Ethnographic Reflections of K–12 Distance Education in Saudi Arabia: Shaping the Future of Post-Pandemic Digital Education

Abstract

The health, social, and economic challenges we have faced have contributed to the improvement of educational styles and learning environments. Globally, the reflections of COVID-19 have contributed to the re-perception of the future of education and the anticipation of new scenarios. This qualitative study aims to deeply examine and understand the repercussions of distance education—specifically K–12 education (kindergarten to twelfth grade) during the pandemic in Saudi Arabia—and, with the findings, build anticipated scenarios for future post-pandemic digital education. This study adopts an ethnographic approach to investigate the cultural perspectives of those whose education was and has been greatly affected by this transition. Qualitative large-scale data (comprising 36 observations, 387 individual interviews, and 177 focus groups) were collected for 7 months in 2021 from 600 participants, all of whom were connecting in various ways to the K–12 educational system and varied by gender, age, profession, and academic degree. The findings were categorized into four themes: (1) educational outcomes, (2) teaching landscape, (3) parental involvement, and (4) societal and life aspects. The findings are discussed in a style that presents the most crucial aspects that we must consider for anticipated scenarios of future post-pandemic education. Each presents critical implications for teachers, students, parents, researchers, and educational authorities.

Educators by proxy: Emergency remote teaching and learning in the voice of parents

“…Finally, some parents also reported an increase in relational quality due to having more time to spend together as a family (Vaterlaus et al, 2021). Enhanced family connections were also reported in other studies (Aladsani et al, 2022;Drvodelić and Domović, 2022;Haines et al, 2022;Hill and Reimer, 2022). However, the strain some parents reported on their relationships with their children seems to have been affected by the amount of school work.…”

“…Stressing the diversity in how ERTL was implemented in different contexts and also the diversity of learners' characteristics, some parents consider this process to have led to closer teacher support, better or different learning, or more formative evaluation processes. To conclude, some parents consider the process brought gains to themselves in terms of closer knowledge and involvement in their children's education (Aladsani et al, 2022;Haines et al, 2022;Hill and Reimer, 2022) and more time spent as a family (Drvodelić and Domović, 2022).…”

“…As an example, those with a less positive perspective of ERTL include mothers (Daniela et al, 2021;Heers and Lipps, 2022) of multiple children (Khaled et al, 2022;Li et al, 2022;Niels et al, 2022) working from home, caring for their children from home and parenting young children (Misirli and Ergulec, 2021;Heers and Lipps, 2022;Khaled et al, 2022;Li et al, 2022;Niels et al, 2022). On this matter, a study by Aladsani et al (2022) in the Saudi Arabian context involving parents of K-12 children (kindergarten to 12 th grade) reveals that parents, particularly mothers, were more stressed by distance learning because they lost any free time they had. The study by Drvodelić and Domović (2022) found that the main difficulties perceived by parents refer to decreased motivation for learning, excessive use of digital technology, parents assuming the roles of teachers, possible disruption of family relations, and lack of contact with peers.…”

CYBER ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY: Development of Digital Technology for Learning and Creative Economy at IAIN Syekh Nurjati Cirebon

“…Online meetings, virtual conferences, and communication of professional knowledge have an important role in online distance education for educational continuity (Chang et al, 2022). Even K-12 distance education in Saudi Arabia is culturally and ethnographically developed (Aladsani et al, 2022). Other forms of development can also be in the form of course themes such as science material developed with augmented reality-based applications (Çetin & Türkan, 2022).…”

Investigating the Impacts of Flipbook Media on Middle School Students' Learning Interests in History

“…In order for students to learn history in school, teachers will need to provide more engaging learning materials (Neumann, 2021;Ofianto et al, 2022). Teaching materials classified as electronic are those whose information is stored electronically and can take the form of audio, video, or interactive multimedia (Aladsani et al, 2022). Electronic teaching materials serve a number of purposes, such as (a) serving as an alternative learning medium; (b) being able to present teaching materials that are more interesting and fun to learn; (c) serving as a medium for information sharing; and (d) being able to be distributed more easily than printed teaching materials, both online and through printed teaching materials (Rasmitadila et al, 2020).…”