Teaching Sentiment in Emergency Online Learning—A Conceptual Model

Pedro Sobreiro,Domingos Martinho,Ricardo Vardasca

doi:10.3390/educsci11020053

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education institutions with a face-to-face model have found themselves in the contingency of migrating to online learning. This study explores the perspective of all the lecturers at a Portuguese private higher education institution who were invited to participate, regardless of their research area, in this questionnaire. It aims to propose and test a conceptual model that combines attitudes, preferred activities, and technological experience with the sentiment about the impact of this experience on students’ learning process, on their teaching activity, and on the strategy of higher education institutions. An online questionnaire was conducted to 65 lecturers engaging in emergency online lecturing. The obtained results showed that lecturers reveal a positive attitude towards online lecturing, tend to prefer activities in which they feel most comfortable in face-to-face lecturing, and consider having technological experience useful for online activities. Lecturers have a positive sentiment about the impact of online learning on students’ learning, their faculty career, and the strategy of higher education institutions. The proposed conceptual model test shows that the model has well-fitting conditions. The results confirm the hypotheses formulated: namely, the predictive effect of attitude, preferred activities, and technological experience on sentiment. Faculty engagement in emergency online lecturing shows that the members are available to participate in the changing process, and the proposed conceptual model can be used to assess this readiness.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected higher education institutions (HEIs) in their activities in order to promote the protection of their lecturers, staff, and students in a public health emergency
The followed model seems similar to the online learning that has been stated by Anderson [2], referring to a teaching and learning type in which: (1) the student and the lecturer are at physical distance; (2) student–content, student–lecturer and student–student interactions are mediated by technology; and (3) some type of support is provided [2]
Most of these lecturers, who normally develop their activities face-to-face, do not reveal an interest in online learning [4,5]. This position is caused by the lack of motivation and incentives resulting from various obstacles that can be summarized as technological readiness [6,7,8], absence of organizational incentive to compensate for extra work [9,10], and the prejudices related to the value of online teaching [5,11,12]

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected higher education institutions (HEIs) in their activities in order to promote the protection of their lecturers, staff, and students in a public health emergency. The institutions had no alternative but to cancel all face-to-face lectures, including labs and other learning experiences, and to determine that lecturers completely switch the courses to emergency online learning, reducing contacts and thereby preventing the spread of the virus This teaching model that many call “emergency remote teaching” [1], includes the use of totally remote teaching solutions, mediated by the internet, to ensure activities that would otherwise be taught in a face-to-face form, returning to this format once the crisis or emergency is overcome [1]. In addition to the lack of required online specific pedagogical competences, it is generally agreed that in a normal situation, the challenge to effectively transfer what is taught in a face-to-face classroom to an online version remains a problem [3] Most of these lecturers, who normally develop their activities face-to-face, do not reveal an interest in online learning (only about 30% to 35% consider this option) [4,5]. This position is caused by the lack of motivation and incentives resulting from various obstacles that can be summarized as technological readiness [6,7,8], absence of organizational incentive to compensate for extra work [9,10], and the prejudices related to the value of online teaching [5,11,12]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion