Technology-Mediated Higher Education Provision during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Assessment of Engineering Student Experiences and Sentiments

Abstract

The advent of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020 put universities worldwide into one of the most significant educational disruptions ever experienced. The unrelenting pandemic forced universities to turn to technology to ensure continuity of education. This abruptly changed learning modes for students, with potential implications on the quality of education and the student experience. Therefore, it became necessary to study experiences and sentiments toward learning under the pandemic through the lens of students. Perspectives on the new norm of learning can shed more light on digital technology's roles in learning. The new understanding is potentially useful for conceptualizing future technology-mediated higher education provision. This study follows qualitative research approaches, engaging eleven postgraduate students in three U.K. universities for in-depth semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis is adopted, interpreting sentiments into three interchangeable themes. The findings show that learning during the pandemic has raised many concerns for the future adaptations of online learning. A key finding from this study is that students are generally disappointed by their experiences of online learning effectiveness during the pandemic. One reason for this disappointment is the absence of adequate interactions amongst students due to the reduction in informal student engagement opportunities. The study also suggests that educators need to rethink current technology-mediated education delivery approaches to ensure effective learning. Similarly, students also need to be flexible and openminded, enabling them to adapt to the emerging higher education landscape.

The Effect of Flipped Classroom on Iranian Adolescents: Elementary EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Recall and Retention

“…e finding is in harmony with previous studies in flipped classrooms [6,8,10,12,14], which confirmed that flipped classroom can enhance language learning in various domains and improve vocabulary acquisition. In addition, these researchers believed that flipped classrooms facilitate learning in an innovative way especially in this technology era.…”

“…Teachers tried to incorporate digital literacy into their classes [7]. Among these innovations, the flipped classroom is one of the teaching models applied by teachers and educators recently ( [8,9], January). e flipped classroom is a type of blended learning approach where the responsibility of learning goes back to learners [10,11].…”

Online only: Future outlooks of post-pandemic education based on student experiences of the virtual university

“…Aristovnik et al 2020;Molnár et al 2020). Among the applied research methodologies, questionnaires appeared the most often, but we can also see examples of interviews (Piyatamrong et al 2021;Kálmán et al 2021), case studies (Molnár et al 2020), and interpretative phenomenological analysis (Kee 2021). Regarding educational levels, students' attitudes and experiences about online education were most measured in BA and postgraduate courses, and postgraduate students were found to be more prepared and successful in online education (Tang et al 2021).…”

“…Regarding educational levels, students' attitudes and experiences about online education were most measured in BA and postgraduate courses, and postgraduate students were found to be more prepared and successful in online education (Tang et al 2021). Programs are also an important factor in terms of online education experience, as the replacement of traditional education with practical courses in engineering (Piyatamrong et al 2021) or medical programs (Amir et al 2020) requires a different approach. There are different results by gender in adoption of online education.…”

Educación disruptiva: Nuevos desafíos en la formación de investigadores sociales en tiempos de pandemia y distanciamiento social

“…En este aspecto, la educación superior enfrenta grandes desafíos a partir de la emergencia sanitaria y el distanciamiento social debido a la pandemia de la COVID 19 (Alvarez et al, 2021;Elgueta, 2020;García-Morales et al, 2021). Si se considera que una disrupción está relacionada a una rotura o una interrupción brusca, la educación disruptiva es aquella que pretende romper con lo establecido o las estructuras tradicionales para mejorar los procesos educativos en función de las características del actual contexto, basados en las nuevas tecnologías de información y de comunicación (Abdel-Basset et al, 2021;Molano, 2018;Piyatamrong et al, 2021).…”