Student Experience of Emergency Remote Teaching During COVID-19 Early in the 2020/21 Academic Year

Abstract

In response to the contagious disease coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a number of health and safety measures were enacted across Canada in March 2020. These measures included the physical closure of postsecondary institutions, including the authors’ institution Carleton University. The physical closure resulted in an abrupt transition from normal in-person teaching to emergency remote teaching (the term emergency remote teaching is used to distinguish it from online teaching, which is not subject to the challenges and constraints associated with an emergency situation). Emergency remote teaching continued at Carleton University for the entire 2020/21 academic year. There were increased resources, training opportunities, supports, and time to prepare for teaching, as compared to the sudden change in the Winter 2020 term. Simultaneously, there were still many ongoing challenges and constraints in the pursuit of optimal remote teaching and learning. Midway through the Fall 2020 term, a questionnaire on the student experience with emergency remote teaching was developed and delivered to undergraduate students in the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University. This paper presents the findings of this questionnaire from the 159 respondents. Results suggest that, on average, academic and intellectual student engagement was slightly worse for emergency remote teaching versus normal in-person teaching. Emergency remote teaching posed some difficulties and challenges, but also provided some advantages that were preferred (e.g., less travel time, ability to rewatch asynchronous lectures). There was a notable worsening of social student engagement, which was associated with increased feelings of isolation and decreased mental health and well-being. There was also a number of students who faced technical barriers with respect to remote teaching, with only 22% indicating that they experienced few or inconsequential technical barriers. This research adds to the discourse on emergency remote teaching, including the lens of engineering education. The paper can help inform future transitions to emergency remote teaching, with some insights potentially useful for online teaching, which is anticipated to continue to increase in its prevalence.