Preservice teachers’ perceptions of learning environments before and after pandemic-related course disruption

Abstract

When the 2020 semester began in the USA in January, it was unimaginable that the near-total closure of educational system across the globe would become the new normal. To mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, teaching faculty hastily converted to an online learning environment in order for instruction to continue. This mixed-methods study used the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire and analysis of student course evaluations to explore changes in student perceptions of learning environments from before to after the switch to remote learning because of the pandemic. Students perceived a statistically-significant decline in student cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, task orientation and equity, with the largest decline of 0.56 standard deviations occurring for student cohesiveness. Qualitative comments illuminated reasons for these declines and suggested ways to mitigate declines in the future.

ETULay! Bridging the Learners’ Gap on Blended Learning through Nationwide Volunteer Online Tutoring Initiative

“…Based on the data and feedback gathered from the participants, the implementation of ETUlay was overall successful and they could not ask for more but to improve the quality of presentation in terms of audio quality, graphics, and resolution (Long, Sinclair, Fraser, Larson, & Harrell, 2021) to have a better interface in future episodes of the program. They are satisfied with the delivery and they are aware that these tutorials sessions are not a replacement to the actual lessons but rather an augmentation to the learning they get from their respective institutions.…”

University Students’ Classroom Emotional Climate and Attitudes during and after COVID-19 Lockdown

“…This study is part of the long tradition of learning environments research which began with the work of Anderson and Walberg [17] and Moos [18] and was expanded by Fraser [16,[19][20][21]. This body of research has resulted in the availability of a large variety of economical, well-validated and widely applicable assessment instruments for obtaining students' views of what is happening in their classrooms.…”

“…A recent study, however, traced changes in the learning environment perceptions of 230 American preservice teachers before and after pandemic-related course disruption [16]. Five scales from the widely used What Is Happening In this Class?…”

Pre-service teachers perceptions related to the distance teacher education learning environment and community of inquiry

“…It can be inferred that personal relevancy and authentic learning are related to active learning as it involves students' calculating, discussing, creating, solving real-life problems, connecting concepts, etc. which is different from being passive receivers of knowledge (Lombardi, 2007) and leads to positive results in terms of student outcomes (Puzziferro & Shelton, 2008). By taking part in learning tasks actively, learners feel that they are being accepted, valued, and guided during discussions, and evaluate the distance education learning environments positively, which also contribute to the social presence.…”