The effect of the teachers' experience in online education during the pandemic on their views of strengths and weaknesses of e-learning (SU case)

Abstract

E-learning has never been so proliferated as it was and still is at a time of global Covid-19 pandemic when higher education institutions globally were forced to switch to fully online education. The strengths and weakness of e-learning have long been discussed in the literature. Most of the claimed strengths depend on an appropriate pedagogy approach with a combination of relevant technologies. At the same time the limitations are mainly associated with the technological issues arising in the context of e-learning. Teachers' perspectives on the benefits and limitations of e-learning are seriously affected by a number of factors, such as their digital competences and experience in e-learning. The study of these factors and their effect on teachers’ perspectives could support the increase of the objectivity of teachers’ evaluation and attitudes towards e-learning in general. Thus this research aimed to identify the impact of experience of Sofia University (SU) academic staff in forced introduction of online education on their views and perspectives about e-learning and its strengths and limitations in particular. The research method was an online survey, conducted at the end of the academic 2019/2020 with 383 teachers from all 16 SU faculties. The paper focused on three main aspects – 1) teachers’ experience in online education before and during pandemic; 2) teachers’ views on strengths and weaknesses of e-learning; and 3) the impact of their experience on their views. Findings from data analysis revealed the existence of statistical dependencies between the experience in e-learning and the digital competencies of teachers before the pandemic, on the one hand, and different aspects of the online teaching during the pandemic, such as: the choice of e-learning environment; the ratio of synchronous / asynchronous forms of online learning; the frequency and variety of using e-resources in teaching and in supporting students’ self-preparation; the tools and forms of e-assessment, on the other hand. It appeared that far more negative attitudes are formed in inexperienced teachers, which in turn has affected their assessments of benefits and limitations that quality e-learning provides for students - they did not recognize the strengths of e-learning proven in theory and practice and exaggerated its negative aspects. Thus conclusions imposed that the forced introduction of online education has enriched the experience of teachers in this form of education, but also has discredited its quality from their perspective.