Are We Ready for a Change? A Study on Visual art Education Teachers’ Perception and Attitude towards Online Teaching during the Covid-19 Outbreak

Abstract

The sudden outbreak caused by COVID-19 has challenged every corner of the education system. Since all schools worldwide were asked to close and face-to-face classes were cancelled, the teachers who were previously reluctant to change their conventional teaching approach had no option but to shift entirely to online teaching. Therefore, this present study was set to determine the Visual Art Education (VAE) teachers’ perception and attitude towards adopting online teaching. The study also aimed to predict factors that might influence their decision to adopt online teaching in art classrooms. The study synthesized the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the Expectation-confirmation Model (ECM) as the theoretical grounding of the study. As an outcome, a model of online teaching for the VAE subject area was presented. A sample of 424 VAE teachers in Malaysia took part in answering an online survey. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed in analyzing the data and confirming the proposed online teaching model of the study. Results from the study demonstrate that teachers’ facilitating conditions have the most significant direct effect on their decision to adopt online teaching. Overall, the proposed model accounted for 49.6 percent of the variance in the VAE teacher’s decision to adopt online teaching. It is hoped that this study will act as a guide to the Ministry of Education, school administrators, and teachers’ training institutions towards establishing a Malaysian standard for adopting online teaching, especially in the context of the VAE subject area.