Emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: Parents experiences and perspectives

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused an emergency transform from traditional to distance learning at all levels of education, which is called emergency remote teaching. To explore parents’ views on students’ experiences of remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, and their experience and perspectives toward remote teaching during the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to parents who have at least one child who had attended a face-to-face learning environment prior to school closures and started remote teaching during the pandemic. 983 parents participated in the study. The parents’ views on students’ experiences of remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, their experiences and perspectives toward remote teaching were discussed. The results suggested that the remote teaching process has been challenging for both students and parents. It is found that the remote teaching practices were mainly covered in core courses; remote teaching is considered as unsuitable for young children and students with special needs; the parents complain about social isolation, lack of interactivity, and increased screen time; and remote teaching has placed a heavy burden on parents. Lastly, the parents stated that their children acquired self-regulated learning skills and digital socialization during emergency remote teaching.

Combating the Coronavirus Pandemic in Small Schools

“…Thus, we can state that we came to similar conclusions as Lee, Ward, Chang, and Downing (2021) that parents, especially parents of the first graders, were part of the educational process, at least as a technical support. Our findings also correspond to the conclusions of Misirli and Ergulec [13]) and Parczewska [14], who found that parents play an important part in the successful implementation of education during the pandemic, although they felt incompetent to teach their children and expressed concern and anxiety about the new situation.…”

“…The relationship between family and school also plays an important role in the distance learning process. Recent studies of parents' experiences with education during the pandemic situation have shown that parents were burdened with school obligations like never before; moreover, they expressed they were asked for much more than they were actually capable of giving [13,14]. The excessive burden on parents has also led to increasing criticism of schools [13] and concerns about the future of their children [14].…”

“…Recent studies of parents' experiences with education during the pandemic situation have shown that parents were burdened with school obligations like never before; moreover, they expressed they were asked for much more than they were actually capable of giving [13,14]. The excessive burden on parents has also led to increasing criticism of schools [13] and concerns about the future of their children [14]. Distance education from the parents' point of view was also examined by Lee, Ward, Chang, and Downing [15], who highlighted the level of parental involvement in children's learning in a positive way.…”

Online Learning and Parent Satisfaction during COVID-19: Child Competence in Independent Learning as a Moderator

“…For instance, Chinese parents were found to have higher expectations for academic achievement and self-directed learning after children started primary school (Lau, 2014;Lau & Ng, 2019) and thus, parents may anticipate schools to provide more online learning to continue formal education. However, parents of young children were generally found to experience great difficulties in online learning, such as prolonged screen time, lack of two-way interaction, children's low self-regulation, and insufficient time and knowledge (Dong et al, 2020;Misirli & Ergulec, 2021;Smith et al, 2016). As a result, a higher amount of learning assignments and longer duration of online learning may indicate a higher level of difficulties experienced by parents during their involvement and hence, parents may be more likely to feel dissatisfied.…”

Coping With the Pandemic: Implementing Social and Emotional Learning in the California K-12 School System

“…California’s COVID-19 guidelines resulted in remote education for most state K-12 schools (Bollag, 2020; Cowan, 2020). Although remote learning came with its share of complications (e.g., difficulties with face-to-face interaction with instructors, lack of traditional socialization with peers, and increased expectations for parents; Adnan & Anwar, 2020; Misirli & Ergulec, 2021), it did have a silver lining (e.g., more flexibility in children’s schedules, better parent understanding of children’s learning styles and needs, and increased remote capabilities for children with certain disabilities; Gleason et al, 2020; Roy et al, 2021). As of this writing in summer 2021, after increased access to vaccines and more COVID-sensitive infrastructure, schools in California are slowly transitioning back to in-person learning.…”