Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted higher education across the globe, in particular the shift from face-to-face teaching and assessment, as well as interaction with students. In 2020, an online survey was distributed to African and Australian higher education academics to gather insights into academics’ transformation of educational practices during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular it focused on the effects on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. The survey questions investigated the comparison of the use of teaching and assessment technologies prior to, and during the COVID-19 pandemic; academics’ experiences with the sudden shift to work from home (WFH) arrangements and quality assurance measures for digital technologies. The sample included 71 academics across 12 Australian universities/tertiary institutions and 278 academics across 21 African higher education institutions. This study identified that while many Australian academics had prior experience and training in online/blended delivery, African academics, despite not having formal training in digital pedagogy, rated themselves as more than average in their ability to adopt technology for the online environment, just as the Australian cohort had. The most effective online tools adopted during the crisis in the African region were Zoom and WhatsApp while in the Australian region the learning management system (LMS) was the most popular. The major factors that affected African and Australian students’ ability to engage online included lack of access to connectivity and devices, technological competency and emotional and social factors. The results suggest that the predominant challenges faced by students as reported by academics across both continents in the “forced” remote work environment other than general anxiety about COVID-19 were social isolation (Aguilera-Hermida, 2020), connectivity for their students and the lack of a balanced work life (Kotteeswari & Sharief, 2014; Oliveira et al., 2021). This study has implications on institutions’ readiness in terms of capacity building for academic staff, infrastructure and support during digital delivery of courses.
Highlights
The academic world has undergone significant upheaval during the global pandemic known as COVID-19
The current paper focuses on a comparison of Africa and Australia regarding:
In the Australian dataset there is a significant relationship between the type of institution and the use of a blended approach prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic (p
Summary
The academic world has undergone significant upheaval during the global pandemic known as COVID-19. Regulators, policymakers and even students are focused on digital deliveries This suggests that the emphasis may be pivoting more towards digital teaching and learning because of the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global phenomenon raises numerous questions in terms of higher education adaptability and the readiness of the sector to deliver online teaching and learning in such a crisis. The rapid changes have, without doubt, influenced the way that education is delivered and the pedagogical readiness of academics in the delivery and design of lessons including the assessments that are administered to gauge understanding (Pokhrel & Chhetri, 2021). Technological readiness of institutions and staff skills to deal with the “tools of the digital trade” to handle this change are critical factors for effective delivery and to ensure effective learning continues through monitoring of student participation and patterns of their engagement to inform academics how to scaffold learning effectively (Vonderwell & Zachariah, 2014). Within a short period of just five weeks, the foundations for the transition from face-to-face to online remote teaching, learning, and assessment, have been laid” (Singh, 2020)
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