Challenges Of Distance Education Research Articles

K-12 Teacher’s Appropriation of Digital Technologies and Innovative Instruction Across EU: A Scoping Review

The K-12 education has lived an upsetting period where teachers have been forced to incorporate technologies intensively, bringing to light numerous issues and opportunities, whose assessment can result in educational renewal. This scoping review’s objective is to examine the positive impact of the pandemic on digital technologies appropriation and innovative instruction across EU from K-12 teachers’ point of view. Within a total of 77 articles, published between 2020 and 2022, research showed that K-12 teachers perceived the lockdown as an opportunity to increase their competences to teach through digital tools and apply novel instructional strategies. Additionally, they have progressed on digital appropriation for assessing and interacting with students and colleagues. K-12 teachers consider the pandemic as an opportunity for professional development in terms of establishment of new digital skills, despite the lack of necessary equipment and the psychological well-being creating challenges in distance education. In conclusion the Covid-19 pandemic enabled K-12 teachers to expand their professional skills to respond to the needs of future schooling. Keywords: digital technologies, innovative instruction, European Union, K-12 teachers, perceptions

Sağlık Bilimleri Öğrencilerinin COVID-19 Pandemisi Sürecinde Uzaktan Eğitim Deneyimleri: Bir Anket Çalışması

Aim: This study aimed to evaluate distance education experience by health science students during COVID-19 pandemic in relation to sociodemographic factors. Methods: A total of 192 health science students having distance education during pandemic via a live lesson system were included in this questionnaire-based survey. The online questionnaire form elicited items on participant characteristics, and personal opinions and experience on distance education, which were evaluated overall and with respect to gender, university (state vs. foundation) and place of residence (urban vs. rural) subgroups. Results: Only 38.0% and 22.4% of students considered distance education to be sufficient for theory-based and practical-based courses, respectively. Distance education was considered less advantageous than on-campus education in terms of focusing the practical-based courses by 55.2% of students, and to be less effective in terms of gaining knowledge by 45.8%. Ability to record and later access to live lectures (61.5%, more commonly by males and for urban location) and pacing options (29.2%, more commonly by females and for rural location) were the most commonly reported advantages of distance education, while the most commonly reported disadvantages were technical problems (33.9%, more commonly for foundation universities and rural location), need for strong self-motivation/discipline (33.3%, more commonly for state universities and rural location) and lesser learning efficiency (29.2%, more commonly by females). Most of the students reported problems in regularly following the practical-based live courses (62.0%) and difficulties with following live courses due to limited personal access to a computer and the internet (82.8%). Distance education was considered less advantageous than on-campus education in terms of focusing the practical-based courses by 55.2% of students, and to be less effective in terms of gaining knowledge by 45.8%. Conclusions: Our findings revealed that distance education experience during the COVID-19 pandemic was considered not satisfactory, particularly for practical-based courses, by most health science students. Technical and infrastructural resources, the compatibility of content and learning materials with the purpose of the course and the teaching skills and compliance of the instructors were considered as the major challenges in distance education, while the ability to record and later access to live lectures and pacing options were the main advantages of distance education.

Does distance teaching of science and mathematics meet teachers’ expectations?: Science and mathematics teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, and challenges of distance education

The most important benefits appear in ability of distance education (DE) to face challenges related to classroom education, as student’s absence from lesson does not affect it. DE also reduces waste of time and money to reach school or university and enhances aspects of self-responsibility. When student is self-disciplined, she is given a greater opportunity to expand sources of knowledge. This study aimed to explore to which extent Jordanian science and mathematics teachers satisfied towards DE and identify their attitudes and challenges they faced considering some variables: teachers’ gender, region, school stages they teach, experience, knowledge in technology skills, and specialization. Study population consisted of all Jordanian teachers in public schools from all regions in Jordan. The study sample included 499 male and female teachers. We developed a study questionnaire, which contained 27 items. After examining its validity and reliability, it was spread out electronically according to snowball method. The study showed several results, science and mathematics teachers’ satisfaction of DE was moderate, and there were no statistically significant differences in value of importance of DE for all variables except teachers’ competence of information and communications technology (ICT) knowledge and skills. The results indicated that level of Jordanian teachers’ attitudes to DE was moderate, and there is a difference in their attitudes towards DE in favor of teachers who master ICT knowledge and skills. The results showed a difference in teachers’ attitudes according to their specializations for benefit of scientific track while there were no statistically significant differences for rest of the study variables. Finally, the results pointed out that there are many challenges facing teachers in DE, which came in strong category. The study results presented no statistically significant differences regarding challenges teachers faced in DE in all study variables. The study suggests training teachers on employing DE strategies effectively and implementation of digital applications and educational media. Also, it suggests redesigning academic content according to DE models and theories, designing assessment strategies and tools to measure achieving of the learning outcomes, providing schools with infrastructure of DE, and providing free and sufficient internet services and computers or laptops for teachers.

Adult learners’ perceptions of distance education

Research informing adult education teachers’ didactic practices in distance education is scarce. Approaching the adult learner’s perspectives on how distance education is perceived is key to informing future initiatives. This study explores adult learners’ perception of distance education, concentrating on aspects such as, social presence, course structure, and perceived learning and satisfaction. A survey was distributed to teachers ( n = 78) in five schools organising adult distance education. Findings show that teacher accessibility and course structure correlated positively with social presence and perceived learning and satisfaction. Overall, adult learners are satisfied with their distance teaching. A challenge facing adult distance education is to create a sense of social presence despite the high demand for flexibility. Thus, we explored learner perceptions of benefits and challenges in distance education and structured these into social, cognitive, spatio-temporal, emotional, and technical dimensions. Findings reveal that one challenge in the social dimension was a lack of connection with peers, and a benefit in the cognitive dimension referred to autonomy and self-regulation. These findings are important as educational institutions and policymakers may strive for high flexibility, which in turn may lead to lower group cohesion and a lack of social presence.

The Challenges of Distance Education and Evidence-Based Solution Suggestions

The Challenges of Distance Education and Evidence-Based Solution Suggestions

The Challenges of Distance Education and Evidence-Based Solution Suggestions

The Challenges of Distance Education and Evidence-Based Solution Suggestions

Teaching methods in light of e-learning between reality and hope

In our research, we seek to shed a spot of light on one of the most important and controversial issues, given the excitement that this topic is characterized by, especially in our era today, the era of globalization that has upset the balance of life, and perhaps the post-Corona world has contributed significantly to changing the lifestyle of people, as education to virtual reality through new technological technologies that have changed the course of human lives.Education has been and still is the pillar of the development of any nation and is the main engine for advancing sustainable development. Education in the world has made great strides as many new technologies have been introduced that undoubtedly contribute to raising the quality of education and achieving scientific renaissance, which raises many important questions. And the focus on the reality and challenges of distance education in the Arab world, perhaps the most prominent of which are:_ To what extent can we talk about the development of distance education in the Arab world?_ How can Arab governments work to raise the efficiency of professors and teachers in various educational stages to keep abreast of recent developments in distance education techniques?_ What are the real ways and tools that can be embodied on the ground to advance distance education in the Arab world?_ How can Arab scientific competencies as well as businessmen have a prominent role in supporting new projects on distance education to advance sustainable development?Through the foregoing, we will work according to the two mechanisms of disassembly and analysis, to stand on the reality and challenges of distance education in the Arab world, in an effort to work on finding new ways and techniques to raise the quality of distance education in the Arab world and to confront the trend of cultural globalization, in order to keep pace with new global developments that have reached degrees Very high quality.

The Challenges of Distance Education and Evidence-Based Solution Suggestions

Today, the development of technology and the internet plays an important role in providing equal opportunities in education. Distance education studies carried out for this purpose facilitate education and training by providing education opportunities independent of both time and place. There are some difficulties experienced in maintaining distance education, which is increasing in popularity day by day with the advantages it provides in the learning process with technological developments. In this study, by considering the difficulties experienced in the distance education process, suggestions are made for both system developers and teachers who are the implementers of the system. In the first part of the study, the difficulties brought by distance education and in the second part, suggestions compiled from the results of the studies on the elimination of the difficulties experienced are included. For this reason, it is thought that this study will provide important contributions to education technologists, content managers, teachers who teach with the distance education system and policy providers who develop the distance education system.

Measurement and evaluation challenges in distance education: Systematic review and qualitative meta-synthesis

The challenges experienced in measurement and evaluation during the distance education process among student and instructor groups are discussed in the study. A qualitative meta-synthesis method is used in this research. Twenty studies were included in the meta-synthesis. The challenges experienced by the instructors are program utilization, technological inadequacies, a lack of in-service seminars, online exam diversity, inconsistency between what is measured and what is intended to be measured, interference of other features with the measurement, unsuitability of the measurement tools, academic dishonesty, lack of control over online exam diversity, preparation and grading challenges, infrastructural issues, and a lack or latency of feedback. Challenges experienced by learners include alienation to the electronic environment, language, technological inadequacies, lack of materials, validity-reliability issues, application difficulty, lack of guidance in exams, infrastructural issues, network problems, lack of interest and motivation, anxiety about online exams, and avoidance and resistance to self-disclosure in virtual environments.

Detection of Students’ Problems in Distance Education Using Topic Modeling and Machine Learning

Following the rapid spread of COVID-19 to all the world, most countries decided to temporarily close their educational institutions. Consequently, distance education opportunities have been created for education continuity. The abrupt change presented educational challenges and issues. The aim of this study is to investigate the content of Twitter posts to detect the arising topics regarding the challenges of distance education. We focus on students in Saudi Arabia to identify the problems they faced in their distance education experience. We developed a workflow that integrates unsupervised and supervised machine learning techniques in two phases. An unsupervised topic modeling algorithm was applied on a subset of tweets to detect underlying latent themes related to distance education issues. Then, a multi-class supervised machine learning classification technique was carried out in two levels to classify the tweets under discussion to categories and further to sub-categories. We found that 76,737 tweets revealed five underlying themes: educational issues, social issues, technological issues, health issues, and attitude and ethical issues. This study presents an automated methodology that identifies underlying themes in Twitter content with a minimum human involvement. The results of this work suggest that the proposed model could be utilized for collecting and analyzing social media data to provide insights into students’ educational experience.

Priorities and challenges in distance education

The 20th century constantly confronts new challenges for the entire society, especially for the education system. It offers teachers, parents, students, and the educational space as whole more opportunities for large-scale adoption of new technologies.The article discusses and substantiates that digital technologies are mediator tools for media consumption and that Georgia is successfully implementing them in practice.

Childhood Cancer Survivors and Distance Education Challenges: Lessons Learned From the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Pediatric cancer survivors have historically struggled to receive adequate educational supports. In Spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced an emergency switch from traditional in-person education models to distance education, but little information is available regarding experiences of pediatric survivors' coping with schooling since that time. This article presents exploratory mixed methods findings from a quality improvement project including qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey conducted with parents of pediatric oncology survivors identified through neuropsychological assessment, and the use of school-based services as having educationally relevant neurocognitive impacts of disease or treatment. The interviews explored experiences of education and instructional delivery during the COVID-19 school closures in spring of 2020 and the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year and served as the foundation for a quantitative survey to determine the generalizability of findings. Qualitative interviews highlighted 3 emergent themes regarding the shared experiences of distance schooling for children with cancer during the COVID-19 school closures: (a) attention, (b) mental health, and (c) access to instruction. A follow-up quantitative survey supported the qualitative findings and their generalizability to the schooling experiences of other children with cancer during the pandemic. This article describes and explores each theme and offers suggestions for pediatric supports and changes to provider service delivery (including weblinks to access project-developed resources) as a result of ongoing pandemic-related schooling needs.

Distance learning in crises (opportunities and challenges) from the point of view of male and female teachers in Hafar Al-Batin Province: التعلم عن بُعد في ظل الأزمات (فرص وتحديات) من وجهة نظر المعلمين والمعلمات بمحافظة حفر الباطن

This study aimed to identify the advantages of distance education and the challenges that hinder its success in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in light of the Corona pandemic crisis from the viewpoint of male and female teachers in the public education sector in Hafar Al-Batin Governorate in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The researcher used the descriptive and analytical method, and the tool consisted of a questionnaire consisting of (19) items distributed in two areas: challenges and advantages. It was distributed to a random stratified sample of (110) male and female teachers in the public education sector in Hafar Al-Batin Governorate in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The results of the research showed that the field of advantages and opportunities provided by distance learning obtained a large arithmetic average of (3.43), while the degree of agreement of the sample on the field of challenges facing distance education was medium with an average of (3.20). The results showed no statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α ≤0.05) among the means of the research sample estimates of the advantages and challenges of distance education and learning in light of the Corona pandemic crisis. In the end, the researcher recommended the necessity of using distance learning in the programs of the Ministry of Education, training teachers and developing their skills in using computers and extracting information from information networks.

Covid-19 Perception of Senior Nursing Students and their Behaviours Regarding Coping with Stress

Nursing students are exposed to more stress compared to the stress factors other students during the life of university. In Turkey during the Covid-19 pandemic, nursing students encountered a new reality of that includes fear of infection, the challenges of distance education and more. Therefore post-graduation plans of nursing students may change and students may find themselves at higher risk of infection.

Anxiety and need for support of college students during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: An exploratory study

IntroductionDuring the pandemic state, college students are exposed to additional stressful factors, including but not limited to: fear of being infected; fear of infecting a significant person; deal with a new reality of economic uncertainty; challenges of distance education; new rules in face-to-face classes; restrictions on access to internships and higher demanding in internships.ObjectivesThis exploratory study aims to assess levels of anxiety and the perception of the need for support of students of a Portuguese Higher Education Institution (HEI).MethodsAn exploratory study was developed, on the return of students to the presential classes after the academic lockdown. It was spread out an email for all students with a link for an online form, which includes sociodemographic questions, a screening question of the anxiety level, and the need for support level (rating scales 0-10).ResultsIt was obtained 36 answers from mostly female students (92%) with 17 to 21 years old (67%). Answers present an average anxiety level of 5.4 (Min=1; Max=9; SD=2.23), with 58% of answers with a score of anxiety level of 5 or higher. The need for support average was 3.7 (Min=1; Max=9; SD=2.23), with 33% of answers with a score of 5 or higher.ConclusionsIt is necessary to continuously monitor the anxiety level and the need for support of college students during the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. It is similarly relevant to have responses of HEI to promote mental health and to answer to the high levels of students’ anxiety and needs for support during the pandemic.

Retos de la educación a distancia para las instituciones de Educación Media Superior Tecnológica en tiempos de COVID-19.

El propósito de la investigación fue conocer los retos de la educación a distancia en tiempos de COVID-19 en el bachillerato técnico CONALEP No. 293 en Puerto Vallarta Jalisco, México. La metodología es cuantitativa, no experimental, de corte descriptivo, exploratorio. El muestreo es probabilístico, aleatorio simple integrada por 32 docentes y administrativos, y 208 alumnos. En los resultados, el director de la institución capacitó al personal administrativo, a los docentes y alumnos en materia digital, creando un sistema sistematizado de reuniones entre el personal directivo, administrativo y docente para detectar a los alumnos con rezago educativo, brindar acompañamiento pedagógico, asesorías y tutorías a los jóvenes en riesgo de reprobación mediante el trabajo colaborativo y la supervisión a padres de familia.

Nursing Students' Anxiety Levels and Coping Strategies during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Anxiety is very prevalent among nursing students even in normal circumstances. In Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing students encountered a new reality of that includes economic uncertainty, fear of infection, the challenges of distance education and more. This study was carried out to determine the relationship between the anxiety levels and the coping methods of nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Challenges of distance education at Blida 2 university : a singular experience combined with the plural

Cette étude s’inscrit dans le cadre d’une recherche plus vaste sur la pédagogie universitaire en contexte algérien à l’ère du numérique. Elle est scindée en grands volets qui rendent compte de l’expérience de l’Université Blida 2 dans le domaine de la formation à distance. La présente recherche poursuit donc un double objectif : il s’agit, d’une part, de décrire la formation à distance dispensée à l’université Blida 2 à travers l’expérience de la faculté des sciences humaines et sociales et à travers les deux projets Yabda et Inside dans lesquels notre université s’est engagée en 2017 et qui s’inscrivent dans le cadre de la coopération internationale et chapeautés par l’Union Européenne ; d’autre part, l’étude vise à identifier les interactions verbales dans ce genre de formation et à recueillir des données sur les perceptions quant aux échanges en ligne. D’un point de vue théorique, la présente recherche s’appuie sur les nouvelles formes du triangle pédagogique et didactique qui remettent en question la forme élaborée par Houssaye en 1982. Il s’agit du tétraèdre de Faeber (2002), du modèle de Poisson conçu en 2003, du tétraèdre de Lombard (2007) et de la synthèse de Kim (2008) qui montrent que l’acte pédagogique, avec l’avènement des médias et des nouvelles technologies de la communication, ne peut se réduire à la relation entre les trois pôles de la situation didactique telle que décrit dans le triangle de Houssaye. Par ailleurs, compte tenu de nos objectifs de recherche, l’étude s’appuie également sur les travaux d’Albero sur l’autoformation et l’usage des TIC (2003 et 2011) selon lesquels, la formation à distance favorise l’observation de ses propres méthodes de travail et permet d’enrichir la palette des stratégies de contrôle de l’action donc favorise le développement des processus métacognitifs qui occupent une place de plus en plus importante dans l’enseignement des langues et des cultures. D’un point de vue méthodologique, le protocole de recherche mis en place pour atteindre nos objectifs comprend un questionnaire destiné aux huit formateurs de la faculté des sciences humaines et sociales afin de vérifier leurs représentations et leurs pratiques déclarées vis-à-vis des échanges en ligne. En outre, en vue de vérifier les pratiques réelles relativement à la prise en charge des interactions verbales, nous avons recouru à une analyse de contenu des fils de discussion du cours de français.

Striking a Balance in School Psychology Training: a Comparison of Blended Delivery Formats and Student Outcomes

As higher education faces declines in federal funding and enrollment, academic programs are increasingly tasked with examining their recruitment and admissions practices, mode and flexibility of delivery, and student retention. In particular, some programs may encounter pressure to introduce part-time or distance learning options into traditionally full-time, on-campus programs. Concurrently, the field of school psychology suffers from a critical nationwide shortage, which further strengthens the impetus for programs to attract and successfully prepare graduate students in greater numbers. In this article, we examine various metrics of student success from one graduate program that concurrently offered program curriculum in two blended delivery formats. In particular, we examine (a) enrollments; (b) timely remediation; (c) retention and degree completion; and (d) intern performance and post-graduation employment across the two delivery formats. We discuss potential benefits and challenges of distance education in school psychology training and offer recommendations for balancing quality and accessibility in curriculum delivery.

Challenges in Distance Education During the (Covid-19) Pandemic Period

The purpose of this study is to reveal the perceptions of the teachers, administrators, and academics who had to continue distance education during COVID-19 epidemic disease period, about the problems they experienced and the strategies to cope with the challenges. The working group of the current study consists of 65 teachers. The data were collected via an open-endedwritten interview. Content analysis was applied for analysis of the data gathered. Various important results regarding the use of distance education were obtained during the pandemic period and yielded significant findings. The first and the most important finding is that theachers have difficulties in internet access and lack of infrastructure, classroom management and human resources. Another challenge that participants reported was about teachers’ and students’ behaviours. The last theme stated by the participants is the distance education process itself. The findings reveal that the participants determined their strategies to deal with these problems with new arrangements regarding the classroom management, getting help from colleagues, family members and experts and communicating with students and parents. It can be certainly suggested that the participants are not ready for the distance education process and there is a lack of application in this regard; such as technology support and distance education training, and moreover, the participants do not have sufficient knowledge and experience about distance education.