longer than anticipated (World Health Organization,  2020 ). Even after the pandemic, the current mass adoption of online learning could have lasting impacts on the global education system, and potentially accelerate and expand the rapid growth of virtual schools on a global scale (Molnar et al.,  2019 ). Thus, understanding students' learning conditions and their experiences of online learning during the COVID pandemic becomes imperative.

Emerging evidence on students’ online learning experience during the COVID‐19 pandemic has identified several major concerns, including issues with internet connection (Agung et al.,  2020 ; Basuony et al.,  2020 ), problems with IT equipment (Bączek et al.,  2021 ; Niemi & Kousa,  2020 ), limited collaborative learning opportunities (Bączek et al.,  2021 ; Yates et al.,  2020 ), reduced learning motivation (Basuony et al.,  2020 ; Niemi & Kousa,  2020 ; Yates et al.,  2020 ), and increased learning burdens (Niemi & Kousa,  2020 ). Although these findings provided valuable insights about the issues students experienced during online learning, information about their learning conditions and future expectations were less mentioned. Such information could assist educational authorises and institutions to better comprehend students’ difficulties and potentially improve their online learning experience. Additionally, most of these recent studies were limited to higher education, except for Yates et al. ( 2020 ) and Niemi and Kousa’s ( 2020 ) studies on senior high school students. Empirical research targeting the full spectrum of K‐12students remain scarce. Therefore, to address these gaps, the current paper reports the findings of a large‐scale study that sought to explore K‐12 students’ online learning experience during the COVID‐19 pandemic in a provincial sample of over one million Chinese students. The findings of this study provide policy recommendations to educational institutions and authorities regarding the delivery of K‐12 online education.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Learning conditions and technologies.

Having stable access to the internet is critical to students’ learning experience during online learning. Berge ( 2005 ) expressed the concern of the divide in digital‐readiness, and the pedagogical approach between different countries could influence students’ online learning experience. Digital‐readiness is the availability and adoption of information technologies and infrastructures in a country. Western countries like America (3rd) scored significantly higher in digital‐readiness compared to Asian countries like China (54th; Cisco,  2019 ). Students from low digital‐readiness countries could experience additional technology‐related problems. Supporting evidence is emerging in recent studies conducted during the COVID‐19 pandemic. In Egypt's capital city, Basuony et al. ( 2020 ) found that only around 13.9%of the students experienced issues with their internet connection. Whereas more than two‐thirds of the students in rural Indonesia reported issues of unstable internet, insufficient internet data, and incompatible learning device (Agung et al.,  2020 ).

Another influential factor for K‐12 students to adequately adapt to online learning is the accessibility of appropriate technological devices, especially having access to a desktop or a laptop (Barbour et al., 2018 ). However, it is unlikely for most of the students to satisfy this requirement. Even in higher education, around 76% of students reported having incompatible devices for online learning and only 15% of students used laptop for online learning, whereas around 85% of them used smartphone (Agung et al.,  2020 ). It is very likely that K‐12 students also suffer from this availability issue as they depend on their parents to provide access to relevant learning devices.

Technical issues surrounding technological devices could also influence students’ experience in online learning. (Barbour & Reeves,  2009 ) argues that students need to have a high level of digital literacy to find and use relevant information and communicate with others through technological devices. Students lacking this ability could experience difficulties in online learning. Bączek et al. ( 2021 ) found that around 54% of the medical students experienced technical problems with IT equipment and this issue was more prevalent in students with lower years of tertiary education. Likewise, Niemi and Kousa ( 2020 ) also find that students in a Finish high school experienced increased amounts of technical problems during the examination period, which involved additional technical applications. These findings are concerning as young children and adolescent in primary and lower secondary school could be more vulnerable to these technical problems as they are less experienced with the technologies in online learning (Barbour & LaBonte,  2017 ). Therefore, it is essential to investigate the learning conditions and the related difficulties experienced by students in K‐12 education as the extend of effects on them remain underexplored.

Learning experience and interactions

Apart from the aforementioned issues, the extent of interaction and collaborative learning opportunities available in online learning could also influence students’ experience. The literature on online learning has long emphasised the role of effective interaction for the success of student learning. According to Muirhead and Juwah ( 2004 ), interaction is an event that can take the shape of any type of communication between two or subjects and objects. Specifically, the literature acknowledges the three typical forms of interactions (Moore,  1989 ): (i) student‐content, (ii) student‐student, and (iii) student‐teacher. Anderson ( 2003 ) posits, in the well‐known interaction equivalency theorem, learning experiences will not deteriorate if only one of the three interaction is of high quality, and the other two can be reduced or even eliminated. Quality interaction can be accomplished by across two dimensions: (i) structure—pedagogical means that guide student interaction with contents or other students and (ii) dialogue—communication that happens between students and teachers and among students. To be able to scale online learning and prevent the growth of teaching costs, the emphasise is typically on structure (i.e., pedagogy) that can promote effective student‐content and student‐student interaction. The role of technology and media is typically recognised as a way to amplify the effect of pedagogy (Lou et al.,  2006 ). Novel technological innovations—for example learning analytics‐based personalised feedback at scale (Pardo et al.,  2019 ) —can also empower teachers to promote their interaction with students.

Online education can lead to a sense of isolation, which can be detrimental to student success (McInnerney & Roberts,  2004 ). Therefore, integration of social interaction into pedagogy for online learning is essential, especially at the times when students do not actually know each other or have communication and collaboration skills underdeveloped (Garrison et al.,  2010 ; Gašević et al.,  2015 ). Unfortunately, existing evidence suggested that online learning delivery during the COVID‐19 pandemic often lacks interactivity and collaborative experiences (Bączek et al.,  2021 ; Yates et al.,  2020 ). Bączek et al., ( 2021 ) found that around half of the medical students reported reduced interaction with teachers, and only 4% of students think online learning classes are interactive. Likewise, Yates et al. ( 2020 )’s study in high school students also revealed that over half of the students preferred in‐class collaboration over online collaboration as they value the immediate support and the proximity to teachers and peers from in‐class interaction.

Learning expectations and age differentiation

Although these studies have provided valuable insights and stressed the need for more interactivity in online learning, K‐12 students in different school years could exhibit different expectations for the desired activities in online learning. Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory illustrated children's difficulties in understanding abstract and hypothetical concepts (Thomas,  2000 ). Primary school students will encounter many abstract concepts in their STEM education (Uttal & Cohen,  2012 ). In face‐to‐face learning, teachers provide constant guidance on students’ learning progress and can help them to understand difficult concepts. Unfortunately, the level of guidance significantly drops in online learning, and, in most cases, children have to face learning obstacles by themselves (Barbour,  2013 ). Additionally, lower primary school students may lack the metacognitive skills to use various online learning functions, maintain engagement in synchronous online learning, develop and execute self‐regulated learning plans, and engage in meaningful peer interactions during online learning (Barbour,  2013 ; Broadbent & Poon,  2015 ; Huffaker & Calvert, 2003; Wang et al.,  2013 ). Thus, understanding these younger students’ expectations is imperative as delivering online learning to them in the same way as a virtual high school could hinder their learning experiences. For students with more matured metacognition, their expectations of online learning could be substantially different from younger students. Niemi et al.’s study ( 2020 ) with students in a Finish high school have found that students often reported heavy workload and fatigue during online learning. These issues could cause anxiety and reduce students’ learning motivation, which would have negative consequences on their emotional well‐being and academic performance (Niemi & Kousa,  2020 ; Yates et al.,  2020 ), especially for senior students who are under the pressure of examinations. Consequently, their expectations of online learning could be orientated toward having additional learning support functions and materials. Likewise, they could also prefer having more opportunities for peer interactions as these interactions are beneficial to their emotional well‐being and learning performance (Gašević et al., 2013 ; Montague & Rinaldi, 2001 ). Therefore, it is imperative to investigate the differences between online learning expectations in students of different school years to suit their needs better.

Research questions

By building upon the aforementioned relevant works, this study aimed to contribute to the online learning literature with a comprehensive understanding of the online learning experience that K‐12 students had during the COVID‐19 pandemic period in China. Additionally, this study also aimed to provide a thorough discussion of what potential actions can be undertaken to improve online learning delivery. Formally, this study was guided by three research questions (RQs):

RQ1 . What learning conditions were experienced by students across 12 years of education during their online learning process in the pandemic period? RQ2 . What benefits and obstacles were perceived by students across 12 years of education when performing online learning? RQ3 . What expectations do students, across 12 years of education, have for future online learning practices ?

Participants

The total number of K‐12 students in the Guangdong Province of China is around 15 million. In China, students of Year 1–6, Year 7–9, and Year 10–12 are referred to as students of primary school, middle school, and high school, respectively. Typically, students in China start their study in primary school at the age of around six. At the end of their high‐school study, students have to take the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE; also known as Gaokao) to apply for tertiary education. The survey was administrated across the whole Guangdong Province, that is the survey was exposed to all of the 15 million K‐12 students, though it was not mandatory for those students to accomplish the survey. A total of 1,170,769 students completed the survey, which accounts for a response rate of 7.80%. After removing responses with missing values and responses submitted from the same IP address (duplicates), we had 1,048,575 valid responses, which accounts to about 7% of the total K‐12 students in the Guangdong Province. The number of students in different school years is shown in Figure  1 . Overall, students were evenly distributed across different school years, except for a smaller sample in students of Year 10–12.

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The number of students in each school year

Survey design

The survey was designed collaboratively by multiple relevant parties. Firstly, three educational researchers working in colleges and universities and three educational practitioners working in the Department of Education in Guangdong Province were recruited to co‐design the survey. Then, the initial draft of the survey was sent to 30 teachers from different primary and secondary schools, whose feedback and suggestions were considered to improve the survey. The final survey consisted of a total of 20 questions, which, broadly, can be classified into four categories: demographic, behaviours, experiences, and expectations. Details are available in Appendix.

All K‐12 students in the Guangdong Province were made to have full‐time online learning from March 1, 2020 after the outbreak of COVID‐19 in January in China. A province‐level online learning platform was provided to all schools by the government. In addition to the learning platform, these schools can also use additional third‐party platforms to facilitate the teaching activities, for example WeChat and Dingding, which provide services similar to WhatsApp and Zoom. The main change for most teachers was that they had to shift the classroom‐based lectures to online lectures with the aid of web‐conferencing tools. Similarly, these teachers also needed to perform homework marking and have consultation sessions in an online manner.

The Department of Education in the Guangdong Province of China distributed the survey to all K‐12 schools in the province on March 21, 2020 and collected responses on March 26, 2020. Students could access and answer the survey anonymously by either scan the Quick Response code along with the survey or click the survey address link on their mobile device. The survey was administrated in a completely voluntary manner and no incentives were given to the participants. Ethical approval was granted by the Department of Education in the Guangdong Province. Parental approval was not required since the survey was entirely anonymous and facilitated by the regulating authority, which satisfies China's ethical process.

The original survey was in Chinese, which was later translated by two bilingual researchers and verified by an external translator who is certified by the Australian National Accreditation Authority of Translators and Interpreters. The original and translated survey questionnaires are available in Supporting Information. Given the limited space we have here and the fact that not every survey item is relevant to the RQs, the following items were chosen to answer the RQs: item Q3 (learning media) and Q11 (learning approaches) for RQ1, item Q13 (perceived obstacle) and Q19 (perceived benefits) for RQ2, and item Q19 (expected learning activities) for RQ3. Cross‐tabulation based approaches were used to analyse the collected data. To scrutinise whether the differences displayed by students of different school years were statistically significant, we performed Chi‐square tests and calculated the Cramer's V to assess the strengths of the association after chi‐square had determined significance.

For the analyses, students were segmented into four categories based on their school years, that is Year 1–3, Year 4–6, Year 7–9, and Year 10–12, to provide a clear understanding of the different experiences and needs that different students had for online learning. This segmentation was based on the educational structure of Chinese schools: elementary school (Year 1–6), middle school (Year 7–9), and high school (Year 10–12). Children in elementary school can further be segmented into junior (Year 1–3) or senior (Year 4–6) students because senior elementary students in China are facing more workloads compared to junior students due to the provincial Middle School Entry Examination at the end of Year 6.

Learning conditions—RQ1

Learning media.

The Chi‐square test showed significant association between school years and students’ reported usage of learning media, χ 2 (55, N  = 1,853,952) = 46,675.38, p  < 0.001. The Cramer's V is 0.07 ( df ∗ = 5), which indicates a small‐to‐medium effect according to Cohen’s ( 1988 ) guidelines. Based on Figure  2 , we observed that an average of up to 87.39% students used smartphones to perform online learning, while only 25.43% students used computer, which suggests that smartphones, with widespread availability in China (2020), have been adopted by students for online learning. As for the prevalence of the two media, we noticed that both smartphones ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 9,395.05, p < 0.001, Cramer's V  = 0.10 ( df ∗ = 1)) and computers ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 11,025.58, p <.001, Cramer's V  = 0.10 ( df ∗ = 1)) were more adopted by high‐school‐year (Year 7–12) than early‐school‐year students (Year 1–6), both with a small effect size. Besides, apparent discrepancies can be observed between the usages of TV and paper‐based materials across different school years, that is early‐school‐year students reported more TV usage ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 19,505.08, p <.001), with a small‐to‐medium effect size, Cramer's V  = 0.14( df ∗ = 1). High‐school‐year students (especially Year 10–12) reported more usage of paper‐based materials ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 23,401.64, p < 0.001), with a small‐to‐medium effect size, Cramer's V  = 0.15( df ∗ = 1).

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Learning media used by students in online learning

Learning approaches

School years is also significantly associated with the different learning approaches students used to tackle difficult concepts during online learning, χ 2 (55, N  = 2,383,751) = 58,030.74, p < 0.001. The strength of this association is weak to moderate as shown by the Cramer's V (0.07, df ∗ = 5; Cohen,  1988 ). When encountering problems related to difficult concepts, students typically chose to “solve independently by searching online” or “rewatch recorded lectures” instead of consulting to their teachers or peers (Figure  3 ). This is probably because, compared to classroom‐based education, it is relatively less convenient and more challenging for students to seek help from others when performing online learning. Besides, compared to high‐school‐year students, early‐school‐year students (Year 1–6), reported much less use of “solve independently by searching online” ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 48,100.15, p <.001), with a small‐to‐medium effect size, Cramer's V  = 0.21 ( df ∗ = 1). Also, among those approaches of seeking help from others, significantly more high‐school‐year students preferred “communicating with other students” than early‐school‐year students ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 81,723.37, p < 0.001), with a medium effect size, Cramer's V  = 0.28 ( df ∗ = 1).

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Learning approaches used by students in online learning

Perceived benefits and obstacles—RQ2

Perceived benefits.

The association between school years and perceived benefits in online learning is statistically significant, χ 2 (66, N  = 2,716,127) = 29,534.23, p  < 0.001, and the Cramer's V (0.04, df ∗ = 6) indicates a small effect (Cohen,  1988 ). Unsurprisingly, benefits brought by the convenience of online learning are widely recognised by students across all school years (Figure  4 ), that is up to 75% of students reported that it is “more convenient to review course content” and 54% said that they “can learn anytime and anywhere” . Besides, we noticed that about 50% of early‐school‐year students appreciated the “access to courses delivered by famous teachers” and 40%–47% of high‐school‐year students indicated that online learning is “helpful to develop self‐regulation and autonomy” .

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Perceived benefits of online learning reported by students

Perceived obstacles

The Chi‐square test shows a significant association between school years and students’ perceived obstacles in online learning, χ 2 (77, N  = 2,699,003) = 31,987.56, p < 0.001. This association is relatively weak as shown by the Cramer's V (0.04, df ∗ = 7; Cohen,  1988 ). As shown in Figure  5 , the biggest obstacles encountered by up to 73% of students were the “eyestrain caused by long staring at screens” . Disengagement caused by nearby disturbance was reported by around 40% of students, especially those of Year 1–3 and 10–12. Technological‐wise, about 50% of students experienced poor Internet connection during their learning process, and around 20% of students reported the “confusion in setting up the platforms” across of school years.

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Perceived obstacles of online learning reported by students

Expectations for future practices of online learning – RQ3

Online learning activities.

The association between school years and students’ expected online learning activities is significant, χ 2 (66, N  = 2,416,093) = 38,784.81, p < 0.001. The Cramer's V is 0.05 ( df ∗ = 6) which suggests a small effect (Cohen,  1988 ). As shown in Figure  6 , the most expected activity for future online learning is “real‐time interaction with teachers” (55%), followed by “online group discussion and collaboration” (38%). We also observed that more early‐school‐year students expect reflective activities, such as “regular online practice examinations” ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 11,644.98, p < 0.001), with a small effect size, Cramer's V  = 0.11 ( df ∗ = 1). In contrast, more high‐school‐year students expect “intelligent recommendation system …” ( χ 2 (3, N  = 1,048,575) = 15,327.00, p < 0.001), with a small effect size, Cramer's V  = 0.12 ( df ∗ = 1).

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Students’ expected online learning activities

Regarding students’ learning conditions, substantial differences were observed in learning media, family dependency, and learning approaches adopted in online learning between students in different school years. The finding of more computer and smartphone usage in high‐school‐year than early‐school‐year students can probably be explained by that, with the growing abilities in utilising these media as well as the educational systems and tools which run on these media, high‐school‐year students tend to make better use of these media for online learning practices. Whereas, the differences in paper‐based materials may imply that high‐school‐year students in China have to accomplish a substantial amount of exercise, assignments, and exam papers to prepare for the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), whose delivery was not entirely digitised due to the sudden transition to online learning. Meanwhile, high‐school‐year students may also have preferred using paper‐based materials for exam practice, as eventually, they would take their NCEE in the paper format. Therefore, these substantial differences in students’ usage of learning media should be addressed by customising the delivery method of online learning for different school years.

Other than these between‐age differences in learning media, the prevalence of smartphone in online learning resonates with Agung et al.’s ( 2020 ) finding on the issues surrounding the availability of compatible learning device. The prevalence of smartphone in K‐12 students is potentially problematic as the majority of the online learning platform and content is designed for computer‐based learning (Berge,  2005 ; Molnar et al.,  2019 ). Whereas learning with smartphones has its own unique challenges. For example, Gikas and Grant ( 2013 ) discovered that students who learn with smartphone experienced frustration with the small screen‐size, especially when trying to type with the tiny keypad. Another challenge relates to the distraction of various social media applications. Although similar distractions exist in computer and web‐based social media, the level of popularity, especially in the young generation, are much higher in mobile‐based social media (Montag et al.,  2018 ). In particular, the message notification function in smartphones could disengage students from learning activities and allure them to social media applications (Gikas & Grant,  2013 ). Given these challenges of learning with smartphones, more research efforts should be devoted to analysing students’ online learning behaviour in the setting of mobile learning to accommodate their needs better.

The differences in learning approaches, once again, illustrated that early‐school‐year students have different needs compared to high‐school‐year students. In particular, the low usage of the independent learning methods in early‐school‐year students may reflect their inability to engage in independent learning. Besides, the differences in help seeking behaviours demonstrated the distinctive needs for communication and interaction between different students, that is early‐school‐year students have a strong reliance on teachers and high‐school‐year students, who are equipped with stronger communication ability, are more inclined to interact with their peers. This finding implies that the design of online learning platforms should take students’ different needs into account. Thus, customisation is urgently needed for the delivery of online learning to different school years.

In terms of the perceived benefits and challenges of online learning, our results resonate with several previous findings. In particular, the benefits of convenience are in line with the flexibility advantages of online learning, which were mentioned in prior works (Appana,  2008 ; Bączek et al.,  2021 ; Barbour,  2013 ; Basuony et al.,  2020 ; Harvey et al.,  2014 ). Early‐school‐year students’ higher appreciation in having “access to courses delivered by famous teachers” and lower appreciation in the independent learning skills developed through online learning are also in line with previous literature (Barbour,  2013 ; Harvey et al.,  2014 ; Oliver et al.,  2009 ). Again, these similar findings may indicate the strong reliance that early‐school‐year students place on teachers, while high‐school‐year students are more capable of adapting to online learning by developing independent learning skills.

Technology‐wise, students’ experience of poor internet connection and confusion in setting up online learning platforms are particularly concerning. The problem of poor internet connection corroborated the findings reported in prior studies (Agung et al.,  2020 ; Barbour,  2013 ; Basuony et al.,  2020 ; Berge,  2005 ; Rice,  2006 ), that is the access issue surrounded the digital divide as one of the main challenges of online learning. In the era of 4G and 5G networks, educational authorities and institutions that deliver online education could fall into the misconception of most students have a stable internet connection at home. The internet issue we observed is particularly vital to students’ online learning experience as most students prefer real‐time communications (Figure  6 ), which rely heavily on stable internet connection. Likewise, the finding of students’ confusion in technology is also consistent with prior studies (Bączek et al.,  2021 ; Muilenburg & Berge,  2005 ; Niemi & Kousa,  2020 ; Song et al.,  2004 ). Students who were unsuccessfully in setting up the online learning platforms could potentially experience declines in confidence and enthusiasm for online learning, which would cause a subsequent unpleasant learning experience. Therefore, both the readiness of internet infrastructure and student technical skills remain as the significant challenges for the mass‐adoption of online learning.

On the other hand, students’ experience of eyestrain from extended screen time provided empirical evidence to support Spitzer’s ( 2001 ) speculation about the potential ergonomic impact of online learning. This negative effect is potentially related to the prevalence of smartphone device and the limited screen size of these devices. This finding not only demonstrates the potential ergonomic issues that would be caused by smartphone‐based online learning but also resonates with the aforementioned necessity of different platforms and content designs for different students.

A less‐mentioned problem in previous studies on online learning experiences is the disengagement caused by nearby disturbance, especially in Year 1–3 and 10–12. It is likely that early‐school‐year students suffered from this problem because of their underdeveloped metacognitive skills to concentrate on online learning without teachers’ guidance. As for high‐school‐year students, the reasons behind their disengagement require further investigation in the future. Especially it would be worthwhile to scrutinise whether this type of disengagement is caused by the substantial amount of coursework they have to undertake and the subsequent a higher level of pressure and a lower level of concentration while learning.

Across age‐level differences are also apparent in terms of students’ expectations of online learning. Although, our results demonstrated students’ needs of gaining social interaction with others during online learning, findings (Bączek et al.,  2021 ; Harvey et al.,  2014 ; Kuo et al.,  2014 ; Liu & Cavanaugh,  2012 ; Yates et al.,  2020 ). This need manifested differently across school years, with early‐school‐year students preferring more teacher interactions and learning regulation support. Once again, this finding may imply that early‐school‐year students are inadequate in engaging with online learning without proper guidance from their teachers. Whereas, high‐school‐year students prefer more peer interactions and recommendation to learning resources. This expectation can probably be explained by the large amount of coursework exposed to them. Thus, high‐school‐year students need further guidance to help them better direct their learning efforts. These differences in students’ expectations for future practices could guide the customisation of online learning delivery.

Implications

As shown in our results, improving the delivery of online learning not only requires the efforts of policymakers but also depend on the actions of teachers and parents. The following sub‐sections will provide recommendations for relevant stakeholders and discuss their essential roles in supporting online education.

Technical support

The majority of the students has experienced technical problems during online learning, including the internet lagging and confusion in setting up the learning platforms. These problems with technology could impair students’ learning experience (Kauffman,  2015 ; Muilenburg & Berge,  2005 ). Educational authorities and schools should always provide a thorough guide and assistance for students who are experiencing technical problems with online learning platforms or other related tools. Early screening and detection could also assist schools and teachers to direct their efforts more effectively in helping students with low technology skills (Wilkinson et al.,  2010 ). A potential identification method involves distributing age‐specific surveys that assess students’ Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills at the beginning of online learning. For example, there are empirical validated ICT surveys available for both primary (Aesaert et al.,  2014 ) and high school (Claro et al.,  2012 ) students.

For students who had problems with internet lagging, the delivery of online learning should provide options that require fewer data and bandwidth. Lecture recording is the existing option but fails to address students’ need for real‐time interaction (Clark et al.,  2015 ; Malik & Fatima,  2017 ). A potential alternative involves providing students with the option to learn with digital or physical textbooks and audio‐conferencing, instead of screen sharing and video‐conferencing. This approach significantly reduces the amount of data usage and lowers the requirement of bandwidth for students to engage in smooth online interactions (Cisco,  2018 ). It also requires little additional efforts from teachers as official textbooks are often available for each school year, and thus, they only need to guide students through the materials during audio‐conferencing. Educational authority can further support this approach by making digital textbooks available for teachers and students, especially those in financial hardship. However, the lack of visual and instructor presence could potentially reduce students’ attention, recall of information, and satisfaction in online learning (Wang & Antonenko,  2017 ). Therefore, further research is required to understand whether the combination of digital or physical textbooks and audio‐conferencing is appropriate for students with internet problems. Alternatively, suppose the local technological infrastructure is well developed. In that case, governments and schools can also collaborate with internet providers to issue data and bandwidth vouchers for students who are experiencing internet problems due to financial hardship.

For future adoption of online learning, policymakers should consider the readiness of the local internet infrastructure. This recommendation is particularly important for developing countries, like Bangladesh, where the majority of the students reported the lack of internet infrastructure (Ramij & Sultana,  2020 ). In such environments, online education may become infeasible, and alternative delivery method could be more appropriate, for example, the Telesecundaria program provides TV education for rural areas of Mexico (Calderoni,  1998 ).

Other than technical problems, choosing a suitable online learning platform is also vital for providing students with a better learning experience. Governments and schools should choose an online learning platform that is customised for smartphone‐based learning, as the majority of students could be using smartphones for online learning. This recommendation is highly relevant for situations where students are forced or involuntarily engaged in online learning, like during the COVID‐19 pandemic, as they might not have access to a personal computer (Molnar et al.,  2019 ).

Customisation of delivery methods

Customising the delivery of online learning for students in different school years is the theme that appeared consistently across our findings. This customisation process is vital for making online learning an opportunity for students to develop independent learning skills, which could help prepare them for tertiary education and lifelong learning. However, the pedagogical design of K‐12 online learning programs should be differentiated from adult‐orientated programs as these programs are designed for independent learners, which is rarely the case for students in K‐12 education (Barbour & Reeves,  2009 ).

For early‐school‐year students, especially Year 1–3 students, providing them with sufficient guidance from both teachers and parents should be the priority as these students often lack the ability to monitor and reflect on learning progress. In particular, these students would prefer more real‐time interaction with teachers, tutoring from parents, and regular online practice examinations. These forms of guidance could help early‐school‐year students to cope with involuntary online learning, and potentially enhance their experience in future online learning. It should be noted that, early‐school‐year students demonstrated interest in intelligent monitoring and feedback systems for learning. Additional research is required to understand whether these young children are capable of understanding and using learning analytics that relay information on their learning progress. Similarly, future research should also investigate whether young children can communicate effectively through digital tools as potential inability could hinder student learning in online group activities. Therefore, the design of online learning for early‐school‐year students should focus less on independent learning but ensuring that students are learning effective under the guidance of teachers and parents.

In contrast, group learning and peer interaction are essential for older children and adolescents. The delivery of online learning for these students should focus on providing them with more opportunities to communicate with each other and engage in collaborative learning. Potential methods to achieve this goal involve assigning or encouraging students to form study groups (Lee et al.,  2011 ), directing students to use social media for peer communication (Dabbagh & Kitsantas,  2012 ), and providing students with online group assignments (Bickle & Rucker,  2018 ).

Special attention should be paid to students enrolled in high schools. For high‐school‐year students, in particular, students in Year 10–12, we also recommend to provide them with sufficient access to paper‐based learning materials, such as revision booklet and practice exam papers, so they remain familiar with paper‐based examinations. This recommendation applies to any students who engage in online learning but has to take their final examination in paper format. It is also imperative to assist high‐school‐year students who are facing examinations to direct their learning efforts better. Teachers can fulfil this need by sharing useful learning resources on the learning management system, if it is available, or through social media groups. Alternatively, students are interested in intelligent recommendation systems for learning resources, which are emerging in the literature (Corbi & Solans,  2014 ; Shishehchi et al.,  2010 ). These systems could provide personalised recommendations based on a series of evaluation on learners’ knowledge. Although it is infeasible for situations where the transformation to online learning happened rapidly (i.e., during the COVID‐19 pandemic), policymakers can consider embedding such systems in future online education.

Limitations

The current findings are limited to primary and secondary Chinese students who were involuntarily engaged in online learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Despite the large sample size, the population may not be representative as participants are all from a single province. Also, information about the quality of online learning platforms, teaching contents, and pedagogy approaches were missing because of the large scale of our study. It is likely that the infrastructures of online learning in China, such as learning platforms, instructional designs, and teachers’ knowledge about online pedagogy, were underprepared for the sudden transition. Thus, our findings may not represent the experience of students who voluntarily participated in well‐prepared online learning programs, in particular, the virtual school programs in America and Canada (Barbour & LaBonte,  2017 ; Molnar et al.,  2019 ). Lastly, the survey was only evaluated and validated by teachers but not students. Therefore, students with the lowest reading comprehension levels might have a different understanding of the items’ meaning, especially terminologies that involve abstract contracts like self‐regulation and autonomy in item Q17.

In conclusion, we identified across‐year differences between primary and secondary school students’ online learning experience during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Several recommendations were made for the future practice and research of online learning in the K‐12 student population. First, educational authorities and schools should provide sufficient technical support to help students to overcome potential internet and technical problems, as well as choosing online learning platforms that have been customised for smartphones. Second, customising the online pedagogy design for students in different school years, in particular, focusing on providing sufficient guidance for young children, more online collaborative opportunity for older children and adolescent, and additional learning resource for senior students who are facing final examinations.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

There is no potential conflict of interest in this study.

ETHICS STATEMENT

The data are collected by the Department of Education of the Guangdong Province who also has the authority to approve research studies in K12 education in the province.

Supporting information

Supplementary Material

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62077028, 61877029), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong (2020B0909030005, 2020B1212030003, 2020ZDZX3013, 2019B1515120010, 2018KTSCX016, 2019A050510024), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangzhou (201902010041), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (21617408, 21619404).

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Research and application of multimedia compression technology in online physical education teaching task

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  • Published: 24 February 2024

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  • Yuan Xue 1 &
  • Ning Li 1  

Traditional physical education teaching methods are facing increasingly severe challenges. This article studies how to use network technology more reasonably in college physical education teaching and better serve college physical education teaching. The purpose is to comprehensively analyze the requirements of physical education teaching and teaching management in universities, and to plan in detail the functions of the physical education teaching management system to better meet the needs of the development of physical education teaching in universities. Starting from the current development status of online teaching management platforms in Chinese universities, this paper conducts research on the existing problems of online teaching management platforms in higher physical education institutions. Using a questionnaire survey method, this study investigates and analyzes the current situation of online teaching platforms and course resources in 12 domestic higher sports colleges and universities. Starting from the actual situation of online education in physical education teaching in universities, a management platform model that organically combines online teaching platforms and digital teaching resource libraries is proposed. This study indicates that multimedia compression technology has important research value and broad application prospects in online physical education teaching. Through the application of this technology, the quality of online physical education teaching can be greatly improved, teaching costs can be reduced, and a more high-quality and efficient learning experience can be provided for students.

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    In 1927, Sidney Pressy invented the first teaching machine famously called the MCQ machine. In the 1960s, online education originated at the University of Illinois and in 1994, India's EdTech journey finally began in India with the launch of Educomp. ... Ms. Dhawan has written several research papers and presented them in various National ...

  12. An observational study of engineering online education during ...

    The COVID-19 pandemic compelled the global and abrupt conversion of conventional face-to-face instruction to the online format in many educational institutions. Urgent and careful planning is needed to mitigate negative effects of pandemic on engineering education that has been traditionally content-centered, hands-on and design-oriented. To enhance engineering online education during the ...

  13. Effectiveness of online and blended learning from schools: A systematic

    This systematic analysis examines effectiveness research on online and blended learning from schools, particularly relevant during the Covid-19 pandemic, and also educational games, computer-supported cooperative learning (CSCL) and computer-assisted instruction (CAI), largely used in schools but with potential for outside school.

  14. Traditional Learning Compared to Online Learning During the COVID-19

    The Quick-Response Research method using Google Documents was used with 104 faculty members chosen on convenience sampling in five Saudi traditional (face-to-face) universities that shifted to online learning during the COVID-19 outbreak.

  15. (Pdf) Research on Online Learning

    They include: a critical review of what the research literature can tell us about blended learning relative to each of Sloan-C's five pillars of quality in online learning; two papers on one...

  16. PDF Students' Perceptions towards the Quality of Online Education: A

    Allen and Seaman's (2003) recent survey on online education delivered by higher education institutions in the United States, found that at least 80% of the course content delivered by those institutions were delivered o nline. Regardless of the definition, an early indication of the widespread popularity of

  17. PDF Online Education and Its Effective Practice: A Research Review

    Journal of Information Technology Education: Research Volume 15, 2016 Cite as: Sun, A., & Chen, X. (2016). Online education and its effective practice: A research review. ournal of InfoJ r- ... Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is

  18. (PDF) A study of effectiveness of online learning

    Dewan. Ms.Swati Agarwal, Dr.Jyoti Dewan, An Analysis of the Effectiveness of Online Learning in Colleges of Uttar Pradesh during the COVID 19 Lockdown, Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture ...

  19. American Educational Research Journal: Sage Journals

    The American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) is the flagship journal of AERA, with articles that advance the empirical, theoretical, and methodological understanding of education and learning. It publishes original peer-reviewed analyses spanning the field of education research across all subfields and disciplines and all levels of analysis, all levels of education throughout the life span ...

  20. ERIC

    ERIC is an online library of education research and information, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.

  21. Online Teaching Is Improving In-Person Instruction on Campus

    In fact a slew of research over the past two decades has found that teaching online makes professors better teachers in their classrooms, so much so that one 2009 study recommended that "faculty should be trained in distance education methods and technologies and should be encouraged to use those methods back in the classroom."

  22. Students' experience of online learning during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A

    Even though online learning research has been advancing in uncovering student experiences in various settings (i.e., tertiary, adult, and professional education), very little progress has been achieved in understanding the experience of the K‐12 student population, especially when narrowed down to different school‐year segments (i.e., primary an...

  23. Full article: A critical review of GenAI policies in higher education

    GenAI and the changing assessment landscape in higher education. Early research on GenAI and assessment following the release of ChatGPT has focused on its capability to accomplish assessment tasks such as examinations with multiple-choice or open-ended questions (Bommarito and Katz Citation 2022; Gilson et al. Citation 2022).Others have explored whether AI-generated outputs can be ...

  24. Research Papers in Education

    Research Papers in Education has developed an international reputation for publishing significant research findings across the discipline of education. The distinguishing feature of the journal is that we publish longer articles than most other journals, to a limit of 12,000 words.

  25. Research in Education: Sage Journals

    Research in Education provides a space for fully peer-reviewed, critical, trans-disciplinary, debates on theory, policy and practice in relation to Education. International in scope, we publish challenging, well-written and theoretically innovative contributions that question and explore the concept, practice and institution of Education as an object of study.

  26. The ideology of crisis in higher education

    Hence, this paper will explore how to link the use of the word 'crisis'—and associated vocabulary—with shifting understandings of common values and ideology. The first part of this paper will develop a typology of crises of higher education with four major strands labelled as massification, marketisation, restitution and geopolitics ...

  27. Research and application of multimedia compression technology in online

    Starting from the current development status of online teaching management platforms in Chinese universities, this paper conducts research on the existing problems of online teaching management platforms in higher physical education institutions. Using a questionnaire survey method, this study investigates and analyzes the current situation of ...