University students' perspectives on emergency online GIS learning amid the Covid‐19 pandemic

Abstract

This study investigated GIS students' perspectives on emergency online learning (EOL) during the Covid-19 pandemic through a case study at National University of Singapore.Questionnaire surveys administered to three GIS courses were conducted, the result of which suggests that the GIS teaching could be completed effectively online during the crisis. In addition, the positive and negative influences of this learning mode have been discussed in connection to relevant student perspectives on social media and relevant findings in the literature. Relatively, senior and independent learners adapted better to the EOL, while beginners and less self-disciplined learners may need more face-to-face guidance, interactions, and direct supervision. It is worth pointing out that despite some students seeing the demand for a higher level of self-discipline as being negative, others saw this property contributed to them being better independent learners with self-motivation, suggesting the need for a nuanced interpretation of the results that consider perspectives. Based on the pros and cons of the EOL investigated, this article further stresses the need to cultivate a post-pandemic blended GIS learning pedagogy for enhancing higher GIS education's quality and resilience in times of crisis.

Complex adaptive blended learning for higher GIS education: A theory‐driven pedagogy moving forward after the pandemic

“…Blended face-to-face class (face-to-face driver model) comes and the university's educational resilience in times of crisis and beyond (Yan et al, 2022). NUS has provided educational support (technical support and training) for students to become competent blended learners and for educators to become competent BL practitioners.…”

“…Following Yan et al (2022), the median was used as the measure of the central tendency of the student responses to each of the questions from Q1 to Q12, considering that the responses were Likert Scale ordinal data.…”

“…This aligns with the theory of cognitive presence in the COI framework (Garrison et al, 1999). Indeed, Yan et al (2022) reported in their study that GIS students commented that the online learning components allowed for more time to delve into deeper concepts falling into students' interests, which also enabled stronger self‐initiative and independence in the learning process.…”

“…Leveraging online learning (but minimizing its disadvantages) through novel blended GIS learning approaches with the support of emerging online learning technologies has been promoted recently (Yan et al, 2022), which falls in the educational paradigm called Education 3.0, characterized by ubiquitous and advanced technologies (Utomo et al, 2018). The simplest definition of the term blended learning (BL) is the “use of traditional classroom teaching method together with the use of online learning for the same students studying the same content in the same course” (Castro, 2019; Cleveland‐Innes & Wilton, 2018).…”

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Online learning became a major solution to the disruption of higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020 (Yan et al, 2022). Many online learning technologies and tools emerged during the pandemic, some of which were not well known to most educators before the global crisis.

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