Abstract
The advent of COVID-19 and its implication on university education has been the bone of contention in recent times. The COVID-19 emergency has led to a change in knowledge inputs, processes, and outputs. This trajectory has demotivated student approaches to their learning. In response to this revolution, this study provides motivational strategies through students' perspectives to respond to the underside of new normal among South African university students. Ubuntu underpins the study within the Transformative Paradigm lens and Participatory Research as a research design. Ten students of a particular module in a selected university in South Africa were chosen to participate in the study. They were selected using the snowballing sampling technique because the participants were under level 3 lockdown with little or no access to campus at the time of the study. Online interview via phone calls, email and WhatsApp, was conducted with the students, and the data were analysed using Thematic Analysis. The study revealed a lack of visualised physical engagement between students and their lecturers and unstable internet access and lack of the internet as the major challenges. The study, therefore, recommends solutions that there should be adequate provision of effective online audio-visual sessions with enough space for student-lecturer’s interactions and low-tech online sessions and content deliveries.
Highlights
Coronavirus, otherwise called COVID-19, a very contagious and easy-to-spread pandemic, emanated from the Wuhan state of China in late 2019 becomes a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, as declared by World Health Organization (WHO, 2020; Shereen et al, 2020)
This trajectory has demotivated student approaches to their learning. In response to this revolution, this study provides motivational strategies through students' perspectives to respond to the underside of new normal among South African university students
The study revealed that lack of visualised physical engagement between students and their lecturers, unstable internet access, and lack of internet of things are significant challenges facing university students during lockdowns that necessitated online teaching and learning
Summary
Coronavirus, otherwise called COVID-19, a very contagious and easy-to-spread pandemic, emanated from the Wuhan state of China in late 2019 becomes a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, as declared by World Health Organization (WHO, 2020; Shereen et al, 2020). WHO (2020) confirmed that the virus has spread to 213 countries globally, among which South Africa and other African countries are included. The effect of this COVID-19 and its preventive measures have affected many organisations' productivity, including the world's education system. Weeden and Cornwall (2020) confirm that younger students seem to be at low risk compared to adults, but many universities, including South African universities, adhered to the World Health Organization measures such as social distancing in populated areas such as schools. Consequent to the implementation of social distancing, 46 countries, as of March 2020, shut down their schools nationwide, including South Africa (Huang et al, 2020; Jimola & Ofodu, 2021; Jinadu et al, 2021)
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