Understanding the student experience with emergency remote teaching

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities transitioned in-person instruction to a new modality we refer to as 'emergency remote teaching' (ERT). As many instructors may be facing this same format in future semesters, and in response to future emergency events, it is important to understand the student experience with ERT in order to inform recommendations and best practices that can be used to improve instruction. In this manuscript, we report on preliminary findings from a survey administered to physics students at a large research institution to gain both qualitative and quantitative feedback on what approaches to ERT are being used as well as which were perceived as most effective at supporting student learning. Here, we present four initial themes relating to: interactivity and student motivation; lecture format; exam format; and new challenges experienced by students as a result of ERT. These findings have significant implications for instructors with respect to optimizing ERT.

Exploring the Experiences of Postgraduate Students in the Field of Special Education with Remote Online Teaching Amid COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Methods Study

“…The most frequently mentioned challenges found in this study included technical difficulties, a finding recurrent in the literature (Bhaumik & Priyadarshini, 2020;Persky et al, 2020), with Mishra et al (2020) finding an unstable network for both teacher and students as a main obstacle. Unstable networks or weak connections were one of the most prominent technical problems mentioned in this study and other studies (Mohmmed et al, 2020;Paudel, 2020;Shim & Lee, 2020;Wilcox & Vignal, 2020). Pather and Booi (2020) mentioned the high cost of the Internet to prevent many students from attending classes; however, this was not a problem for the students in this study, as according to Mukhtar and Mukhtar (2020) the majority of students in KSA have access to the Internet in their own homes.…”

“…Other difficulties mentioned in this study were the inability to find adequate quiet space to attend classes (Mohmmed et al, 2020), time management issues (Paudel, 2020), being overwhelmed with the workload requirements during the pandemic (Mukhtar & Mukhtar, 2020;Toquero, 2020), and being more anxious about exam assessment (Wilcox & Vignal, 2020).…”

“…However, those who scored the highest on OLRS mentioned no challenges with their online learning experience, which could be due to their high abilities in using computers, previous training on how to use Blackboard, high motivation to learn, and strong time management skills (Allam et al, 2020). Participants who scored the lowest on OLRS stated that online exam assessment was the major challenge for them and requested finding different means of assessment, which could be due to online exams being structured and timed differently than paper exams, which could have caused problems for some students with low computer skills and unstable or poor networks (Wilcox & Vignal, 2020).…”

Students’ Responses to Multi-Modal Emergency Remote Learning During COVID-19 in a South African Higher Institution

“…Whilst the home environments provided a comfortable learning environment for some students (Parker et al, 2021), they impeded many with financially-poor backgrounds and family responsibilities (Mohmmed et al, 2020;Obuaku-Igwe, 2020;Shin & Hickey, 2020). Many studies considered home environments unconducive for learning (JISC, 2021;Kaisara & Bwalya, 2020) as several students did not have a dedicated space to work, undisturbed (Wilcox & Vignal, 2020) which negatively affects student learning.…”

“…The struggles of respondents to log in to learning platforms, inability to download learning content and inaudible lectures during synchronous classes highlight the unstable network that most students encountered. An unstable network connection has been cited in several studies as one of the major obstacles to remote learning in both the developing (Kaisara & Bwalya, 2020;Songca et al, 2021) and developed world (Wilcox & Vignal, 2020;Williams et al, 2021). Students with poor internet connections cannot fully engage with content, interact with peers and lecturers online, which makes ERL a struggle for them (Shin & Hickey, 2020;Vale et al, 2020).…”