online and offline teaching during covid essay

Taking distance learning ‘offline’: Lessons learned from navigating the digital divide during COVID-19

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, angelica towne amporo and angelica towne amporo chief strategy and innovation officer & co-founder - educate hawah nabbuye hawah nabbuye 2018 echidna global scholar - the brookings institution, uganda country director - educate uganda.

August 7, 2020

As we adjust to life during a global pandemic, it’s hard to imagine what life was like over a century ago during outbreaks. While in the past most faced quarantines without a telephone or a radio, today there is an expansive universe online. Even as the coronavirus forces physical isolation, the spectacular technological advances of the digital age make local and global connection possible. However, within education, the new centrality of communication technology in the context of the vast digital divide means the pandemic is exacerbating inequality, excluding many youth from their right to learn.

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, our East African youth skills organization, Educate! , reached youth primarily through national education systems—delivering our model directly in schools or working with the government. For over a decade, we’ve been operating this way, partnering with secondary schools in Uganda to prepare youth with the skills to succeed in today’s economy, as well as working on systems-level integration of skills-based learning in Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. But schools across East Africa have been closed since March, and access to tools like smartphones, internet, and electricity is scarce in the region. This means that many distance learning strategies being deployed in other parts of the world are not feasible, and we’ve observed a significant gap in solutions for youth. The challenges inherent to delivering distance learning in resource-constrained areas remain largely unsolved—requiring creative, context-driven solutions.

Our approach

When schools across East Africa closed in mid-March, Educate! acted quickly to launch a response—aiming to embrace the now and act swiftly —pivoting to deliver components of our skills-based model to youth remotely through radio, SMS (text messaging), and interactive voice response (“robocalls”). During this time, our team began executing extensive remote learning research, as well as developing data collection platforms, which would be key to ensuring our program best fit the needs of our learners.

Although moving to distance learning was new territory for us, luckily we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. First, we invested in learning from the many organizations working to tackle the digital divide prior to COVID-19: Girl Effect in girls’ empowerment, Eneza and M-Shule in academic learning, and the countless organizations providing learning continuity in humanitarian emergencies . Leveraging these learnings and equity-focused best practices , our local teams of curriculum and learning experience designers hit the ground running.

In just over three months of implementation, we’ve experienced exciting progress and key breakthroughs, coupled with failures, flops, and stubborn challenges—all of which have been critical for developing distance learning strategies of our own. By sharing our emerging best practices, we hope to contribute to the creation of quality and equitable distance learning solutions, allowing young people in every corner of the world to stay engaged with their education.

Lessons learned for effective distance learning solutions

1. leverage user data to tailor programmatic design to learner realities.

Our greatest obstacle has been determining how to consistently reach youth with limited access to the internet and connectivity through phone or radio. To address this challenge and inform an effective response, we needed to deeply understand our students’ realities. And to understand our students’ realities, we needed data! While we leveraged existing country data on school closures, as well as young people’s broad access to technology, we needed to collect data specific to our students’ lives. We needed to understand what life was like at home, how frequently our students could access a phone or radio, what barriers they faced learning outside the classroom, and if gender affected their ability to participate.

While collecting data under countrywide coronavirus restrictions has been challenging, it has been critical for informing our response. To collect data, our team leveraged low-tech means, including disseminating surveys to youth through SMS, WhatsApp, and phone calls. We leveraged phone-based surveys to guide our programmatic decisionmaking and used WhatsApp groups for rapid design feedback. We have also targeted data on gender, developing a data point within our student contact database, allowing us to disaggregate by gender. As our team targets equal participation among boys and girls in our programming, disaggregation by gender has been critical for informing our remote gender equity strategy (discussed below in learning #5).

While these data collection platforms don’t reach all of our students, these systems have generated rich datasets on key indicators, such as participation. A key barrier we discovered through student surveys is that many youth have taken on new home responsibilities, cutting into time for their studies. Mornings are especially busy, as many students are completing household chores or supporting their families with agricultural work. In response to these learnings, we scheduled radio lessons on the weekends and sent learning prompts via SMS later in the day, when youth had finished their chores. By listening closely to our students and looking at a holistic picture of their lives, we have been able to increase participation in our remote programming quite simply, without addressing the complex issues of technology access.

2. Go beyond broadcasting content: Layer strategies and build in interaction

It’s widely recognized that real and meaningful learning occurs in the classroom only when curriculum goes beyond rote memorization and lecture-based instruction. We believe that the same approach should be applied to distance learning, so we have prioritized hybrid distance learning strategies that have two-way engagement built in.

We are taking a multipronged approach in Uganda—leveraging radio for content delivery, with robocalls, SMS, and remote mentorship for follow-up assessment, engagement, and guidance. While we don’t believe that distance learning strategies can replace in-person instruction, we think that “layering” strategies with built-in engagement can strengthen their impact. Evidence backs this up: In Kenya, a study examining the multimedia platform Shujazz showed that youth exhibited positive behavior changes after receiving targeted content through comics, social media, and SMS. Lastly, building in student responses to these mechanisms has the added advantage of supporting critical data collection.

3. Look for new ways to engage families

As schools began to close in March, our team urgently worked to collect student phone numbers to enroll students in our remote programming. However, of the 13,000 phone numbers we were able to collect, fewer than 50 percent were active. In addition, research conducted by our team at the outset of the pandemic found that many of our students only have access to a shared device for about 30 minutes per day.

Drawing on lessons learned from past emergencies, we conducted targeted outreach to parents and family members. We quickly learned that youth could participate more consistently in our remote programming if they used a family member’s phone rather than their own, as parents and relatives were more likely to own a phone as well as keep their phone numbers active. We also believe this strategy enhances the quality of the learning for youth because parents can help ensure their children engage actively with learning prompts. Further, a number of studies show that when communities and parents are engaged in students’ learning, academic achievement increases.

After targeting outreach to families, we saw a 29 percent increase in participation in our remote programming, and since launching, we have grown our reach from roughly 10 percent of our previous student level to 50-60 percent, with the expectation that our reach will continue to grow as we scale nationally. As with all things technology-enabled, this growth is exponential and has a snowball effect, so we’re hopeful about the future.

4. Incorporate story-based learning to keep youth engaged

Our team leveraged this feedback to rewrite radio scripts, rework linear learning activities, and introduce new characters within the lessons. While we are continuing to iterate on our distance learning curriculum, we are already beginning to see a positive impact, as 90 percent of our listeners have reported they relate to these story-based activities.

5. Think critically about pedagogy and content delivery to better support girls

Educate!’s curriculum was developed with gender responsiveness at the forefront, and we’ve designed our model to address critical gaps girls face—such as asset and skills gaps—to impact life outcomes. As we’ve worked to transition our curriculum to entirely new delivery mechanisms, we have taken a deliberate approach to integrating gender equity within our remote programming’s design and delivery.

Leveraging the data collection strategies outlined above, we discovered that boys in our programming were more likely to own their own phones than girls—making it challenging for our female learners to participate actively during radio lessons, as well as with assessments and learning prompts delivered via SMS. While we are still working to tackle the core issue of access among female learners, our team has set out to support girls and promote equal participation through a variety of programmatic components.

Our team of designers ensures that the content of every lesson and learning prompt delivered by radio or SMS is gender-responsive. For example, lead characters within our curriculum are female secondary school students, and we select confident female entrepreneurs within our case studies. Through our in-school model, we’ve seen that this strategy is effective in combating the socialization of girls to be quiet and reserved, as well as the negative stereotypes that typecast girls as less competent. In addition to gender-responsive pedagogy, we have begun exploring the implementation of all-girl listener groups as a way to create safe spaces at home for female learners. Following the release of a radio lesson, a female Educate! youth mentor convenes five to 10 girls on a conference call, where they connect to reflect on what they learned in the lesson, as well as discuss challenges they face learning at home.

In the foreseeable future, it seems likely that restrictions on gatherings will remain, limiting the education sector’s ability to reach youth directly in schools. By sharing these early lessons in effective distance learning, we believe we can work together as a sector to navigate this new normal. Together, we can rethink traditional education on a global level—pushing it further into the 21st century and toward a more equitable future.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

From online to offline education in the post-pandemic era: challenges encountered by international students at british universities.

• Information School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

Background: After 2 years of anti-pandemic struggles, universities in the United Kingdom have started to witness a reverse transition, a shift from online to offline education. This includes encouraging students to begin face-to-face programmes and allowing flexibility for remote learners, but later requiring all students to return to campus by a certain date.

Objectives: This paper aims to explore the challenges and impacts brought about by this new transition and provide recommendations for universities to enhance student experience for future adversity.

Method: This qualitative study conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 international students from a British university to explore their experiences during the transition. The results were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Our data revealed both internal and external challenges to students during the online-to-offline shift, which lead to a general resistance to said shift. Specifically, policy challenges (e.g., policy conflicts) imposed the most significant impacts on international students, resulting in psychological anxiety, financial losses, and negative learning experiences. The reduction of digital tools and learning materials during the shift also presented challenges to students who developed a reliance on digital resources while learning remotely. Other challenges have also been identified, including academic barriers and social engagement issues.

Conclusion: By highlighting these challenges, this paper has practical implications for university policy decisions and provides recommendations for supporting students’ transition back to traditional offline learning.

1. Introduction

Worldwide educational institutions have been affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO, 2021 ), over 220 million students were impacted by this unprecedented incident. The impact included social-distancing measures, lecture cancellations and teaching facility closures ( Marinoni et al., 2020 ). Consequently, campus-based education activities were moved to online or hybrid environments, creating various challenges for students ( Lemay et al., 2021 ). After over 2 years of anti-pandemic struggles, many countries have implemented less severe public health and social measures ( WHO, 2022 ). Since the summer of 2021, the UK government announced its anti-COVID strategy, ‘Living with COVID-19’ ( Cabinet Office, 2022 ). Following this national policy, the Department of Education of the United Kingdom started to encourage higher education institutions to return to delivering face-to-face teaching ( Department of Education, 2022 ). As a result, most universities in the United Kingdom switched to face-to-face teaching, making students readjust to a reverse transition from online to offline learning, causing new challenges for students, especially those with international backgrounds. However, most research on student transitions related to the pandemic and post-pandemic education has focused on challenges during online transitions ( Saikat et al., 2021 ; Gupta et al., 2022 ; Szopiński and Bachnik, 2022 ). A limited amount of research has been conducted on the reverse transition, in which students switched from online to offline learning.

This research aims to examine the experiences of Chinese international students during the post-pandemic transition from online to offline learning and asks the following questions:

• What challenges and constraints do Chinese international students face during the online-offline transition?

• What suggestions and improvements can be made to enhance the student experience for future adversity?

The project used a research university (S University) in the United Kingdom as an example before exploring the impact of the online-to-offline transition on a group of Chinese international students ( n  = 24). During the first half of the academic term, S University adopted a hybrid teaching approach, encouraging students to return to campus for face-to-face teaching while providing online alternatives for those temporarily based outside of the United Kingdom. Once students arrived on campus, they were required to attend face-to-face classes. During the second half of the academic term, S University cancelled all online teaching and completely shifted their courses offline. Students who could not reach the campus on time were required to take a Leave of Absence (LOA) and postpone their studies for a year. Depending on when these students arrive on campus, they may face different challenges during this reverse transition. Accordingly, this research defines the following student groups:

• Campus Starter (CS): Students who arrived at the university before the term started and attended the face-to-face courses (as encouraged).

• Remote Starter (RS): Students who arrived at the university after a period of distance learning and attended face-to-face courses before the start of the second half of the academic term.

• Leave of Absence Students (LOA): Students who completed the first half of the academic term remotely, but could not arrive at the university in time for the second half of the academic year for in-person teaching. They were placed on ‘leave of absence’ and had to postpone their studies for a year.

2. Literature review

2.1. issues associated with online teaching during the pandemic.

As a preventive measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus, strict social restrictions have been adopted by many countries, such as keeping in place social distancing, remote work, and regional lockdowns ( Kaur et al., 2021 ). As a result, educational institutions around the world have been heavily impacted and forced to adopt a distance-learning approach ( Gillis and Krull, 2020 ; Lederman, 2020 ; Zhao et al., 2020 ). However, research suggests that there are many concerns associated with the sudden shift to online teaching, such as technical issues, student disengagement, and time zone differences, which may cause social and technical challenges for both teachers and students ( Fatoni et al., 2020 ; Lemay et al., 2021 ; Naddeo et al., 2021 ). For example, Daniel (2020) argues that instructors were unprepared for online teaching, due to a lack of training and support from universities. Naddeo et al. (2021) found that students’ negativity is related to Internet connectivity and the performance of learning management systems (LMS). Similarly, Song et al. (2004) found that, in addition to connectivity issues, the students’ experience can be negatively influenced by their unfamiliarity with the learning system. Research also reports a lack of peer interaction and student-teacher interaction online, which are both crucial for learning ( Kamble et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, distance learning can also be a challenge for students who study academic subjects that require lab work ( Dhawan, 2020 ; Radha et al., 2020 ). These issues may influence students’ academic outcomes and overall experiences ( Omar et al., 2021 ).

2.2. Opportunities for online teaching

Despite the challenges, the remote-learning environment has also brought about new educational opportunities ( Hoss et al., 2022 ; Li et al., 2022 ). For example, Azorín (2020) argues that the crisis provides scarce opportunities to trial, improve, and rethink the role, content, and innovative delivery methods of education. Meanwhile, Aguilera-Hermida (2020) believes that the remote-learning experience also promoted the development of digital literacy among students. Daniel (2020) argues that asynchronous learning, particularly suitable in digital formats, provides both teachers and students with flexibility and enables them to achieve a better balance between work and study. Moreover, online teaching also promotes flexibility while reducing expenses ( Xhaferi and Xhaferi, 2020 ; Weldon et al., 2021 ). In addition to flexibility, researchers argue that online platforms and technology applications provide students with additional resources ( Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021 ; Sbaffi and Zhao, 2022 ) and enhance student academic achievements ( Younas et al., 2022 ). Similarly, Fatoni et al. (2020) found that students can benefit from asynchronous materials (e.g., lecture recordings) to enhance their knowledge. There has also been an increase in the use of social media for sharing learning resources with students ( Nasution et al., 2022 ). As Huang et al. (2021) point out, COVID-19 has created opportunities for universities and brings out innovative pedagogy and digital resources. However, it is uncertain how sustainable these benefits could be when universities start to transition back to ‘ordinariness’ and offer only face-to-face courses to students ( Daniel, 2020 ).

2.3. Online to offline transition

Although COVID-19 is still spreading, coexistence with the virus has become an option for many countries, including the United Kingdom ( Cabinet Office, 2022 ). Scholars, such as Hargreaves (2020) , believe that temporary online education will move back towards the traditional campus-based model or a hybrid method. Meanwhile, Rashid and Yadav (2020) suggest that online teaching should remain an essential part of future teaching even when universities return to offline teaching.

In 2022, we have witnessed a shift to offline learning in the United Kingdom, as predicted by scholars ( Daniel, 2020 ). As this is a new trend, there has been little research about the issues and challenges faced by students during this reverse transition. Among all university students, international learners suffer more challenges caused by external and transnational obstacles, such as border control, travel restrictions, flight cancellations, extra financial difficulties, and career issues ( Hari et al., 2023 ). Therefore, this project will focus on the experience of a group of Chinese international students to explore their experiences during this transition.

3. Materials and methods

This research follows an interpretive paradigm and adopts qualitative research with an exploratory nature ( Stebbins, 2001 ; Rudestam and Newton, 2014 ). It focuses on the experiences of Chinese international students during the online-offline transition to explore their perceptions and attitudes as well as the challenges they faced during this transition. Using a snowball sampling strategy, 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted with various cohorts of students, Campus Starters ( n  = 8), Remote Starters ( n  = 8), and Leave of Absence (LOA) students ( n  = 8). CS students began their on-campus life at the beginning of the first semester, which means they participated in more face-to-face courses than the other participant groups. While RS students travelled to the United Kingdom successively between Sep 2021 and Feb 2022, they engaged with both online and offline learning. Meanwhile, LOA students only experienced online learning and had to postpone their studies for a year. See Table 1 for detailed participant information.

Table 1 . Participant information.

The interviews were conducted online with the help of meeting tools (Google Meet and Tencent Meeting) that enabled Chinese international students outside of the United Kingdom to participate in the interview. Due to the nature of this study, the research was conducted in two languages: English and Chinese (Mandarin). A pilot study was conducted prior to data collection to refine and revise interview questions and enhance the reliability of the research. The interview questions were divided into two sections. As part of the first section, we asked questions about student programmes, study durations, and previous transitional experiences. Depending on students’ learning modes (e.g., CS, RS or LOA), the second section contains different questions. Common questions focused on students’ decision-making when choosing different learning modes, their overall feeling towards the university’s online to offline transition, barriers they faced, specific events or activities that impacted their learning experiences, and their recommendations to the university. A design of the interview questions was submitted as Supplementary material .

The data from the semi-structured interview was then transcribed, translated, and analysed using a thematic analysis approach, which included becoming familiar with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining themes, and producing a write-up ( Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). This method is particularly suitable when analysing human experiences and perceptions, which also fits well with the objectives of this article. Specifically, informed by Kiger and Varpio (2020) , our data analysis process involved the following steps: (1) familiarise all the interview transcripts and generate a general understanding of the dataset, (2) analyse each transcript in detail and note the initial codes according to the research questions, (3) examine all the initial codes and search for core themes, (4) reviewing the themes, interpreting their interrelationships, and answering the research questions, (5) defining and naming all the themes, identifying the issues, and making suggestions and (6) producing the report based on the themes.

The study received ethics approval from the university of [anonymised]. Informed consent was collected prior to the interviews. In addition, participants were informed of their right to withdraw from the study. The names of all participants have been anonymised. An ethics approval letter can be found in the Supplementary materials .

Our interview data revealed a number of challenges that students faced during the online to offline transition at the university, namely policy, infrastructure, academic and financial challenges.

4.1. Policy-related challenges

Policy issues create enormous difficulties for all types of students (CS, RS and LOA). The identified policy challenges consist of two sub-themes: policy constraints and policy conflicts.

4.1.1. Policy constraints

In the context of the COVID pandemic, policy constraints come from national-level travel restrictions and institutional-level teaching guidelines. Travel restrictions were enormous challenges for international students. During the transition, the RS and LOA students suffered from local lockdowns and strict flight controls, which forced them to be separated from the offline-learning environment. These issues were often unpredictable and left students with limited time to respond. One RS student said that:

After my flight was suspended, I couldn’t come in time and had to buy a new ticket. This was a bit troublesome. The travel procedures are quite complicated. If I didn’t do it in advance, I couldn’t arrive at the expected time. (Participant 6, RS, PGT)

The travel restrictions imposed a significant influence on students’ choices of teaching approaches. Students were unable to shorten their physical distance from campus. Therefore, students had to choose from the available options. In other words, policy constraints deprived them of the opportunity for campus learning. One LOA student complained that:

I was faced with various quarantine policies, […] according to the domestic policy, there was no way for me to take public transportation, let alone apply for a visa to study abroad. (Participant 7, LOA, PGT)

Similarly, when asked about the reason for making the online choice, an RS student answered by saying that:

My flight was suspended at that time. But actually, I wanted to come over. (Participant 6, RS, PGT)

In addition, some students expressed concerns about the challenges they may face after their studies in the United Kingdom were completed. To avoid quarantine upon their return to China, students were hesitant or even resisted the offline shift. One bachelor’s student who was unwilling to transition said that:

[…] if I go to the UK, I need to be prepared to not go home for the next two or three years, because China’s strict policy makes it very hard to return home, which I couldn’t accept at that time. (Participant 11, LOA, UG)

A master’s student who postponed the journey to the United Kingdom shared a similar concern:

Although the pandemic-management policy in Britain allows for total freedom in 2022, in my region, pandemic control is particularly strict. […] If I got the coronavirus, it would be very difficult for me to return home, where I would face a long quarantine. So, I didn’t want to come to the UK at that time. (Participant 6, RS, PGT)

Apart from their choice of learning methods and travel concerns, the travel restrictions imposed psychological and financial pressure on students, discouraging them from moving to offline learning. For example, one LOA student expressed that:

[…] There were moments that I wished to go to the UK for on-campus learning. However, the fight tickets were very expensive, which led to a lot of pressure. […] My flight could easily have been suspended and triggered the circuit cancel policy. […] It ultimately made me anxious about the delay in my studies. […] Everyone was extremely anxious. (Participant 15, LOA, PGT)

The institutional-level teaching guideline is another major challenge. The guideline refers to the mandatory offline-learning policy, which the university created without providing prior notice to students. This led to considerable impacts for RS and LOA students. This sudden policy shift also made it imperative for students to prepare for the transition in a short period of time. Data shows that the sudden change demotivated many students from transiting to offline learning. One LOA student said:

I thought that they should have included online classes as an option in the second semester since the school had made such an inquiry. […] So, I didn’t have, or consider to have my visa, accommodations, and so on prepared. (Participant 11, LOA, UG)

Another identified impact of the shift is the adjustment. This is primarily related to RS students. Universities in the United Kingdom have had resources in place for years to support students’ orientation at the beginning of the term. Therefore, CS students received sufficient support when familiarising themselves with offline teaching and the learning environments (e.g., campus facilities). Arriving at the campus halfway through the term meant that RS students needed to spend time and effort adapting to the new environment with less university support compared to CS students. As RS students had to make last-minute arrangements, travel expenses and overseas living costs were sometimes exceptionally high.

Online classes are […] very convenient, which saves both time and money. […] When I first came here, I had to adapt to the life here […] which might take me a week to adapt, […] The transition period of that week will affect my courses, which is quite challenging. (Participant 6, RS, PGT)

4.1.2. Policy conflicts

Conflicts exist between travel restrictions and teaching guidelines. Specifically, the university policy requires face-to-face teaching, but the travel policy imposes many restrictions both in China and in the United Kingdom. This mismatch created a practical challenge for international students, especially those in the LOA and RS groups. Some LOA students were under a local lockdown and were forced to take a leave of absence. One LOA student said:

I was forced to make that choice (leave of absence), […] Many remote students were forced to go there and study on campus because they didn’t want to take a break from college. We were forced to do that. (Participant 11, LOA, UG)

The conflicts between teaching guidelines and quarantine policy in the United Kingdom at the time were also challenging for certain CS students. The quarantine policy blocked face-to-face registration and sessions despite the arrival of CS students in the United Kingdom. The university also prevented them from attending online sessions as they were registered as CS students. One CS student said:

When I first came to the UK, I was required to stay in quarantine for 14 days. However, I couldn’t attend any classes in the Blackboard system until I completed registration offline to receive my student card. […] This resulted in me missing some of my classes. (Participant 3, CS, PGT)

Conflicts also exist in policies between the university and academic departments. For example, the university provided remote-teaching alternatives during the first semester, but some schools or modules only offered offline exams, resulting in students taking a leave of absence. One LOA student claimed that:

It was quite sudden that we were told to attend offline exams while students of other majors could take their exams online. We thought it was unfair. I even thought the school was way out of line. […] I got 0 on that module and need to retest. […] I could have received a good result after studying for so long. […] I have to go over there next September and start my sophomore year all over again, which is a huge waste of time. (Participant 10, LOA, UG)

In addition to study interruptions and exam delays, students also reported that the sudden transition negatively impacted their career planning and psychology. The interruption of studies has necessitated postponing the original study work plan and introduced uncertainty. The fear of further uncertainty and potentially needing to take a gap year has created additional anxiety for LOA students. The following arguments support these identified impacts:

My plan was disrupted! My plans for my studies and future career were completely messed up. And there was also a big impact on my life. I was at home by myself during the lockdown. Plus, the leave of absence stuff, I was depressed and not in a good mood […] I couldn’t help feeling anxious at night. (Participant 14, LOA, PGT) Due to a year of delay, I have concerns in terms of time. Also, I have age anxiety. (Participant 13, LOA, UG)

4.2. Infrastructure challenges

4.2.1. technology constraint.

Technical issues mainly occurred during the first half of the academic term. The university incorporated live-streaming technologies, which allow for face-to-face teaching to be broadcasted to remote students. All the international students experience some online components in the autumn semester, such as lecture recordings and asynchronous materials. Therefore, this paper infers that technical constraints are common challenges for all student groups. Concretely, the technical challenges manifest in unstable networks, unclear audio, and blurry pictures in the live class. These factors mainly affect the synchronisation and efficiency of the live-streaming sessions. When describing technical issues, students said:

The problem was the network latency. […] Occasionally, it was very laggy. (Participant 1, RS, PGT) Sometimes, there is noise in the livestream classes and recordings. This is inevitably with lots of students in a classroom. (Participant 4, CS, PGT) I need to use a VPN to attend classes, which can be troublesome and lags sporadically. (Participant 10, LOA, UT-Year2)

Students considered these technical issues to be temporary. Therefore, their overall learning outcomes and experiences were not hugely impacted. When asked about this, students reported that:

It wasn’t too bad. […] I am satisfied with my studies during those six months. (Participant 8, LOA, PGT) I was quite content with my learning results. (Participant 15, LOA, PGT)

4.2.2. Campus facility constraint

The challenges caused by the inconvenience of campus facilities mainly affect RS students who newly completed the transition. After experiencing online learning, RS students needed to readjust to offline classrooms. Compared to CS students, the campus is new to them. Furthermore, there was no orientation week to support students who were unfamiliar with the campus. This unfamiliarity made them feel that the campus facilities were not easy to access. For example, one student explained:

I couldn’t find the classroom on my first day on campus. […] The classroom was so far away from my apartment and located on the second floor of a basement. Twisting and winding, it was like a maze. […] I looked for it for a long time. (Participant 1, RS, PGT)

The facility constraint impacts learning convenience. Preference for convenience makes students reluctant to accept new changes. Therefore, the physical inconvenience of offline facilities and a lack of university support regarding induction made them more unwilling to give up flexibility and easy access to teaching. This is one of the reasons for the resistance to the transition. One student claimed:

Before the transition, I could sit at home and have classes without running to the campus. […] The campus of my university is quite big, so it was easy to get lost. (Participant 5, CS, UG)

4.3. Academic challenges

4.3.1. reduction of digital support.

Online teaching facilitates a wealth of digital learning tools and can promote students’ digital literacy skills. Apart from some efficient and innovative platforms, including learning management systems (e.g., Blackboard), Cloud-based collaboration tools (e.g., Google), and social media (e.g., YouTube), digital tools, such as recording software, auto-captions, and real-time translation, also played critical roles in improving academic results. Students were immersed in the digital environment for the first half of the academic term and were dependent on the digital tools that supported them in online learning. When they fully transitioned to offline learning, many digital tools became unavailable, which created a massive challenge for students. Almost all RS and CS participants stressed the importance of some digital tools for their learning. Among these tools, the course recording and language assistance software were most valuable to students. Course videos allow students to revisit lectures, while translation tools help them overcome language barriers, contributing to enhanced learning outcomes. Furthermore, international students rely heavily on captions and auto-translation to overcome language barriers and achieve academic progress. According to multiple students:

I could turn to the recordings at any time, according to my learning progress, if there was anything I didn’t figure out or I had missed in offline classes. […] In the first semester […] I relied heavily on the recordings and slides of the classes. (Participant 12, CS, PGT) I could turn to the subtitles when I couldn’t understand the lecture. […] I was able to understand more content in class compared with the second semester. (Participant 2, RS, PGT) The learning experience is better with online lectures as there are auto-captions that we can use. (Participant 18, RS, PGT) The chatbot feature allows the tutor to answer all questions one by one. This can benefit all students. Offline lectures can become crowded when students are asking questions. Tutors may not be able to address all of them. (Participant 24, CS, PGT)

Students’ reliance on digital tools is directly linked to their learning experiences and outcomes. This reliance can also be arguably linked to students’ resistance to offline learning. Face-to-face learning becomes more challenging if students experience language barriers. As one student argued:

I became reliant on the subtitles when listening to online classes. I would habitually look at the subtitles and not think about what the teacher or my classmates were saying. And, when I switched to on-campus learning, I would find it hard to adapt in terms of listening and other aspects. (Participant 1, RS, PGT)

Students value the digital skills they have developed through online education. Our data suggests that online learning initiates innovative approaches and facilitates the utilisation of technology, such as digital assistance tools, online cooperation software, social media platforms, etc. These innovative and beneficial approaches also enhance the digital skills of students, which is indispensable in the Information Age. Some participants believe that the enhancements brought about by online learning contribute to their future development:

The informative approach will become a major trend in the future. For instance, working from home or something like this. […] it would be of great help if you have experience in online classes and are very skilled and seasoned in online information processing, operation, and learning. Because I worked as an intern during the LOA period and there were often online meetings or communication. […] My previous online experience was valuable during my internship. (Participant 11, LOA, UG).

However, the transition to offline learning has significantly decreased the use of digital tools and materials for learning and teaching. Hence, reliance on digital support also drove some LOA students away from offline learning. One LOA student conveyed the following view:

I can refer to the recordings, […] It helps with the absorption and consolidation of knowledge. […] Is it only in offline classes that you can learn well? Not necessarily. (Participant 14, LOA, PGT)

This challenge also affects the frequency and timing of students’ utilisation of IT tools and platforms. For example, with the total shift back to offline learning, the recording and captioning tools are no longer available. Students’ time spent on digital resources, such as E-Library and Blackboard, was also reduced.

I spent more time on Blackboard and reading course materials. […] I’m more frequently using online tools. […] Then, during the second semester, […] I didn’t log on to Blackboard very often. (Participant 2, RS, PGT)

4.3.2. Reduced flexibility

Flexibility is a unique feature of online learning. This term describes flexibility in time and location, which could contribute to crisis resilience. Therefore, many students, after experiencing online learning, were reluctant to give up flexibility in teaching. Specifically, the recorded and asynchronous materials allowed students to learn more flexibly. Furthermore, these factors ensure that teaching is unaffected by external contingencies, such as the strike movement that occurred several times during the academic year.

Last semester, […] I could just turn on my computer and attend my classes, […] when I came here, I had to walk a long distance to take the courses, which I found quite tiresome and time-consuming. (Participant 2, RS, PGT) I wasted my time running to the classroom, which ended up being empty (due to staff strikes), […] The same thing could happen online, but it probably would not affect me as much. (Participant 3, CS, PGT)

Another reason is related to the previously identified factor: digital support. Lecture contents are easier to understand for international students with the help of digital tools. In addition, after transitioning to offline learning, students need to spend more time and effort on self-study to make up for the information missed during face-to-face lectures due to language barriers. One student points out:

Because there is no recording, […] I need to listen attentively, […] I need to spend more time and energy, such as looking at the courseware again, or reading a lot of relevant materials to make up for some knowledge I missed in class. (Participant 5, CS, UG)

4.4. Financial challenges

The transition from online to offline also increased the total financial cost of education. This issue posed different levels of challenges depending on the cohort of students. For RS and LOA students, the increased cost is significant, especially in the context of COVID. The sudden transition means that students must spend a lot of money on living costs, accommodations, international flights, and COVID-related expenses. One LOA felt particularly stressed and complained by saying:

A round trip ticket is very expensive, nearly £10,000. It is not a small amount of money for my family. […] It is hard for me to make a casual choice. (Participant 15, LOA, PGT) Due to the lockdown, there was a delay in the postal service. As a result, I didn’t get my visa and passport returned to me on time, and missed my flight as a result. There was no refund. I had to buy a new flight ticket. (Participant 22, RS, PGT)

These additional significant financial costs led to psychological stress for students and may have led to their decision to postpone their studies. Completing a degree at the minimum possible cost is very attractive to many students. Therefore, the cost challenge is a fundamental factor that drives their reluctance to transition.

For international students, it requires a huge amount of money to live and study in another city. For those who have one year course, the online option can actually help them save a lot of money for their families. (Participant 11, LOA, UG)

The impact on CS students is less severe. The fact that they were already involved in offline classes means that they had considered the issue of education expenditure and made a choice with sufficient time to plan the trip. The additional high cost, due to COVID-19, is within their expectations.

5. Discussion

This research developed a nuanced understanding of the challenges that influence Chinese international students during the online-to-offline transition. Several challenges these students faced during the transition were identified, including policy issues, infrastructure constraints, academic barriers, and financial burdens. Among all the identified challenges, policy challenges posed the most serious issues for international students, and the impacts were far more severe than those brought about by other challenges. Issues such as academic, social and infrastructure only impact the transition’s quality. In contrast, policy issues, especially policy conflicts, may determine the success or failure of some students’ transitions. The emergence of LOA students represents the failure of their campus-oriented shift. The findings evidenced that LOA students were the most vulnerable among all students, as this group faced interruptions in their studies, delays in career planning, and enormous psychological pressure. This accords the finding of Sahu (2020) , who suggests that policies, such as travel restrictions bring a series of secondary challenges, including delays in examinations, monetary problems, admission issues, study interruption, psychological health, and career plans.

All participants displayed resistance to a complete transition from online to offline learning. However, the resistance was more evident among the RS and LOA groups. This could be because these groups of students were unwilling to accept the challenges brought upon them by a sudden shift to offline learning. Another noticeable and common reason for resistance is the reliance on digital tools. Online learning tools are most effective in assisting with language barriers. With the help of recording, captioning, and live translation tools, participants reported significantly improved learning outcomes in lectures and eventually became reliant on them ( Fatoni et al., 2020 ; Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021 ). This is consistent with the finding of Weldon et al. (2021) , who argue that lecture recordings significantly benefit students during the revision and assessment stages. Moreover, many efficient and innovative technologies were introduced during the online period, such as screensharing during group discussions or using learning materials from social media. Students also benefit from more frequent use of digital tools, as their digital skills are enhanced. This finding accords with the research conducted by Aguilera-Hermida (2020) , who argues that the online-oriented transition promotes the utilisation of technology and digital literacy. Similarly, Noor et al. (2022) also highlights the benefits of information and computer technology (ICT) skills development for students as a result of a rapid growth of technology in education during the pandemic.

Based on the findings, this research has the following recommendations. This research suggests that a complete and sudden switch to offline teaching is not a perfect solution. Advance notice should be given to students at the offer stage rather than forcing a sudden change upon students midway through their studies. Lei and So (2021) argue that students are sensitive to the sudden switch between different learning modalities. In addition to considering national policies, universities in the United Kingdom should also take into account international policies that may affect international students’ travels and studies. In addition, universities should implement a consistent policy across all academic departments to minimise the impact on students who study for joint degrees or attend modules offered by more than one department. In addition, the value of digital tools and resources should be acknowledged and sustained to enhance the student learning experience, academic outcomes, and the development of digital literacy. Our finding supports the view of previous research, which highlights the value of a blended teaching approach and sustained digital resources for teaching in a post-pandemic age ( Hargreaves, 2020 ; Rashid and Yadav, 2020 ). Finally, universities should consider enhancing their resources to support the transition of those students returning from a leave of absence. Students from this group are often the most vulnerable and underrepresented. In the current system, students are most likely to receive support during the orientation or induction week. Dedicated support staff or resources could be made available for students who miss induction weeks, such as late arrivals and students who return from a leave of absence.

6. Conclusion

This research aims to study the challenges encountered by international students during the reverse transition from online to offline teaching in the post-pandemic era. The findings identified challenges faced by Chinese international students during this transition, namely, policy issues, infrastructure constraints, academic barriers, and financial burdens. First, the policy issues are most challenging for students resulting in a broad range of negative impacts. Our data suggests that LOA students are the most vulnerable to study interruptions, career plan disruptions, and psychological pressure. More support should be provided to this cohort when they resume their studies. Second, a consistent teaching method across the academic year is most valued by students. Almost all participants displayed negativity and resistance towards a sudden move to offline learning. Sudden changes in teaching can cause considerable disruptions to students. Thus, advanced notice should be provided to students if such sudden changes are unavoidable. Third, the complete reversion to the traditional face-to-face model is not a perfect option. Online modality has unique and irreplaceable benefits, promoting innovation and enhancing students’ digital skills. Universities should retain the digital resources and pedagogy developed during the pandemic and incorporate them into offline teaching.

This research also presents several limitations. Due to the research scope, the subject is limited to Chinese international students. Particular challenges brought about by the policies in China are not representative of the entire international student community. Future studies may select a broader range of subjects. Further studies could also look at the readjustment issues faced by LOA students who have been found to be most vulnerable in this research. In addition, the perception of the participants may change over time. A longitudinal study is needed to determine the long-term impact of the transition on students.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by University of Sheffield Information School Ethics Committee. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1093475/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: online-offline transition, international student experience, post-pandemic, student transition, learning experience

Citation: Zhao X and Xue W (2023) From online to offline education in the post-pandemic era: Challenges encountered by international students at British universities. Front. Psychol . 13:1093475. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1093475

Received: 09 November 2022; Accepted: 28 December 2022; Published: 18 January 2023.

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Copyright © 2023 Zhao and Xue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Wenchao Xue, ✉ [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• Review article
• Open access
• Published: 09 November 2022

Shifting online during COVID-19: A systematic review of teaching and learning strategies and their outcomes

• Joyce Hwee Ling Koh   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5626-4927 1 &
• Ben Kei Daniel 1  

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education volume  19 , Article number:  56 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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This systematic literature review of 36 peer-reviewed empirical articles outlines eight strategies used by higher education lecturers and students to maintain educational continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic since January 2020. The findings show that students’ online access and positive coping strategies could not eradicate their infrastructure and home environment challenges. Lecturers’ learning access equity strategies made learning resources available asynchronously, but having access did not imply that students could effectively self-direct learning. Lecturers designed classroom replication, online practical skills training, online assessment integrity, and student engagement strategies to boost online learning quality, but students who used ineffective online participation strategies had poor engagement. These findings indicate that lecturers and students need to develop more dexterity for adapting and manoeuvring their online strategies across different online teaching and learning modalities. How these online competencies could be developed in higher education are discussed.

Introduction

Higher education institutions have launched new programmes online for three decades, but their integration of online teaching and learning into on-campus programmes remained less cohesive (Kirkwood & Price, 2014 ). Since early 2020, educational institutions have been shifting online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some consider this kind of emergency remote teaching a temporary online shift during a crisis, whereas online learning involves purposive design for online delivery (Hodges et al., 2020 ). Two years into the pandemic, fully online, blended or hybridised modalities are still being used in response to evolving COVID-19 health advisories (Jaschik, 2021 ). Even though standards for the pedagogical, social, administrative, and technical requirements of online learning have already been published before the pandemic (e.g. Bigatel et al., 2012 ; Goodyear et al., 2001 ), the online competencies of lecturers and students remain critical challenges for higher education institutions during the pandemic (Turnbull et al., 2021 ). Emerging systematic literature reviews about higher education online teaching and learning during the pandemic focus on the clinical aspects of health science programmes (see Dedeilia et al., 2020 ; Hao et al., 2022 ; Papa et al., 2022 ). Understanding the strategies used in other programmes and disciplines is critical for outlining higher education lecturers’ and students’ future online competency needs.

This study, therefore, presents a systematic literature review of the teaching and learning strategies that lecturers and students used to shift online in response to the pandemic and their consequent outcomes. The review was conducted through content analysis and thematic analysis of 36 peer-reviewed articles published from January 2020 to December 2021. It discusses how relevant online competencies for lecturers and students can be further developed in higher education.

Methodology

A Systematic and Tripartite Approach (STA) (Daniel & Harland, 2017 ) guided the review process. STA draws from systematic review approaches such as the Cochrane Review Methods, widely used in application-based disciplines such as the health sciences (Chandler & Hopewell, 2013 ). It develops systematic reviews through description (providing a summary of the review), synthesis (logically categorising research reviewed based on related ideas, connections and rationales), and critique (providing evidence to support, discard or offer new ideas about the literature).

Framing the review

The following research questions guided the review:

What strategies did higher education lecturers and students use when they shifted teaching and learning online in response to the pandemic?

What were the outcomes arising from these strategies?

Search strategy

Peer-reviewed articles were identified from databases indexing leading educational journals—Educational Database (ProQuest), Education Research Complete (EBSCOhost), ERIC (ProQuest), Scopus, Web of Science (Core Collection), and ProQuest Central. The following search terms were used to locate articles with empirical evidence of lecturers’ and/or students’ shifting online strategies:

(remote OR virtual OR emergency remote OR online OR digital OR eLearning) AND (teaching strateg* OR learning strateg* OR shifting online) AND (higher education OR tertiary OR university OR college) AND (covid*) AND (success OR challenge OR outcome OR effect OR case OR lesson or evidence OR reflection)

The following were the inclusion and exclusion criteria:

Review period—From January 2020 to December 2021, following the first reported case of COVID-19 (WHO, 2020 ).

Language—Only articles published in the English language were included.

Type of article—In order maintain rigour in the findings, only peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings were included, and non-refereed articles and conference proceedings were excluded. Peer-reviewed articles reporting empirical data from the lecturer and/or student perspectives were included. Editorials and literature reviews were examined to deepen conceptual understanding but excluded from the review.

The article’s focus—Articles with adequate descriptions and evaluation of lecturers’ and students’ online teaching and learning strategies undertaken because of health advisories during the COVID-19 pandemic were included. K-12 studies, higher education studies with data gathered prior to January 2020, studies describing general online learning experiences that did not arise from COVID-19, studies describing the functionalities of online learning technologies, studies about tips and tricks for using online tools during COVID-19, studies about the public health impact of COVID-19, or studies purely describing online learning attitudes or successes and challenges during COVID-19 without corresponding descriptions of teaching and learning strategies and their outcomes were excluded.

A list of 547 articles published between January 2020 and December 2021 were extracted using keyword and manual search with a final list of 36 articles selected for review (see Fig.  1 ). The inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to the PRISMA process (Moher et al., 2009 ). The articles and a summary of coding are found in Appendix .

Article screening with the PRISMA process

Data analysis

Content analysis (Weber, 1990 ) and thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006 ) were used to answer the research questions. Pertinent sections of each article outlining lecturers’ and/or students’ shifting online strategies were identified, read and re-read for data familiarisation. The first author used content analysis to generate eight teaching and learning strategies. These were verified through an inter-rater analysis where a random selection of eight articles was recoded by a second-rater (22.22% of total articles) and confirmed with adequate Cohen’s kappas (Teaching strategies: 0.88, Learning strategies: 0.78). Frequency counts were analysed to answer research question 1.

For the second research question, we first categorised the various shifting online outcomes described in each article and coded each outcome as “success”, “challenge”, or “mixed”. Successful outcomes include favourable descriptions of teaching, learning, or assessment experiences, minimal issues with technology/infrastructure, favourable test scores, or reasonable attendance/course completion rates, whereas challenging outcomes suggest otherwise. Mixed outcomes were not a success or challenge, for example, positive and negative experiences during learning, assessment or with learning infrastructure, or mixed learning outcomes such as positive test scores but lower ratings of professional confidence. Frequency distributions were used to compare the overall successes and challenges of shifting online (see Tables 1 and 2 of “ Findings ” section). Following this, the pertinent outcomes associated with each of the eight shifting online strategies were pinpointed through thematic analysis and critical relationships were visualised as theme maps. These were continually reviewed for internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity (Patton, 1990 ). To ensure trustworthiness and reliability (Creswell, 1998 ), there was frequent debriefing between the authors to refine themes and theme maps, followed by critical peer review with another lecturer specialising in higher education educational technology practices. Throughout this process, an audit trail was maintained to document the evolution of themes. These processes completed the description and synthesis aspects of the systematic literature review prior to critique and discussion (Daniel & Harland, 2017 ).

Descriptive characteristics

Descriptive characteristics of the articles are summarised in Table 1 .

Table 1 shows that articles about shifting online during the pandemic were published steadily between August 2020 and December 2021. About two-thirds of the articles were based on data from the United States of America, Asia, or Australasia, with close to 45% of the articles analysing shifting online strategies used in the disciplines of Natural Sciences and Medical and Health Sciences and around 60% focusing on degree programmes. While there was an exact representation of studies with sample sizes from below 50 to above 150, the majority were descriptive studies, with close to half based on quantitative data gathered through surveys. About half of the articles focused on teaching strategies, while around 40% also examined students' learning strategies. However, only about 20% of the articles had theoretical framing for their teaching strategies. Besides using self-developed theories, the authors also used established theories such as the Community of Inquiry Theory by Garrison et. al. ( 2010 ), the Interaction Framework for Distance Education by Moore ( 1989 ), self-regulated learning by Zimmerman ( 2002 ) and the 5E model of Bybee et. al. ( 2006 ). Different types of shifting online outcomes were reported in the articles. The majority documented the positive and negative experiences associated with synchronous or asynchronous online learning activities, online learning technology and infrastructure, or online assessment. A quarter of the articles reported data on student learning outcomes and attendance/completion rates, while a minority also described teaching workload effects. Table 2 shows other successes and challenges associated with shifting online. Of the articles that examined online learning experiences, over a quarter reported clear successes in terms of positive experiences while about half reported mixed experiences. Majority of the articles examining technology and infrastructure experiences or assessment experiences either reported challenging or mixed experiences. All the articles examining learning outcomes reported apparent successes but only half of those investigating attendance/completion rates found these to be acceptable. Only challenges were reported for teaching workload.

Teaching strategies and outcomes

Lecturers used five teaching strategies to shift online during the pandemic (see Table 3 ).

Online practical skills training

Lecturers had to create online practical skills training . With limited access to clinical, field-based, or laboratory settings, lecturers taught only the conceptual aspects of practical skills through online guest lectures, live skill demonstration sessions, video recordings of field trips, conceptual application exercises, or by substituting skills practice with new theoretical topics (Chan et al., 2020 ; de Luca et al., 2021 ; Dietrich et al., 2020 ; Dodson & Blinn, 2021 ; Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Gomez et al., 2020 ; Xiao et al., 2020 ). Only in three studies about forest operations, ecology, and nursing was it possible to practice hand skills in alternative locations such as public parks and students’ homes (Dodson & Blinn, 2021 ; Gerhart et al., 2021 ; Palmer et al., 2021 ).

Outcomes : Online practical skills training had different effects on learning experiences, test scores, and attendance/completion rates. Students can attain expected test scores through conceptual learning of practical skills (Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Gomez et al., 2020 ; Xiao et al., 2020 ). However, not all students had positive learning experiences as some appreciated deeper conceptual learning, but others felt disconnected from peers, anxious about losing hand skills proficiency, and could not maintain class attendance (de Luca et al., 2021 ; Dietrich et al., 2020 ; Gomez et al., 2020 ). Positive learning experiences, reasonable course attendance/completion rates, and higher confidence in content mastery were more achievable when students had opportunities to practice hand skills in alternative locations (Gerhart et al., 2021 ).

Online assessment integrity

Lecturers had to devise strategies to maintain online assessment integrity , primarily through different ways of preventing cheating (see Reedy et al., 2021 ). Pass/Fail grading, reducing examination weightage through a higher emphasis on daily work and class participation, and asking students to make academic integrity declarations were some changes to examination policies (e.g. Ali et al., 2020 ; Dicks et al., 2020 ). Randomising and scrambling questions, administering different versions of examination papers, using proctoring software, open-book examinations, and replacing multiple choice with written questions were other ways of preventing cheating during online examinations (Hall et al., 2021 ; Jaap et al., 2021 ; Reedy et al., 2021 ).

Outcomes : There was concern that shifting to online assessment had detrimental effects on learning outcomes, but several studies reported otherwise (Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Gomez et al., 2020 ; Hall et al., 2021 ; Jaap et al., 2021 ; Lapitan et al., 2021 ). Nevertheless, there were mixed assessment experiences. When lecturers changed multiple-choice to written critical thinking questions, it made students perceive that examinations have become harder (Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Khan et al., 2022 ). Some students were anxious about encountering technical problems during online examinations, while others felt less nervous taking examinations at home (Jaap et al., 2021 ). Students also became less confident about the integrity of assessment processes when lecturers failed to set clear rules for open-book examinations (Reedy et al., 2021 ). While Pass/Fail grading alleviated students’ test performance anxiety, some lecturers felt that this lowered academic standards (Dicks et al., 2020 ; Khan et al., 2022 ). More emphasis on daily work alleviated student anxiety as examination weightage was reduced, but students also perceived a corresponding increase in course workload as they had more assignments to complete (e.g. Dietrich et al., 2020 ; Swanson et al., 2021 ).

Classroom replication

Lecturers used classroom replication strategies to foster regularity, primarily through substituting classroom sessions with video conferencing under pre-pandemic timetables (Palmer et al., 2021 ; Simon et al., 2020 ; Zhu et al., 2021 ). Lecturers also annotated their presentation materials and decorated their teaching locations with content-related backdrops to emulate the ‘chalk and talk’ of physical classrooms (e.g. Chan et al., 2020 ; Dietrich et al., 2020 ; Xiao et al., 2020 ).

Outcomes : Regular video conferencing classes helped students to maintain course attendance/completion rates (e.g. Ahmed & Opoku, 2021 ; Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Gerhart et al., 2021 ). Student engagement improved when lecturers annotated on Powerpoint™ or digital whiteboards during video conferencing (Hew et al., 2020 ). However, screen fatigue commonly affected concentration, and lecturers had challenges assessing social cues effectively, especially when students turned off their cameras (Khan et al., 2022 ; Lapitan et al., 2021 ; Marshalsey & Sclater, 2020 ). Lecturers tried to shorten class duration with asynchronous activities, only to find students failing to complete their assigned tasks (Grimmer et al., 2020 ).

Learning access equity

Lecturers implemented learning access equity strategies so that those without stable network connections or conducive home environments could continue studying (Abou-Khalil et al., 2021 ; Ahmed & Opoku, 2021 ; Dodson & Blinn, 2021 ; Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Grimmer et al., 2020 ; Kapasia et al., 2020 ; Khan et al., 2022 ; Marshalsey & Sclater, 2020 ; Pagoto et al., 2021 ; Swanson et al., 2021 ; Yeung & Yau, 2021 ). They equalised learning access by making lecture recordings available, using chat to communicate during live classes, and providing supplementary asynchronous activities (e.g. Gerhart et al., 2021 ; Grimmer et al., 2020 ). Some lecturers only delivered lessons asynchronously through pre-recorded lectures and online resources (e.g. de Luca et al., 2021 ; Dietrich et al., 2020 ). In developing countries, lecturers created access opportunities by sending learning materials through both learning management systems and WhatsApp™ (Kapasia et al., 2020 ).

Outcomes : Learning access strategies maintained some level of student equity through asynchronous learning but created challenging student learning experiences. There is evidence that students could achieve expected test scores through asynchronous learning (Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ) but maintaining learning consistency was a challenge, especially for freshmen (e.g. Grimmer et al., 2020 ; Khan et al., 2022 ). Some students found it hard to understand difficult concepts without in-person lectures but they also did not actively attend the live question-and-answer sessions organised by lecturers (Ali et al., 2020 ; Dietrich et al., 2020 ; Gomez et al., 2020 ). Poorly designed lecture recordings and unclear online learning instructions from lecturers compounded these problems (Gomez et al., 2020 ; Yeung & Yau, 2021 ).

Student engagement

Lecturers used two kinds of student engagement strategies, one of which was through active learning. Hew et. al. ( 2020 ) fostered active learning through 5E activities (Bybee et al., 2006 ) that encouraged students to Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. Lapitan et. al. ( 2021 ) implemented active learning through their DLPCA process, where students Discover, Learn and Practice outside of class with content resources and Collaborate in class before Assessment. Chan et. al. ( 2020 ) used their Theory of Change to support active learning through shared meaning-making. Other studies emphasised active learning but did not reference theoretical frameworks (e.g. Martinelli & Zaina, 2021 ). Many described how lecturers used interactive tools such as Nearpod™, and Padlet™, online polling, and breakout room discussions to encourage active learning (e.g. Ali et al., 2020 ; Gomez et al., 2020 ).

Another student engagement strategy was through regular communication and support, where lecturers sent emails, announcements, and reminders to keep students in pace with assignments (e.g. Abou-Khalil et al., 2021 ). Support was also provided through virtual office hours, social media contact after class hours and uploading feedback over shared drives (e.g. Khan et al., 2022 ; Xiao et al., 2020 ).

Outcomes : Among the student engagement strategies, success in test scores tends to be associated with the use of active learning (Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Gomez et al., 2020 ; Hew et al., 2020 ; Lapitan et al., 2021 ; Lau et al., 2020 ; Xiao et al., 2020 ). On the other hand, positive learning experiences were more often reported when lecturers emphasised care and empathy through their communication (e.g. Chan et al., 2020 ; Conklin & Dikkers, 2021 ). Students felt this more strongly when lecturers used humour, conversational and friendly tone, provided assurance, set clear expectations, exercised flexibility, engaged their feedback to improve online lessons, and responded swiftly to their questions (e.g. Chan et al., 2020 ; Swanson et al., 2021 ). These interactions fostered the social presence of Garrison et. al.’s ( 2010 ) Community of Inquiry Theory (Conklin & Dikkers, 2021 ). However, keeping up with multiple communication channels increased teaching workload, especially when support requests arrived through social media after work hours (Garcia-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Khan et al. 2022 ; Marshalsey & Sclater, 2020 ).

Learning strategies and outcomes

Students used three learning strategies during the pandemic (see Table 4 ).

Online access

Students had to maintain online access , as institutional support for data and technology was rarely reported (Ahmed & Opoku, 2021 ; Laher et al., 2021 ). Students did so by switching to more reliable internet service providers, purchasing more data, borrowing computing equipment, or switching off webcams during class (Kapasia et al., 2020 ; Mahmud & German, 2021 ).

Outcomes : Unstable internet connections, noisy home environments, tight study spaces, and disruptions from family duties were challenges often reported in students’ learning environments (e.g. Castelli & Sarvary, 2021 ; Yeung & Yau, 2021 ). The power supply was unstable in developing countries and students also had limited financial resources to purchase data. To keep studying, these students relied on materials shared through WhatsApp™ groups or Google Drive™ and learnt using mobile phones even though their small screen sizes affected students’ learning quality (Kapasia et al., 2020 ).

Online participation

Students had to maintain online participation by redesigning study routines according to when lecturers posted lecture recordings, identifying personal productive hours, changing work locations at home to improve focus and concentration, and devising study strategies to use online resources effectively, such as through note-taking (e.g. Abou-Khalil et al., 2021 ; Mahmud & German, 2021 ; Marshalsey & Sclater, 2020 ). Students also adjusted their online communication style by taking the initiative to contact lecturers through email, discussion forums, or chat for support, and learning new etiquette for video conferencing (Abou-Khalil et al., 2021 ; Dietrich et al., 2020 ; Mahmud & German, 2021 ; Simon et al., 2020 ; Yeung & Yau, 2021 ). Students recognised the need for active online participation (Yeung & Yau, 2021 ) but most tended to switch off webcams and avoided speaking up during class (Ahmed & Opoku, 2021 ; Castelli & Sarvary, 2021 ; Dietrich et al., 2020 ; Khan et al., 2022 ; Lapitan et al., 2021 ; Marshalsey & Sclater, 2020 ; Munoz et al., 2021 ; Rajab & Soheib, 2021 ).

Outcomes : Mahmud and German ( 2021 ) found that students lack the confidence to plan their study strategies, seek help, and manage time. Students also lacked confidence and switched off webcams out of privacy concerns or because they felt self-conscious about their appearances and home environments (Marshalsey & Sclater, 2020 ; Rajab & Soheib, 2021 ). Too many turned off webcams and this became a group norm (Castelli & Sarvary, 2021 ). Classes eventually became dominated by more vocal students, making the quieter ones feel left out (Dietrich et al., 2020 ).

Positive coping

Students’ positive coping strategies included family support, rationalising their situation, focusing on their future, self-motivation, and making virtual social connections with classmates (Ando, 2021 ; Laher et al., 2021 ; Mahmud & German, 2021 ; Reedy et al., 2021 ; Simon et al., 2020 ).

Outcomes : Positive coping strategies helped students to improve learning experiences, maintain attendance/completion rates, and avoid academic integrity violations during online examinations (Ando, 2021 ; Reedy et al., 2021 ; Simon et al., 2020 ). However, these strategies cannot circumvent technology and infrastructure challenges (Mahmud & German, 2021 ), while the realities of economic, family, and health pressures during the pandemic threatened their educational continuity and caused some to manifest negative coping behaviours such as despondency and overeating (Laher et al., 2021 ).

Higher education online competencies

This systematic review outlined eight teaching and learning strategies for shifting online during the pandemic. Online teaching competency frameworks published before the pandemic advocate active learning, social interaction, and prompt feedback as critical indicators of online teaching quality (e.g. Bigatel et al., 2012 ; Crews et al., 2015 ). The findings suggest that lecturers’ student engagement strategies aligned with these standards, but they also needed to adjust practical skills training, assessment, learning access channels, and classroom teaching strategies. Students’ online participation and positive coping strategies reflected how online learners could effectively manage routines, schedules and their sense of isolation (Roper, 2007 ). Since most students had no choice over online learning during the pandemic (Dodson & Blinn, 2021 ), those lacking personal motivation or adequate infrastructure had to develop online participation and online access strategies to cope with the situation.

The eight teaching and learning strategies effectively maintained test scores and attendance/completion rates, but many challenges surfaced during teaching, learning, and assessment. Turnbull et. al. ( 2021 ) attribute lecturers’ and students’ pandemic challenges to online competency gaps, particularly in digital literacy or competencies for accessing information, analysing data, and communicating with technology (Blayone et al., 2018 ). However, the study findings show that digital literacy may not be enough for students to overcome infrastructure and home environment challenges in their learning environment. Lecturers can try helping students mitigate these challenges by providing asynchronous resource access through access equity strategies. Yet, students may not successfully learn asynchronously unless they can effectively self-direct learning. Lecturers may have pedagogical knowledge to create engaging active online learning experiences. How these strategies effectively counteract students’ inhibitions to turn on webcams and speak up during class remains challenging. Lectures may also have the skills to set up different online communication channels, but students may not actively engage if care and empathy are perceived to be lacking. Furthermore, lecturers’ online assessment strategies may not always balance academic integrity with test validity.

These findings show that online competencies are not just standardised technical or pedagogical skills (e.g. Goodyear et al., 2001 ) but “socially situated” (Alvarez et al., 2009 , p. 322) abilities for manoeuvring strategies according to situation and context (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986 ). It encompasses “dexterity” or finesse with skill performance (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). The pandemic demands one to be “flexible and adaptable” (Ally, 2019 , p. 312) amidst shifting national, institutional and learning contexts. Online dexterity is needed in several areas. Online learning during the pandemic is rarely unimodal. Establishing the appropriate synchronous-asynchronous blend is a critical pedagogical decision for lecturers. They need dexterity across learning modalities to create the “right” blend in different student, content, and technological contexts (Baran et al., 2013 ; Martin et al., 2019 ). Lecturers also need domain-related dexterity to preserve authentic learning experiences while converting subject content online (Fayer, 2014 ). Especially when teaching skill-based content under different social distancing requirements, competencies to maintain learning authenticity through simulations, alternative locations, or equipment may be critical (e.g. Schirmel, 2021 ). Dexterity with online assessment is also essential. Besides preventing cheating, lecturers need to ensure that online assessments retain test validity, improve learning processes and are effective for performance evaluation (AERA, 2014 ; Sadler & Reimann, 2018 ). Another area is the dexterity to engage in online communication that appropriately manifests care and empathy (Baran et al., 2013 ). Since online teaching increases lecturers’ workload (Watermeyer et al., 2021 ), dexterity to balance student care and self-care without compromising learning quality is also crucial.

Access to conducive learning environments critically affects students’ online learning success (Kapasia et al., 2020 ). While some infrastructure challenges cannot be prevented, students should have the dexterity to mitigate their effects. For example, when disconnected from class because of bandwidth fluctuations, students should be able to find alternative ways of catching up with the lecturer rather than remaining passive and frustrated (Ezra et al., 2021 ). Self-direction is critical during online learning because it is the ability to set learning goals, self-manage learning processes, self-monitor, self-motivate, and adjust learning strategies (Garrison, 1997 ). Students need the dexterity to manage self-direction processes across different courses, learning modalities, and learning schedules. Dexterity to create an active learning presence through using appropriate learning etiquette and optimising the affordances of text, audio, video, and shared documents during class is also essential. This can support students' cognitive, social, and emotional engagement across synchronous and asynchronous modalities, individually or in groups (Zilvinskis et al., 2017 ).

Future directions

Online learning is highly diverse and increasingly dynamic, making it challenging to cover all published work for review. In this study, we have analysed pandemic-related teaching and learning strategies and their outcomes but recognise that a third of the studies were from the United States and close to half from natural or health science programmes. The findings cannot fully elucidate the strategies implemented in unrepresented countries or disciplines. Recognising these limitations, we propose the following as future directions for higher education:

Validate post-pandemic relevance of online teaching and learning strategies

The eight strategies can be validated through longitudinal empirical studies, theoretical analyses or meta-synthesis of literature to establish their relevance for post-pandemic teaching and learning. Studies outside the United States and the natural and health science disciplines are especially needed. This could address the paucity of theoretical framing in the articles reviewed, even with theories developed before the pandemic (e.g. Garrison et al., 2010 ; Moore, 1989 ; Zimmerman, 2002 ).

Demarcate post-pandemic online competencies

The plethora of descriptive studies in the articles reviewed is inadequate for understanding the online competencies driving lecturers’ pedagogical decision-making and students’ learning processes. In situ studies adopting qualitative methods such as grounded theory or phenomenology can better demarcate lecturers’ and students’ competencies for “why and under which conditions certain methods have to be used, or new methods have to be devised” (Bohle Carbonell et al., 2014 , p. 15). A longitudinal comparison of these studies can provide a better understanding of relevant post-pandemic competencies.

Develop dexterity with respect to application of online competencies

Higher education institutions use technology workshops, mentoring, and instructional consultation to develop competencies in technology-enhanced learning (e.g. Baran, 2016 ). However, dexterity to manoeuvre contextual differences may be better fostered through exploration, discovery, and exposure to varied contexts of practice (Mylopoulos et al., 2018 ). Innovative ways of developing dexterity with respect to how online competencies can be applied and the efficacy of these methodologies are areas for further research.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased the adoption and utilisation of online learning. While the present review findings suggest that the strategies lecturers and students employed to shift online during the pandemic have contributed to maintaining educational continuity and test scores but many outstanding issues remained unresolved. These include failure for students to gain an enhanced learning experience, problems encountered in designing and implementing robust assessment and online examinations, cases of academic misconduct, inequitable access to digital technologies, and increased faculty workload. Lecturers and institutions need to tackle these issues to fully leverage the opportunities afforded by online teaching and learning. Further, our findings revealed that the level of online dexterity for both students and teachers need to be enhanced. Therefore, higher education institutions must understand and develop online dexterity institutional frameworks to ensure that pedagogical innovation through online learning can be continually sustained, both during the pandemic and beyond.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

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Koh, J.H.L., Daniel, B.K. Shifting online during COVID-19: A systematic review of teaching and learning strategies and their outcomes. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 19 , 56 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-022-00361-7

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• Online learning
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Mixing online and offline classes in blended learning during COVID-19 pandemic: challenges and opportunities

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School closures in Indonesia due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning have affected around 68 million students from pre-school to higher education levels .

One of them is 16-year-old high school student Hazel.

“We get more homework than learning materials, so we spend more time working on them. Sometimes we stay up until 11pm to reach deadlines,” she told The Conversation Indonesia recently.

Moving class online also creates an additional burden for teachers as they have to incorporate technology in their learning method, a skill not many people possess.

Other challenges for online learning include lack of internet access, poor quality of teachers’ capacity and student-parent readiness.

The Indonesian Teachers Association has proposed the use of blended learning – a mix of online (distance) and face-to-face (in-class) delivery – as a way to create an effective learning environment amid the pandemic.

Blended learning stems from technology-based education practices in the 1960s and 1970s .

The system offers a wide range of technologies, including web-based courses, live videos and conference calls. These can be used to support traditional education settings.

Several countries in Europe , such as Germany, Norway and Denmark, have started to adopt this learning method to help them conduct classes amid the pandemic. By having a mix of online and offline classes, opening schools is manageable during the pandemic.

Blended learning may work in Europe, but it still has a long way to go to be implemented in Indonesia despite its potential to reform the country’s education sector.

European countries carried out blended learning by limiting class sizes to a maximum of 10-15 students and alternating periods of in-class learning with online learning.

During in-class learning, children stay in small groups and are assigned individual seats. Their in-class learning is also shortened to avoid COVID-19 infections.

Some argue that the use of blended learning during the pandemic can create an effective and safe learning environment because it will shorten the teaching and learning time with school materials being delivered online and offline.

However, the application of this learning method in Indonesia stills face many constraints – particularly when it comes to the online learning part.

Research suggests blended learning is an effective learning method but only if both students and teachers have the capability and experience in using the technology.

Indonesia’s digital divide presents a challenge for blended learning, as this method still rests upon online learning .

The owner of a pre-school in Cirebon, West Java, Lismah (52), has tried to implement blended learning during the pandemic. She acknowledged the difficulties in conducting online classes, with many of her students’ parents having limited technological resources.

“The students are given homework […],” she said. “The teachers remind the parents of these homework through a Whatsapp group, but we’re aware some parents don’t have mobile phones.”

Implementing blended learning in Indonesia means extra work for teachers as they are expected to master both distance and in-class teaching .

“We’re expected to work harder. We have to prepare both online and in-class learning activities. Those activities must be synchronised, so they don’t overlap each other in reaching the learning objectives,” junior high school teacher Aris (39) from Cirebon told The Conversation Indonesia .

Edi Subkhan, a lecturer in education technology and curriculum at Universitas Negeri Semarang in Central Java, also argues that schools and teachers must firstly have the capacity to implement this learning method.

“There are teachers who can follow this method because they are skilled in operating various technologies, but there are also teachers who have yet to fully understand what online or even blended learning is,” he said.

Returning to school amid the pandemic, even in a blended learning setting, can also be unsettling after a long period of separation from in-class learning.

Zamzami Zainudin, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong, explains the challenge of “recharging” students upon returning to in-class learning.

“Many students become too comfortable with distance learning because they are separated from in-class learning for a long time. So when in-class learning resumes, they need to be recharged. This becomes the teacher’s challenge to motivate them back from zero,” he said.

Another challenge to health and safety precautions during in-class learning is uncertainty as to what happens on the days when students are supposed to conduct distance learning. Around 20% of Indonesians still do not wear face masks when going outside.

Indonesia has the highest COVID-19 fatality rate in Southeast Asia with 7,417 deaths as of August 31 . The country also has recorded the second-highest number of COVID-19 infections in Southeast Asia with 174,796 cases – behind Philippine’s 220,819 cases.

Rising opportunities

Though blended learning is largely at the discussion stage – with a few schools already carrying out trials – opportunities are open for blended learning to be implemented as part of education reform during the pandemic.

Teacher Aris believes that implementing blended learning during the pandemic can increase the ability of educators to conduct effective distance learning, especially in terms of using technology.

“Whether we like it or not, teachers are forced to be creative in using information technology. We have to choose which technology fits the learning activity, learn how to use it, and then evaluate how we used it to see its appropriateness in the learning setting,” he said.

Edi supports this notion. He thinks blended learning can serve as the first step towards an information and communication technology-based education system.

Given Indonesia’s lack of infrastructure, digital literacy and economic welfare , developing an education system of this kind must be taken one step at a time.

“With its flexibility in combining online and face-to-face learning, we can build an education system that doesn’t force it to be fully internet-based, because we’re also considering the social, economic and geographical context of Indonesia,” explained Edi.

Zamzami added that blended learning would also open doors for emerging technologies in Indonesia’s education sector through, for example, augmented reality and computational thinking.

“There are many emerging technologies in the field of education that Indonesia still lacks. Blended learning is the most simple form of technology that we can start with,” he said.

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Five lessons from remote learning during COVID-19

Cristóbal cobo, joão pedro azevedo, alison gilberto, alberto munoz-najar, maryam akmal.

Since early 2020 education systems around the world have rolled out emergency remote learning strategies at an unprecedented scale. What have the past eighteen months taught policymakers and practitioners about the delivery, take-up and effectiveness of remote learning? How can these lessons guide plans for the months and years ahead? A new report  offers answers to these questions. If short on time, you may check out our  podcast instead. Although the pandemic is still disrupting education globally, and its long-term consequences are yet to be seen, this report highlights emerging trends and challenges that can inform country efforts to build back better.

The report proposes a conceptual framework that remote learning requires three complementary elements: effective teachers , suitable technology , and engaged learners . These three elements must be well-aligned if remote learning is to be taken-up and be effective (Figure 1). A teacher with high subject content knowledge, technical skills to use technology and supporting resources, and appropriate pedagogical techniques is likely to be more effective at remote learning than a teacher without one or more of these qualities. Similarly, the availability of technology is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective remote learning, as technology needs to be suited to the context in which it is deployed. Effective remote learning also requires an engaged user, whose engagement depends on motivation, teacher and technology effectiveness, as well as contextual factors such as their home environment.

Figure 1 Conceptual Framework for Remote Learning During COVID-19

Source:  Remote Learning During COVID-19: Lessons from Today, Principles for Tomorrow report

Governments tried an array of approaches to tackle school closures and deliver remote learning

Governments deployed remote learning in a variety of ways. Some governments provided multiple options for students to access remote learning, others offered a single option. Often, countries took advantage of preexisting education technology infrastructure to deploy remote learning strategies ranging from paper-based take-home packages to radio, TV , phone , and internet-based solutions. Regardless of which approach countries have taken, remote learning strategies have varied in terms of design, usage, and contextual features.

Governments tried to facilitate use of remote learning in multiple ways. Some partnered with the private sector and/or delivered targeted aid directly to households to facilitate children’s access to remote learning. Others went as far as subsidizing individual tutoring. A number of countries adjusted curricula to accommodate the reduction in school days. Some provided teachers with remote training. Others are providing disadvantaged groups with improved access to remote learning infrastructure – by offering learning materials in minority languages or gearing content towards children with disabilities, or by introducing flexible and self-paced platforms.

Not all approaches were successful in reaching students or delivering learning

Many struggled to ensure participation and some found themselves in a remote learning paradox : having chosen a distance learning approach that was unsuited to local circumstances. For example, some governments provided online (digital) learning solutions, even though most of their students could not access those solutions due to lack of devices or connectivity constraints. This resulted in uneven use or even exacerbated existing inequalities.

Some approaches exacerbated inequalities

What once was a digital divide for some is now a digital chasm for many. Even before the pandemic, access to technology, and the resources and skills needed to utilize it effectively differed widely within and across countries. Parental engagement and support, critical to remote learning, also vary by education and socio-economic background. Household income losses during the pandemic have only deepened these divides. Marginalized children and vulnerable groups, such as girls, students with disabilities and ethnic minorities, are likely to have been disproportionately affected and are at greater risk of falling further behind.

Consequently, the effectiveness of remote learning in this period varied widely

The evidence on the effectiveness of remote learning during COVID-19 is mixed. When compared to in-person learning prior to the pandemic, learning outcomes after remote learning were often low. In low-income countries remote learning was not as widely utilized as in middle-income countries. Consequently, the evidence on the effectiveness of remote learning in these settings is sparse. Even in some high-income settings where take-up was high, evidence suggests that the effectiveness of remote learning during COVID has been low.

Lessons from today, principles for tomorrow

The last eighteen months have provided several lessons that can serve as principles for tomorrow. Here are five that seem particularly relevant for policymakers seeking to build back better:

• Establish meaningful two-way interactions. Using the most appropriate technology for the local context along with adjusted curriculum, is critical for enabling effective engagement between students and teachers.
• Ensure remote learning is fit-for-purpose. When deciding on modes of remote learning, countries must account for access and utilization of technology among both teachers and students including digital skills. Policy makers must also ensure that teachers have access and opportunities to develop the technical and pedagogical competencies needed for teaching remotely .
• Engage and support parents and students as partners in the teaching and learning process. Given the isolation and disconnection caused by school closures, it is imperative that families are engaged and supported to help students access remote learning opportunities and to ensure both continuity of learning and protection of socioemotional well-being.
• Socioemotional support is urgent for teachers, students, and parents: Remote learning strategies cannot be simply limited to a supply of lessons and contents. A comprehensive strategy is required for socioemotional monitoring and psychosocial support to ensure well-being and avoid burnout.
• Remedial and accelerated learning programs need to be carefully implemented and monitored: Even though most countries have planned to or are already implementing programs to support students in catching up, remedial programs should be carefully implemented, not only by identifying the areas in which students need more support, but also by constantly monitoring how students are progressing.

What insights has remote learning during the pandemic left you, your family or community with? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

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An effective blended online teaching and learning strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Lorico ds. lapitan, jr..

a Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines

b Research Center for the Natural and Applied Sciences, Manila, Philippines

Cristina E. Tiangco

Divine angela g. sumalinog, noel s. sabarillo, joey mark diaz.

c Leeds Institute of Medical Research, School of Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

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The shift to distance teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a real challenge for both instructors and students. To face these difficulties in teaching undergraduate Chemistry courses at the University of Santo Tomas, a blended learning strategy in the context of teaching and learning of Physical Chemistry 1 and Analytical Chemistry for Chemical Engineering students were employed. Here, we present an online strategy that facilitated the transition from traditional face-to-face learning to full online instruction. This is a five-component blended learning strategy referred to as Discover, Learn, Practice, Collaborate and Assess (DLPCA). In DLPCA, the asynchronous part of the teaching was achieved through broadcast of pre-recorded lecture videos on YouTube to allow students to study and progress with learning at their own pace. The synchronous part of the teaching was conducted using video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom or Google Meet. The DLPCA strategy was presented and discussed to the students prior to its implementation. The analysis of the teaching and learning experience based on three indicators (i) student’s learning experience, (ii) student’s academic performance and (iii) instructor observations showed that DLPCA had a positive impact on students and instructors. The identified challenges were stability of internet connection and instructor’s familiarity with readily available internet-based teaching tools, such as video conferencing software. Instructors must also find means to improve their interaction with students and maintain student interest and engagement during online classes. The survey also indicated that most of the students are satisfied with the DLCPA strategy. Hence, this strategy is considered a manageable and effective alternative that can be adapted to full online instruction to other undergraduate Chemistry lecture courses. Overall, the findings and insights in this study will add valuable resources for further hybrid instruction in the post-COVID-19 time in higher education.

1. Introduction

1.1. context of the study.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has dramatically changed the higher education system in the Philippines with a distinctive shift in online instruction as an effort to limit further transmission of the virus. This sudden change to online instruction raised concern among many teachers and students because a large segment of the population have unstable internet access and limited electronic devices ( Pastor, 2020 ; Mirandilla-Santos, 2016 ). Since the pandemic started and presently shows little signs of declining, worries whether internet connection would not suffice to support online education persist as a challenge. Undergraduate Chemical Engineering students are required to take Analytical Chemistry and Physical Chemistry 1 courses during their first and second year of studies at universities in the Philippines. The Physical Chemistry 1 curriculum for Chemical Engineering undergraduate students includes topics in properties of gases, laws of thermodynamics, and phase equilibria. The Analytical Chemistry course includes topics in chemical equilibrium, classical quantitative analysis, and instrumental methods analysis.

The second term of the academic year (AY) 2019–2020, which is from January to May 2020, at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) was indefinitely suspended at around March due to the steadily increasing COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila, risks and local transmission concerns of COVID-19. This led to all courses being advised to shift online until the end of the second term. Due to the projected continuous increase of cases, it was also later decided by the University that online classes will be implemented until the first semester of AY 2020–2021 (August to December 2020). The sudden shift to full online instruction led faculty members to adjust their teaching plans, teaching styles and assessment methods. Students also faced the challenge to quickly adapt to the “new normal” in higher education setting. The shift to online instruction was a contingency plan to secure the continuation of the courses offered by the University and enable students to continue with their studies. However, developing countries, like the Philippines, have areas that do not have a reliable or existent internet connection which posed a great and major challenge to the shift to full online instruction.

As the immediate future is uncertain with new outbreaks and looming lockdowns, many instructors had to consider online instruction, which can be given in one of three pedagogical approaches: (1) synchronous, (2) asynchronous and (3) blended learning strategy. In synchronous online lectures (real-time), instructors and students meet online using a video conferencing software during the designated class hours and instructors give lectures on the course. Students participate in the lectures and are able to ask questions vocally or via live text chat. In asynchronous lectures, instructors record lecture videos and upload them in Blackboard learning management system (LMS) or YouTube, so that students can access them in their most convenient time.

The blended online learning strategy is deemed to be the most practical method to adapt as this combines the advantages of synchronous and asynchronous strategies. The main motivation in choosing the blended strategy is to increase the student’s participation in their own learning process rather than quietly sitting during a synchronous discussion. The basis of this approach is the cognitive load theory, on the basis that novice learners are immediately overwhelmed by a large amount of new ideas and terminologies, and resort to surface learning ( Darabi and Jin, 2013 ; Seery and Donnelly, 2012 ; Seery, 2013 ). This type of active learning pedagogy is called “flipped classroom” approach ( Bergmann and Sams, 2012 ; Olakanmi, 2017 ). In this learning approach, traditional lecture and homework are replaced by pre-class activities, such as viewing short, pre-recorded lecture videos. The class time is devoted to further reinforce the topics through problem solving examples, interactive activities and detailed discussions ( Pienta, 2016 ; Rau et al., 2017 ). However, the synchronous online class sessions (called the “virtual classroom”) replaced the traditional face-to-face class for engaging the students with activities and guided problem-solving discussions in the traditional flipped classroom.

The benefits from flipped classroom were reported by economists ( Lage et al., 2000 ). Lage and colleagues showed that reducing variability in teaching styles across classroom and implementing various activities to create an inclusive classroom resulted to an improved student performance ( Lage et al., 2000 ). Several other disciplines have reported a similar success with implementing the flipped learning in materials science courses ( Liou et al., 2016 ), pharmacy ( Koo et al., 2016 ), statistics ( Peterson, 2016 ), engineering education ( Kerr, 2015 ; Chiquito et al., 2020 ), computer science ( Sohrabi and Traj, 2016 ; Davies et al., 2013 ), and health science courses ( Betihavas et al., 2016 ; McLaughlin et al., 2014 ). In chemistry, flipped classrooms were first introduced in a high school general chemistry curriculum ( Bergmann and Sams, 2012 ). There are several literatures that discuss the benefits that can be accrued from flip learning in chemistry courses with most of the examples presented involve high school general chemistry ( Bergmann and Sams, 2012 ; Schultz et al., 2014 ). Moreover, substantial amount of work has been published on the effectiveness of the flipped classroom when implemented higher education chemistry courses such as General chemistry, Organic chemistry, and Biochemistry ( Smith, 2013 ; Fautch, 2015 ; Seery, 2015 ; Mooring et al., 2016 ; Ojennus, 2016 ; Bokosmaty et al., 2019 ). Interestingly, reports published about the effectiveness of flipped learning in calculation intensive courses such as Analytical Chemistry and Physical Chemistry are scarce ( Fitzgerald and Li, 2015 ; Esson, 2016 ). Therefore, it is important for this paper to contribute to this current information gap.

1.2. Course format

The next focus of the instructors was to organize and deliver the content to achieve the learning objectives of the course. Unlike in some developed countries where teaching is designed with the assumption that all the students have equal technical and cultural resources to access academic materials, developing countries, such as the Philippines, must give high consideration on the socio-technical constraints of all students when designing the course content and delivery.

The Discover, Learn, Practice, Collaborate and Assess (DLPCA) strategy was conceptualized for this blended learning technique with the goal of integrating the instructors, students, and readily available technologies to meet the challenges of higher education during this pandemic. Fig. 1 shows the five (5) components of DLCPA with a brief explanation of each component. Students were first asked to discover all learning materials prepared for the assigned topic which were uploaded in the UST Blackboard LMS ( Fig. 1 a). Next, the students are expected to learn the terminologies, concepts, and calculations through the pre-recorded lecture videos and other materials provided, such as notes, web links to other resources (e.g. Khan Academy, ChemLibreText), and chemistry infographics ( Fig. 1 b). The practice component allows students to apply what they learned using the self-assessment questions (SAQs) ( Fig. 1 c). Students are given enough time to view short, pre-recorded video lectures and answer the SAQs before joining the online class session. The class time is devoted for students to collaborate in doing interactive activities, such as quiz bees and discussions ( Fig. 1 d). The synchronous online sessions were used to discuss and clarify specific aspects of the concepts and calculations that students found difficult to understand. The collaborate component is expected to positively impact student engagement with the instructor and peer learning. Finally, the assess component are quizzes or exams that are given with allotted time to test the student’s comprehension of the topics based on the declared intended course learning outcomes ( Fig. 1 e).

The 5 components of the DLPCA strategy – (a) Discover , (b) Learn , (c) Practice , (d) Collaborate , and (e) Assess .

Online lectures are not very common in most universities in the Philippines and chemistry lectures are generally given in classroom settings. The COVID-19 pandemic undeniably accelerated the process of transition to full online instruction and provided opportunities to carry out effective online teaching. It is worthwhile to examine if the implemented DLPCA strategy is an effective method for full online instruction. By collecting the experiences of the authors and students who have worked and studied during the COVID-19 pandemic, we aim to provide a better understanding on how the DLPCA strategy enabled teachers and students to rise to the challenges of online instruction given the resources and technologies present at the time. Specifically, we investigated three important aspects of online instruction, namely: (i) online content delivery strategy, (ii) learning mechanisms (synchronous and asynchronous), and (iii) assessment type and strategies. The results presented in this paper will provide a preliminary basis on the adaption of DLPCA strategy in online undergraduate Analytical chemistry and Physical chemistry courses and will help build a strong foundation for future pedagogical decisions regarding online instruction.

2. Methodology

2.1. equipment and software for recorded lecture videos.

Recorded lecture videos are a very important part of DLPCA strategy which were given to students before attending the synchronous sessions. Lecture videos were made simple, readable, visually appealing, understandable, and easily accessible for students. Narrations or discussions were recorded using Microsoft PowerPoint and was saved as MP4 file. Sound quality adjustments, if necessary, and the addition of introductory and end music animations were done using Movavi video editor software. The lecture videos were then uploaded on YouTube for accessibility and the links were given to students through Blackboard.

2.2. Evaluation and data collection

This study was based on a survey of students who experienced online instruction using the DLPCA strategy. The questionnaires were designed with the aim to understand their opinions on chemistry online teaching and learning, if the students are aware of the DLCPA strategy, impact of online strategy on them, and as well as their satisfaction with the online teaching strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was made using the google form and composed mainly of Likert scale questions where the participants indicate their level of agreement or disagreement on statements that cover general feedback on the various aspects of the course. The questionnaire is based on a 5-point Likert scale which are as follows: 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree), and 5 (strongly agree). The last section of the questionnaire also invited students’ feedback and sentiments through open-ended questions. To assess the internal consistency of the Likert scale questions, Chronbach’s alpha was calculated (Supplemental Information, SI-1). This measures how well a questionnaire measures a variable based on a set of questions like those in a Likert scale ( Tavakol and Dennick, 2011 ; Glen, 2021 ). Pretesting of the questionnaire was administered to 59 respondents and yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of 59%–88% implying that the questionnaire’s reliability is acceptable ( Taber, 2018 ). Data gathering which took place at the end of the second term for Physical chemistry 1 (May 2020) and Special Term for Analytical chemistry (July 2020). The UST course codes for Physical Chemistry 1 and Analytical Chemistry are CHE 216 and CHE 211, respectively. These course codes were used in the questionnaire. The google form link containing the questionnaire was sent to the students through their university email accounts. Responses were received over a period of one week.

2.3. Data processing

Descriptive statistics using frequency, percentage, and means, were calculated from the responses to 5-point Likert scale questions. Mean response for each item in the construct variables, as well as the overall mean response per construct variable were calculated and then interpreted using the guide shown in Table 1 ( Sözen and Güven, 2019 ).

Interpretation of responses of the Likert-type scale.

For the open-ended questions, we then performed a text mining and word cloud analysis using R software using a package called tm ( Feinerer and Hornik, 2019 ; Feinerer et al., 2008 ). This comes with an available tutorial published by the Statistical Tool for High-throughput Data Analysis website ( STHDA, 2020 ). This package allowed us to determine the most frequently used keywords in the 3 open-ended questions in the survey. We also removed punctuation, common stop words such as “there”, “as”, “and” “the” and non-printable characters such as emojis in the comments metadata. A word cloud was generated to have a visual representation of the data. The word cloud is an image made of words and the size of the word corresponds to how it often appears (frequency) the students answer in the open-ended questions.

Visualisation of the scores in the four quizzes in CHE 211 during the online term was done using box plots. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the scores of the students among the four quiz periods. Post-hoc test using Tukey’s LSD was used to identify which among quiz scores are significantly different. Welch t -test was used to compare the final grade of students between online and face-to-face classes in CHE 211. All tests are performed at 95 % confidence level.

2.4. Participants

The questionnaires were answered by Chemical engineering student majors enrolled in Physical chemistry 1 (N = 77) and Analytical chemistry (N = 91) during the second and special term of AY 2019–2020. The students were informed about the purpose of this questionnaire and were aware that the data would be used only for research and academic purposes. The participants responded in the survey anonymously. The empirical data were gathered and analysed. Initial results showing frequency and percentages of response in each Likert type question were automatically generated by the Google form.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. development of the teaching approach in online classroom instruction in chemistry, 3.1.1. educational theory.

Several factors were considered in designing the appropriate teaching approach for Analytical chemistry and Physical chemistry. One is by evaluating the proper pedagogical model to use. Among the main learning theories, the cognitivism and constructivism approach are deemed to apply best in the online classroom setting. The concept of cognitivism focuses on the stimulation of the student’s learning strategies ( Acevedo et al., 2020 ). It describes the idea that students process the information that they receive and reorganizes them to gain and store new knowledge. This is promoted through practical discussions and problem solving. On the other hand, constructivism focuses on the idea that students acquire new information by building on their previous knowledge and experience through a series of various activities and assessments ( Ripoll et al., 2021 ). In DLPCA strategy, new information is given in a module-based approach wherein the concepts are linked and built from previous modules. The discussions do not only revolve around the technical topic at hand, but also on practical applications or real-world problems. Assessments are given to challenge their understanding and problem-solving skills. These strategies are believed to be enough to provide learnings to students as these methods also address the conception of learning most applicable to this situation. Negovan et al. (2015) found that students, whether in a face-to-face or distant learning setting, highly regard learning as understanding, which incorporates increasing one’s knowledge, memorizing, and applying what was learned. The proposed DLPCA strategy combines these theories and concepts with the goal of maximum learning for the students through its course content, delivery and assessments.

3.1.2. Socio-technical constraints in online teaching and learning

Designing an effective teaching and learning strategy not only requires the study of different pedagogies, but also the consideration of the students’ and instructors’ current social and technical conditions amidst the on-going pandemic. The different constraints and difficulties experienced by students and instructors alike were first identified. The following constraints were considered in designing the DLPCA:

• a) Due to the unpredicted and short notice of lockdown in the middle of March 2020, most students went home and left their textbooks and other learning materials in their school lockers and/or dormitories.
• b) Students may have technical and personal constraints that may prevent them from online learning during the lockdown, such as lack of computers/laptops or other gadgets, lack of stable internet access, power interruptions, lack of quiet and isolated room to study, slow and old computers, non-academic responsibilities within the family, and some students may need necessary medical appointments.
• c) Asynchronous teaching materials must be made accessible for all students. The differences in the availability and speed of internet connection of the students must be considered.
• d) Physical Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry courses involve a lot of calculations which must be properly taught to students. The online delivery of lectures may pose a challenge in effectively communicating concepts and theories to students.
• e) There is an imminent overload of internet networks due to the large number of students doing online learning and most employees are in a work-from-home arrangement. It is therefore necessary to choose a stable, free of charge, and universally accessible platform for online synchronous class discussions. Moreover, this platform must have the following capabilities: (i) call encryption for security, (ii) screen-sharing, (iii) built-in video recording function, and (iv) can be added or synced to calendar.
• f) Slow or unstable internet connections would result in students being frequently disconnected during synchronous lecture discussions. These students may have difficulty joining the session rooms again and add stress to students.
• g) Some instructors are with other family members which may result in disruptions during the class.
• h) Assessment methods must be re-structured to minimize academic dishonesty while still training the students with the required numerical and analytical skills in solving word problems. It is therefore important to create exams that will minimize collaboration or reduce internet searching.
• i) The difficulty of the provided assessment must be balanced with the given time frame. In addition, the time frame must also consider other factors, such as the time needed to scan and save their solutions, and the upload speed of their internet connection. These factors should not be neglected to promote fairness among students.

Table 2 shows how each DLPCA component addresses the different constraints of the online teaching and learning, and the proposed plans to minimize these constraints. The DLPCA strategy combines the use of asynchronous and synchronous techniques of teaching learning.

Alignment of DLCPA components with online teaching and learning constraints and plans to minimize these constraints.

Asynchronous learning promotes a positive learning environment because it allows the students to feel more involved and responsible for their learning progress. However, with this method alone, students cannot get instant feedback and message from the instructor and vice-versa. This may also lead to students feeling disconnected from their instructors and be less motivated. Thus, it is coupled with a synchronous session using a reliable video conferencing platform. This provides a way for a more effective communication between instructors and students, which is important for clarifications, topic emphasis and instructor-student connection, especially during the challenging time of the pandemic.

3.1.3. The role of instructor, student and LMS

Though the pedagogical theories considered in the design of DLPCA are learner-centred, the roles of the instructor and the technology utilized are also important in the online classroom. In a learner-centred approach, the teachers mainly act as guide for instruction and provide the learning direction to students. They provide the necessary tools and resources that will aid in the students’ development of their knowledge ( Owusu-Agyeman et al., 2017 ). Students then must then take an active role in their own learning process and decisions throughout the course.

Meanwhile, the use of technology in modern systems of teaching and learning approaches have already been widely employed. The integration of instructional technology, such as lecture videos, online course delivery and online assessments, has also been found to promote the development of knowledge and skills of instructors and students alike ( McConnell, 2006 ; Burden et al., 2016 ).

3.2. Organization and delivery of learning objectives

3.2.1. revised course plan and checklists.

During the initial shift to online instruction, course syllabi were reviewed and modified accordingly to ensure that students will still be able to complete their course (refer to Section 3.2.4.1 ). The revised course plan delivery contained weekly expectations of lessons, deadlines for submission of tasks, list of online reference materials, and modified grade components and distribution. In principle, the revised course plan delivery provided continuity and steadiness during the abrupt change of instruction.

Checklists are also recommended in the practice of online and flipped classes because students often preferred more structure in flipped classrooms ( Brandon, 2020 ; O’Flaherty and Craig, 2015 ). Therefore, a progress tracker (Supplemental Information, SI-2) was created in addition to the revised course plan. The progress tracker contained the complete list of all topics in the module, the synchronous and asynchronous tasks for each lecture, and the specific topics included for each exam. The students can tick the appropriate boxes whenever they have accomplished the tasks, thus, keeping them on track with the formative and gradable requirements. Infographic-style weekly expectations announcements were also employed and posted in Blackboard and sent to the students through their university email at the beginning of each week. These announcements reminded students of the specific topics, new materials uploaded, and changes in schedule or exams, if any. Overall, these tools of disseminating information provided a substructure for the instructors and students to achieve learning milestones within the agreed period.

3.2.2. Asynchronous teaching and learning

The use of educational videos has shown positive impact to teaching and learning of chemistry even before the full transition to online lectures ( Smith, 2014 ; Christensson and Jesper, 2014 ). All Analytical Chemistry and Physical Chemistry lecture videos are available to students at any time throughout the semester, and they can fully grasp the knowledge by simply watching it at their most convenient time and they can repeat it whenever some concepts were not understood. Thus, lecture videos offer flexibility and convenience on the part of the students and promote active learning by allowing them to replay parts or the whole video and increasing accessibility to students ( Newton et al., 2014 ).

However, one drawback of using lecture videos in the flipped classroom is the fact that students are trusted to independently complete watching the recorded videos ( Eichler and Peeples, 2016 ). If students do not successfully complete this task and make significant learning gains, then the completion of the synchronous session will be more difficult. The effect can be that students will not gain mastery of the intended learning outcomes. To address this potential drawback, problem-solving based SAQs were given at the end of each lecture video to promote the student’s commitment in completing the lecture. Students were required to answer and submit the SAQs as a dedicated exercise that applies the problem-solving skills discussed in the video. In addition, these problem-solving SAQs present prospects for inquiry and personalisation of learning and avoid the passive watching of videos ( Nerantzi, 2020 ).

Flores and Savage (2007) have previously shown that pre-recorded lecture materials aid in achieving a higher student performance and students pay more attention to classes that makes use of recorded lectures. There are plenty of chemistry videos of practically any topic are readily available on the internet. The main motivation of the authors in preparing their own video materials is the advantage of being more personal to students. Studies have also shown that students reported a higher level of engagement and expressed strong preference for multimedia created by their own instructor in an online course ( Xu and Jaggars, 2014 ; Briggs, 2005 ). In fact, some students expressed their appreciation to the authors for the efforts they put in creating the videos. Some students also commented that they like listening to their instructors’ voice especially when they add humour or explain difficult concepts using the local language. However, the weekly preparation of lecture video recordings was found to be a challenging and exhausting task on the instructors’ end. This problem was resolved by effective collaboration and task distribution between the authors in developing the lecture videos and other online learning materials, such as handouts and SAQs for each topic. The concerted efforts helped amplify advantages of online instruction and lessen any drawbacks involved in online delivery.

The Analytical chemistry playlist shown in Fig. 2 (a) contains 11 videos with an average run time of 24 min and the longest video of 50 min and 35 s. There are 30 lecture videos prepared for Physical chemistry 1 playlist as shown in Fig. 2 (b) . The average run time is 15 min with the longest one being 36 min long. Ideally, the lecture videos should be kept short in length to fully engage the students. In this case, longer topics were divided into several shorter videos (i.e., segmentations). The technical know-how in creating lecture videos was the major challenge because the authors are not trained in making videos. The authors had to record their lectures in their own homes, resulting in lecture videos that are not as fancy as those produced with the help of experts. It is noted that lecture videos have a profound impact on how students process and comprehend the content. Therefore, a video editing software was used to further enhance the lecture videos. A close-ended question with “too short/ low”, “just right”, or “too much” option was surveyed regarding the difficulty level, amount of work, and run time for the lecture videos. It is encouraging that most of the respondents in CHE 211 and 216 responded “just right” when asked about the level of difficulty, amount of work, and run time for the recorded videos.

Lecture video playlists in YouTube for (a) CHE 211 and (b) CHE 216. The student responses to the features of lecture videos for (c) CHE211 and (d) CHE 216. Work refers to the time spent in watching the video and answering the SAQs.

The quality of video lectures represents how the video lectures are designed or how it appears to the students ( Lange and Costley, 2007 ). The lecture videos typically start with a 10 s introductory music and a welcome slide to stimulate the attention of the students. Thereafter, the topic to be discussed is introduced and expected learning outcomes are mentioned before proceeding to the actual discussion. A short summary of the lecture is given before the end slide. A common PowerPoint template design, and font type were used to ensure uniformity in all lecture videos for each Chemistry course. Table 3 shows the results on students’ satisfaction in using the pre-recorded lecture videos. Majority of students in CHE 211 (92.3 %) and CHE 216 (97.4 %) strongly agree that the videos clearly stated the learning outcomes (entry 3.1). The calculated mean values for entry 3.1 are 4.44 and 4.68 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. Most of the respondents also strongly agree that our lecture videos are useful in attaining the objectives of the topic (entry 3.2) in CHE 211 (84.7 %) and CHE 216 (97.4 %). The mean values for entry 3.2 in CHE 211 and CHE 216 are 4.27 and 4.66, respectively. Most of the respondents in CHE 211 (73.7 %) and CHE 216 (91 %) agree that explanations of solutions for sample problems (entry 3.3) are easy to understand. The calculated mean for entry 3.3 is 4.03 and 4.35 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. Majority of respondents in CHE 211 (86 %) and CHE 216 (92.2 %) also agree that theories and concepts in the lecture videos were clearly presented in the video (entry 3.4). Most students in CHE 211 (71.5 %) and CHE 216 (76.7 %) also agree that there are enough guided problems discussed in the video (entry 3.5). The mean values for entry 3.5 in CHE 211 and CHE 216 are 3.85 and 4.08, respectively. These data suggest that students agree that there are sufficient guided problems discussed in the lecture videos.

Distribution of students’ response to Analytical chemistry (CHE 211) and Physical chemistry (CHE 216) questionnaire on lecture videos reported as frequency, percentage and mean for each entry. The total participant surveyed for Analytical chemistry and Physical chemistry are N = 91 and N = 77, respectively. The response for CHE 216 is shown in blue colour.

Clarity of presentation is essential to ensure student engagement and ultimately learning. Audio and visual clarity of lecture videos is a concern among students in online classes because this can have a negative effect on how students perceive and comprehend instruction ( Molnar, 2017 ; Lange and Costley, 2007 ). The production quality and the delivery of the content by the instructor are crucial for engaging the students. Poor audio and visual quality will ultimately decrease attention and understanding among learners ( Molnar, 2017 ). Hence, a video editing software was used to ensure the images, videos and sound are as clear as possible before using the videos to deliver information. To enhance the audio intelligibility, the voice of the instructor was amplified, and extraneous sounds were removed that might distract students from listening to their instructors’ voice. YouTube has a built-in subtitle function that allows text to accompany the narration and incremental audio and visual speed controls. These features can be used by students depending on their need for the video to be perceived manageable. A close-ended question with the “yes” or “no” option was also surveyed regarding whether visuals and audio recording are clear. Majority of respondents in CHE 211 and CHE 216 answered “yes” when asked if the visuals and audio components in the lecture videos are clear (Supplemental Information SI-3).

It is recognized that the learning environment of students differs from each other as well as the capacities of students in understanding the concepts. Common problems, such as power interruptions, unstable internet connection, and non-academic responsibilities are some hurdles encountered during asynchronous learning. These reasons contributed why some CHE 211 students found it difficult to keep in pace with the asynchronous online learning. The aesthetics, production values, and overall design of lecture videos all influence the learning process ( Lange and Costley, 2007 ; Leacock and Nesbi, 2007 ). Hence, lecture videos were evaluated if they had a positive impact on the learning experience of students. Most of the students in CHE 211 (72.5 %) and CHE 216 (81.8 %) agree that they can describe the important concepts in the lecture video (entry 3.7). This is supported by a mean value of 3.91 (Agree) and 3.97 (Agree) for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. The students in CHE 211 (73.7 %7) and CHE 216 (83.81 %) also agree that they can give an overview of the topic after watching the lecture video (entry 3.8). The mean values for entry 3.8 are 3.97 (Agree) and 4.03 (Agree) for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. The students in CHE 211 (52.8 %; mean = 3.60) and CHE 216 (62.4 %) agree that they can present complex facts illustratively in the lecture video (entry 3.9). This is supported by the mean values of 3.60 and 3.68 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. Moreover, respondents in CHE 211 (66 %) agree (mean = 3.88) and CHE 216 (87.1 %) strongly agree (mean = 4.23) that they can work independently on typical word problems after watching the videos (entry 3.10). These data show that CHE 211 has a lower mean value for statements 3.8, 3.9, and 3.10 as compared to CHE 216. Again, these slightly lower mean scores were attributed to the 5-week intensive Special Term when CHE 211 was offered. It is highly suggested that enough time is necessary to fully understand the discussions in the lecture video. The mean of entries from 3.1–3.10 for CHE 211 and CHE 216 were calculated as 4.00 and 4.24, respectively. In general, CHE 211 students agree while CHE 216 students strongly agree that our pre-recorded lecture videos are effective in delivering the learning outcomes, engaging, and useful in their online learning. These results emphasize that lecture videos can reduce cognitive load of the students. The underlying premise of the cognitive load theory is that we have a limited amount of memory and overloading with information impedes learning ( Abeysekera and Dawson, 2015 ). Students can watch the videos several times, pause and/or rewind portions of the videos as needed. This student-pacing may aid in better learning by reducing cognitive load ( Esson, 2016 ).

3.2.3. Synchronous teaching and learning

The common misconception about flipped classrooms is that most people think only of videos. Bergmann et al. (2013) and Tucker (2012) highlighted that watching videos is not enough to make flipped learning effective. The collaborative interaction and learning activities that occur during the face-to-face ( Bergmann et al., 2013 ; Tucker, 2012 ) or online setting ( Nerantzi, 2020 ) is very important. Hence, synchronous lecture sessions were conducted using Google meet ( Google Meet, 2019 ) or Zoom ( Zoom, 2019 ). The synchronous meetings were also recorded for those students who were unable to attend the scheduled meeting and those who are struggling with internet connectivity. One of the benefits of the synchronous instruction is that it can provide students a schedule and sense of community. This also allowed instructors to feel the “whole-class” teaching experience and increase communication for instructor – student engagement. The synchronous sessions were dedicated mainly to reinforce difficult concepts and a summary of learning outcomes of the video lectures. During the synchronous sessions, students were asked to present and explain their solutions to their classmates and answer questions as they arose (Supplemental Information, SI-4). This was done to increase student participation and allowed them to present their alternative solutions to a problem. The instructors also made corrections (if necessary) to the solutions or answers that were presented by the students and answered any further questions on the problems. These activities provide an opportunity to devote more time at higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy ( i.e., applying, analysing, and evaluating) ( Krathwohl, 2002 ).

The instructors have also requested the students to turn on their video cameras during synchronous sessions to promote visual communication. However, most students were unwilling to use their webcams and some reported that their webcams are not working properly. There are several possible reasons for non-video during synchronous meetings and these include: (i) students are shy to show their backgrounds particularly if there are family members present at home; (ii) feeling of not properly dressed or groomed during the synchronous session; (iii) computers have no webcam or the webcam are not working; and (iv) preference of students of being more comfortable with audio-only mode during online synchronous sessions. Therefore, it is difficult to find out whether students are really paying enough attention during the synchronous class. These reasons might have decreased the effectiveness of student-instructor engagement during synchronous online lectures. Therefore, it is advisable that plans should be taken into consideration to promote this vital component in an online class. Based on our personal experience, many students have the tendency to avoid asking questions to instructors in the usual traditional face-to-face classroom. Interestingly, we experienced more questioning from the students either made vocally or through the chat box of Google Meet. It seems that this kind of communication solves the hurdles in asking questions in a traditional lecture class. A possible reason for this behaviour is that students tend to be more active in asking questions when they are not visible in the “virtual” classroom.

The synchronous online lectures in Physical Chemistry 1 were conducted by the individual instructors during the second term of AY 2019–2020, while CHE 211 was conducted through team-teaching in the succeeding term (i.e., Special term, AY 2019–2020). The teamwork of the authors in teaching CHE 211 undeniably reduced the stress and burden of preparing materials for the online classes. In team-teaching approach, each instructor was given a specific set of topics to develop materials and teach synchronously. This arrangement gave enough time for the other instructors to prepare their online materials. The usual online synchronous sessions were taught by the instructor-in-charge of the meeting (i.e., module leader) while the other instructors are also present during the synchronous session (referred as plenary sessions). This arrangement gave the following advantages: (i) peer review of lessons, (ii) best practices of the instructor are shared among colleagues, (iii) standardized lectures were given to all students, (iv) the other instructors were given a chance to add something in the lecture, and (v) other instructors may give their inputs in answering questions from students. This team-teaching approach has been previously shown effective because it allows students to gain new insights from multiple perspectives and critically evaluate these perspectives ( Anderson and Speck, 1998 ; Crawford and Jenkins, 2018 ; Tan et al., 2020 ). CHE 211 students reflected their appreciation towards this type of teaching approach during the survey and some of the comments are shown below:

“The whole plenary sessions for me is the most useful thing. I can ask questions that can benefit not just me but the whole batch too and vice versa.” “At first, I had doubts doing the plenary session since all of the ChE students in my batch would be there and perhaps may be difficult to handle since it was a 3:100 ratio of instructors to students. However, it was a great experience getting to know my future colleagues, as well as the three instructors as I learned different sets of viewpoints from them, which in turn, helped me during this short term, may it be academic related or life-related.” “One of the best features is that 3 instructors are able to provide input from their experiences in the industry giving the lesson clarity, and it makes it more interesting and motivating to hear these from professionals.”

The students were also asked in general of their experience of this synchronous teaching strategy (Supplemental Information, SI-3). Majority of students expressed that the instructors managed the team teaching effectively (94.5 %) and the plenary sessions provided a welcoming, interactive, and engaging virtual classroom (92.3 %). It is expected that large class size can increase the barriers related to student anonymity and passivity ( Eichler and Peeples, 2016 ). However, Hoyt et al. (2010) highlighted that teaching a large enrolment course can be a very engaging and productive learning experience for students and a rewarding experience for the instructor through effective classroom management, careful planning, and ingenuity. The experience in teaching synchronous sessions led the authors to realize that it is important to connect with students through video streaming and frequently ask questions to gauge student’s attention and learning. Moreover, it is also important that students present and discuss their solutions to problems to further increase student-teacher interaction.

3.2.4. Assessments and learning outcomes (LOs)

3.2.4.1. change in course assessments and alignment with los.

In most chemistry courses, assessments were originally given as exams, in-class group presentations, and individual problem sets. Problem sets are regularly given to students because solving relevant problems is indispensable to the understanding concepts, practice of numerical skills, and deepening knowledge of chemistry. Problem sets are referred here as self-assessment questions (SAQs) and module exams were the primary assessment tools employed in online CHE 211 and CHE 216. The number of items usually given in SAQs and the time-involvement are comparable to those in face-to-face lectures. This is to ensure the effectiveness of assignments would not be different. The SAQs were similar to the guided problems discussed in the lecture videos and were selected to fulfil the intended learning outcomes (LOs) of the module. At the very least, students were expected to watch the pre-recorded lecture video and answer the SAQs.

All chemistry courses offered to Chemical Engineering students used to have at least two major exams in a semester, i.e., preliminary exam and final exam and several quizzes. Now that assessments should be given online, academic integrity is one of the concerns of faculty members. In the case of CHE 216, it was decided that preliminary and final exams were replaced by module quizzes as everyone was still adjusting to the online instruction and provide more time for students to understand the lessons. The same decision was made for CHE 211 because of the short and intensive 5-week period during the special term of 2020. The assessments and learning outcomes before COVID-19 (i.e., face-to-face) and during COVID-19 (i.e., online) for CHE 211 are summarized in Table 4 . Table 4 shows how the LOs are aligned with the given assessment before and during COVID-19. The assessments with their corresponding weightings to the final grade before COVID-19 special term (AY 2018–2019) include quizzes (40 %), SAQs (10 %), preliminary exam (25 %) and final exam (25 %). However, assessments during COVID-19 special term (AY of 2019–2020) only included exams (70 %) and SAQs (30 %). Module 1 and Module 2 contained a large number of topics and were divided into smaller quizzes. There were 4 computational exams given and 2 conceptual assessments given in the form of a quiz bee.

Alignment of Assessment with LOs in Analytical Chemistry (CHE 211) before and during COVID-19. Before COVID-19 is based on the course syllabus for Special Term of AY 2018–2019 while During COVID-19 is based on the revised course syllabus for Special Term 2019–2020. Legend: Fully Consistent (●), LO not Delivered (⊘), blank (no assessment conducted).

Table 5 summarizes the alignment of assessments and change in LO’s for Physical Chemistry during the 2nd Term of AY 2019–2020. The class suspensions at the start of community lockdown led to less lecture hours in CHE 216. Hence, the instructors decided to transfer module 4 (with LO-4 and LO-5) to next the Physical Chemistry course. The assessments in CHE 216 include 3 module quizzes and SAQs. The first exam and SAQs was completed in regular classroom set-up before the community lockdown and the other two exams were completed online. Each online quiz was scheduled and conducted asynchronously. To minimize cheating, each student received a unique set of questions for the other two exams with a similar level of difficulty for each question set. A solution template was also provided where they can discuss their plan on how to solve the assigned problem and show the detailed calculations. Their solutions were submitted through specific submission links in the Blackboard portal before the deadline. It was expected that this strategy decreased the feasibility of cheating because each student must give a unique plan to solve the problem and solution. The original percentage of each component module for Physical Chemistry 1 (CHE 216) were module 1 (25 %), 2 (25 %), 3 (30 %), and 4 (20 %). The shift to online instruction necessitated an adjustment in the module weights. The corresponding revised module weights were module 1 (35 %), module 2 (35 %) and module 3 (30 %).

Alignment of Assessment with LOs in Physical Chemistry (CHE 216) before and during COVID-19. The before COVID-19 refers to the course syllabus before community lockdown during 2nd Term AY 2019–2020 while during COVID-19 is based on the same term after switching to online instruction. Legend: Fully Consistent (●), LO not Delivered (⊘), N/A (Not Applicable), blank (no assessment conducted).

3.2.4.2. Student survey on assessment and learning outcomes

The student experiences in accomplishing the assessments were examined. Table 6 shows that most of the students in CHE 211 (75.9 %) agree (mean = 4.07) and majority of students in CHE 216 (94.8 %) strongly agree (mean = 4.55) that the number of SAQs is enough to achieve the declared learning outcomes of the module (entry 6.1). However, only 52.8 % of students in CHE 211 agree (mean = 3.49) that they can easily answer the SAQs after watching the videos compared to those who strongly agree (mean = 4.31) in CHE 216 (89.7 %) (entry 6.2). The somewhat lower mean for CHE 211 might be due to the limited time for students in CHE 211 to fully understand the videos and apply the problem-solving skills discussed in the guided problems. Only 60.5 % of CHE 211 students agree (mean = 3.75) that there is enough time to answer the SAQs as compared to those who strongly agree (mean = 4.51) in CHE 216 (93.5 %) (entry 6.3). Unfortunately, it is counterproductive that some students find SAQs as mere requirements rather than authentically assessing their learning gains. Our survey suggests that students must be given enough time to watch the videos and a longer period of submission of SAQs. In this manner, students will realize the importance of SAQs in achieving the desired numerical solving skills rather than simply submitting the SAQs as a gradable component.

Distribution of students’ response to Analytical chemistry (CHE 211) and Physical chemistry (CHE 216) questionnaire on Assessment type and strategy reported as frequency, percentage and mean for each entry. The total participant surveyed for Analytical chemistry and Physical chemistry are N = 91 and N = 77, respectively. The response for CHE 216 is shown in blue colour.

The students were also asked whether the adjustments in the number of exams are enough to assess the student learning and understanding of the course (entry 6.4). Most of the respondents in CHE 211 (69.3 %) agree (mean = 3.89) and majority of respondents CHE 216 (94.8 %) strongly agree (mean = 4.57) that there are enough exams. However, 13.2 % of students in CHE 211 disagreed on this statement and expressed that additional exams should have been given (entry 6.4). We decided to give only 4 module exams within the 5-week special term of AY 2019–2020.

In CHE 216, quiz 2 and 3 were conducted asynchronously with a recommended 24 -h window for the submission of answers to allow students wider access, especially those who may have limited internet connectivity. Although internet connectivity within Metro Manila is good, it is not clear if the same situation exists in other regions of the country. Nonetheless, the majority of respondents in CHE 216 (93.5 %) strongly agree (mean = 4.47) that timed-release and submission of quizzes for Physical chemistry 1 is a good way to train their problem-solving skills (entry 6.5). The wide time frame for the online submission was also an attempt to mitigate the reduced access to Blackboard online submission from students currently staying in other regions of the Philippines with intermittent internet connections. However, a wide asynchronous window period might pose academic integrity issues. Limiting the time of unsupervised assessment format restricted the amount of time for any potential collaboration. This learning experience was applied in giving assessments in CHE 211 in the succeeding term.

A total of four quizzes were given synchronously for CHE 211. In the first quiz, six problem solving questions were given to each student to answer in 60 min. These problems were given in three consecutive batches with 2 problems and 20 min per batch. To promote academic integrity, the instructors modified the dissemination quiz questions for the succeeding quizzes. Two problem solving questions were still given per batch, however, nine different sets were deployed. To ensure the same level of difficulty, only the given values and questions were rephrased. At the request of students, the time allotted per batch was increased to 30 min to account for the time used for downloading the questions and uploading the answers. These modifications, despite prolonging the time allotment per batch, resulted in a significant decrease in student performance for Quiz 2 (Supplemental Information 9, SI-9). Interestingly, the students were able to positively accept the adjustments for Quiz 3 and Quiz 4, resulting in significant increase in student performance for both quizzes as revealed by ANOVA analysis (Supplemental Information 9, SI-9).

Even with time adjustments, 57.2 % of CHE 211 students agree (mean = 3.59) that the timed-release of the exam questions provided good training to develop their problem-solving skills (entry 6.5). The survey suggests that sufficient time is important in assessing the performance of students in courses requiring intensive numerical calculations. The concepts and theories in Analytical chemistry were assessed using a quiz bee (entry 6.6). The motivation of doing this activity is to promote student-student interaction and provide an environment for active student participation. Most of the respondents in CHE 211 (87.9 %) strongly agreed (mean = 4.52) that assessment of concepts through online game (i.e., quiz bee) provided a fun and stimulating environment. However, some respondents found this assessment strategy neither effective (6.6 %) and some students disagreed (5.5 %) that quiz bees are effective in assessing the concepts learned. This observation was attributed to the various preferences of students on the type assessment. Another possible reason is that some students have unstable internet and affect their ability to quickly send their answers during the quiz bee. Overall, the majority of students in CHE 211(Mean = 3.88) students agree and CHE 216 (Mean = 4.48) students strongly agree that our self-assessment questions SAQs and exam strategy is sufficient and effective in assessing the understanding of the students of the topics in both calculations and theory.

4. Analysis of DLPCA teaching-learning experience

4.1. impact on student learning experience.

The perception and satisfaction of students regarding their DLPCA experience is discussed in this section. It is important that online teaching and learning strategy is laid-out and clearly discussed to the students. In terms of percentage, majority if not all the respondents in CHE 211 (91.2 %) and CHE 216 (100 %) agreed that there was a clear plan (entry 7.1) on how the courses were converted into an online class. The mean values for entry 7.1 are 4.47 and 4.70 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. The regular posting of tasks and deliverables to students further helped them understand the overall structure of the strategy, thus, resulting in a better learning process. This feedback is important because this will allow students to set their expectations in the new learning environment and will give them an impression of order and continuity ( Table 7 ).

Distribution of students’ response to Analytical chemistry (CHE 211) and Physical chemistry (CHE 216) questionnaire on the structure of online instruction and student attributes reported as frequency, percentage, and mean for each entry. The total participant surveyed for CHE 211 and CHE 216 are N = 91 and N = 77, respectively. The response for CHE 216 is shown in blue colour.

Majority of the respondents in CHE 211 (93.4 %) and CHE 216 (96.1 %) agreed that they had received a clear set of instructions for the weekly tasks expected from them (entry 7.2). The calculated mean for entry 5.2 were 4.63 and 4.65 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. This feedback is also important because this will provide students an overview of their weekly tasks, thus, giving them the chance to manage and make use of their time more efficiently. The most significant difference between online and traditional classrooms is that students and instructors cannot see and communicate with each other face-to-face. Hence, DLPCA combines a balance of synchronous and asynchronous components to engage the diverse personalities of students in a more inclusive way and maximizes opportunities for self- and guided learning. Most of the respondents agreed that the DLPCA strategy is balanced (entry 7.3) with a mean of 4.11 and 4.65 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. The term “balanced” refers to having sufficient and complementing mixture of asynchronous (lecture videos and SAQs) and synchronous (online discussion and consultation) teaching strategies. In addition, the mean values were determined for entry 7.4 to be 4.32 and 4.48 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. These data suggest that students strongly agreed that the synchronous component allowed them to easily express their feedback, concerns, and ask questions about the lecture materials (entry 7.4).

The balanced blended approach can help students establish active learning habits such as proactiveness (entry 7.5). The mean values for entry 7.5 were calculated as 4.27 and 4.29 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. These results suggest that the DLPCA strategy enabled students to develop a desirable active learning habit. The balanced online strategy also increases students’ sense of responsibility for learning (entry 7.6). The calculated mean values for the entry 7.6 are 4.42 and 4.35 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. Some of the students’ comments in CHE 211 and CHE 216 related to the balanced online learning strategy are presented below:

[CHE 211] “The best thing about the online learning strategy is the balance between synchronous meetings and asynchronous videos. Since the pre-recorded videos are sharp and concise, they can be repeated multiple times before the synchronous meeting can start. This way, I can better understand the lesson and prepare for the meeting, but still anticipate for the synchronous session in order to gather more detailed information about the topics.” [CHE 211] “The best thing was the asynchronous and synchronous discussion for the lectures because there is balance with self-paced learning and synchronous learning.” [CHE 216] “Asynchronous and synchronous lectures were balanced which is good especially when there comes a technical difficulty particularly the poor internet connection.”

The general acceptance and satisfaction of the students regarding the DLPCA learning strategy was emphasized in entry 7.7. Majority of students in CHE 211 (72.5 %) and CHE 216 (96.1 %) are satisfied with the online strategy. The calculated mean for entry 7.7 were 3.91 and 4.48 for CHE 211 and CHE 216, respectively. A relatively lower agreement was observed among CHE 211 students which may be attributed to the short intensive period of the Special Term resulting in shorter time allotted for accomplishing tasks and studying the lessons. This might have affected the understanding and appreciation of the topics in CHE 211, placing the students in a very stressful situation. In the case of CHE 216, the first half of the semester was conducted in face-to-face instruction (before the community lockdown) and the second half of the term was conducted online. The longer period of the second term (5 months) has spread the workload of students in CHE 216 resulting in a very high acceptance of the online strategy. The overall mean of entries from 7.1–7.7 for CHE 211 and CHE 216 were calculated as 4.23 and 4.53, respectively. These suggest that, in general, students in both courses strongly agreed the DLPCA strategy has a clear laid-out plan, has provided a balance of synchronous and asynchronous components, has promoted active learning habits, and has been accepted by the students as an alternative to face-to-face setup. One possible reason for the high acceptance among students is that they were able to establish a routine towards the end of the semester. DLPCA provides a cohesive strategy where students know what to prepare before going to class and are reassured knowing that any questions that they would have will be answered during the synchronous sessions.

Open-ended questions regarding the students’ general impression of the DLPCA strategy were examined using word clouds. Word cloud generates an image containing the most frequently used words from the comments being analyzed – the more frequently the word is used, the larger it will appear in the image ( Bletzer, 2015 ). It is possible to look for specific patterns of words and phrases, or the lack thereof, in any text data by simply examining frequencies in a word cloud. Further interpretations of the word cloud can be carried out by detailed analysis of the responses ( DePaolo and Wilkinson, 2014 ). Three themes related to the learning experience were identified, i.e. (i) the best experience in the online course, (ii) worst experience in the online course, and (iii) suggestions to improve the online course.

4.2. Theme 1: best experience

The word cloud of the feedback received from CHE 211 and 216 students are shown in Fig. 3 a and b , respectively. The following three major topics emerged for CHE 211: (1) questions, (2) videos, sessions, lessons, and (3) asynchronous, strategy, lecture, instructors, more, time. The frequency table and graph for best experience are presented in Supplemental Information SI-6. The word “questions” was mentioned frequently because students can easily raise their questions and instructors can entertain all their questions during synchronous sessions. The second major topic includes words like “videos”, “sessions”, and “lessons”. The production of pre-recorded videos was appreciated by the students as it makes online learning easier. Further clarifications and explanations for complex lessons were done during the synchronous discussions. The third major topic included words such as “asynchronous”, “strategy”, “lecture”, “instructors”, “more”, “time”. The respondents were optimistic as they enjoyed the learning strategy and emphasized the efficiency of content delivery and the ability to control the pace of learning. The students also emphasized the enthusiasm as well as the positive attitude of the instructors that was reflected throughout the recordings.

Word cloud analysis on the best experiences in the online teaching and learning in (a) CHE 211 and (b) CHE 216.

Four major topics emerged for CHE 216: (1) learning, (2) lecture, (3) videos, asynchronous (4) students, time, understand, synchronous. Like CHE 211, students expressed that their best experience in online learning is the availability of pre-recorded lecture videos which is an essential component of asynchronous learning. Students also appreciate the synchronous sessions because it provided a platform to clarify difficult topics that were discussed in the video. Students also like the amount of time made available to them in the course. The blended learning strategy allowed them to manage their time well and understand the topics in CHE 216. Overall, analysis shows the positive impact of using pre-recorded video lectures in online learning depends on good planning and balanced integration of asynchronous and synchronous components. However, it should be noted that video lectures are not alternative options to face-to-face setup, but an essential supplementary tool in achieving the learning outcomes of the modules in online learning.

4.3. Theme 2: worst experience

Three major topics emerged in the word cloud for CHE 211 on the student’s worst experience ( Fig. 4 a). Among these responses included (1) quizzes/quiz, (2) time, and (3) internet. The word “time” refers to the insufficient amount of time allotted for quizzes. The frequency table and graph for worst experience are presented in Supplemental Information SI-7. Some students in CHE 211 expressed their frustration that exam time is too fast-paced. The exam conditions gave them an impression of being rushed to analyze, answer, and upload their solutions. Although the exam questions were prepared to be similar to the one discussed in the online session, some students still find answering the quizzes (i.e., exams) stressful because the difficulty level of the questions are different from the ones discussed in the guided problems and SAQs. Several students were also affected by unstable internet connection in CHE 211 online class. Interestingly, the word cloud for CHE 216 ( Fig. 4 b) showed the most frequent keyword “none” for their worst experience. Most students appreciated the online strategy and commended their instructors for providing course materials that were sufficient to understand the topics fully. “Internet” and “time” were also the second most frequent words in the feedback. Internet connectivity issues which affected their participation during synchronous sessions and their timely submission of SAQs also contributed to the worst experience of students in their online CHE 216 course although these were mentioned to a lesser extent.

Word cloud analysis on the worst experiences in the online teaching and in (a) CHE 211 and (b) CHE 216 courses.

4.4. Theme 3: suggestions for improvement

The students were also asked about how they would like to experience their online classes in the succeeding semesters. The goal is to determine the enhancements to the DLPCA strategy and to make the students’ learning experience more satisfying. The major topics that emerged in CHE 211 are (1) “more”, (2) “quizzes”, “synchronous” (3) “think”, (4) “time”, “lecture”, “problem”. The frequency table and graph for suggestions for improvement are presented in Supplemental Information SI-8. Most students conveyed that more quizzes, diverse guided problems during synchronous discussion and other forms of assessments must be included to compensate for low scores in their exams. Students also expressed their concern regarding the time devoted in watching the lecture videos and submitting SAQs. Specifically, flexibility in terms of extending the deadlines of SAQs for a day or two would be ideal. The words like “professors” and “instructors” also appeared in the word cloud because the students are appreciative of their teachers’ efforts in their online class ( Fig. 5 ).

Word cloud analysis on further improvements in the online teaching and learning in (a) CHE 211 and (b) CHE 216 courses.

The word cloud for CHE 216 showed the following 2 major topics (1) “course”, “professor”, “time” (2) “learning lecture”, “videos”, “strategy”, “good”. Some students expressed that additional problems must be given, and submission deadlines of assessments must be flexible. In general, there is high satisfaction of the DLPCA strategy among CHE 216 students. The students also acknowledged that CHE 216 course provided a clear structure during the quick transition to online instruction. Students expressed their desire to continue with the DLPCA strategy and credited their teachers for the commendable efforts made in their online class.

4.5. Impact on student performance

To further investigate the impact of DLPCA on student performance, the grade distribution for Special Term 2018–2019 (face-to-face) and Special Term 2019–2020 (online) for CHE 211 were compared and summarized in Fig. 6 . Students are given a 5-point numerical grade which corresponds to 1.00 as the highest and 5.00 as the failed grade at the end of the semester. The grade WP corresponds to those students who withdrew with permission while the grade INC corresponds to incomplete. A grade of INC is given if a student failed to take the final examinations or to submit a major requirement of a course on account of illness or other valid reasons ( UST Student Handbook, 2018 ).

Comparison of the grade distribution, as a percentage of students earning each grade, for the online group (3 sections, n = 98) and the face-to-face group (3 sections, n = 121) in Analytical chemistry.

Although the assessment weightings were different in the face-to-face and online semester, the content and variety of questions stayed the same. Interestingly, the final grade distribution during the online Special Term rendered a comparable grade distribution in face-to-face Special Term. The most evident changes can be seen from the grades 1.75, 2.25 and 5.00. The percentage of students who got “1.75” nearly doubled (online = 16.3 %, face-to-face = 9.1 %) while those who got “2.25” more than doubled (online = 25.5 %, face-to-face = 11.6 %) in the online setting. On the other hand, the percentage of students who got “5.00” or failing grade became significantly lower (online = 4.1 %, face-to-face = 18.2 %) in the online setting. Interestingly, no student was given a grade of “WP” or “INC” in the online flipped classroom. These trends in the grade distribution could indicate that the DLPCA strategy positively impacted the students’ performance. To further verify the observed changes from the grade distributions between online and face-to-face, Welch t -test was used to analyse the data. Results (p = 0.0002962 and p = 0.00306) showed that online grades are indeed higher than face-to-face grades (Supplemental Information 10, SI-10). Unfortunately, the grade distributions between online (i.e., 2nd Term, AY 2019–2020) and previous face-to-face classes in CHE 216 cannot be compared. The community lockdown happened in mid-March 2020 which resulted to combination of face-to-face and online instruction for CHE 216. Hence, the performance of students during 2nd term cannot be assumed the same for the previous face-to-face classes.

4.6. Instructor observation

The instructor’s observations can be used to provide information on the effectiveness of flipped classroom in a qualitative perspective ( Fautch, 2015 ). Instructors also reflected upon their experience while transitioning to online instruction and how DLPCA strategy played an important role in continuing chemistry education during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the positive outcomes using the DLPCA strategy was the introduction of new technological teaching tools for the instructors. The switch to online instruction resulted in all instructors utilizing synchronous video conferencing tools, online assessments tools, and pre-recorded lecture videos. These changes have the potential to have long term positive impacts on instruction. Specifically, the production of self-made lecture videos, although a time-consuming process, can be a permanent teaching tool. The pre-recorded lecture videos will certainly be useful for the next semesters and will be a part of other innovative learning activities.

The transition to online learning also presented a big challenge to decide which online technology is best suited for lectures. It is very easy for instructors to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of educational platforms and online resources available. However, the DLPCA strategy streamlined all available online resources into an organized strategy. The DLCPA strategy also involved collaboration and delegation of workload (e.g., creating video lectures, construction of new activities, team teaching) among instructors which led to higher-quality learning materials. Additionally, the exchange of ideas helped instructors better plan for giving assessments.

Through the instructors’ perspective, the DLPCA strategy also showed great impact on the students’ learning. Online education has resulted to different kinds of difficulties which has somehow affected the progress of students in understanding the topics in their lecture courses. The implementation of flipped classroom learning is expected to prepare the students to participate in more interactive learning activities that require higher-order cognitive skills ( Cowden and Santiago, 2016 ). Another great benefit for the DLPCA strategy is that synchronous sessions were recorded and uploaded in Blackboard for their exclusive use, and these capture the instructor’s presentation, class discussions and the participations as they occur. The availability and accessibility of the videos is considered to have a positive effect on student learning as no student requested to repeat explanations on complex topics presented in the videos. Comparing to previous semesters where students usually ask instructors to clarify difficult concepts and calculations, this shows that DLPCA offers effectiveness, flexibility, and convenience to online learning.

Regarding the completion of SAQs, all students completed the task properly which may be because SAQs were also required as a gradable assessment. In previous semesters, the solutions to SAQs were primarily discussed by the instructor in the classroom. During the online term, students were randomly asked by the instructor to share their calculations during synchronous sessions. This activity trains students to extract information from the SAQs, organize solutions, communicate their knowledge, and develop a deeper level of thinking. Interestingly, some students would raise questions on the solutions of their classmates which encourages the exchange of ideas between students. Lastly, the team teaching conducted by the instructors had a positive effect on the students. The presence of all instructors during the class sessions allowed students to gain insights from each instructor.

5. Concluding remarks

The COVID-19 pandemic has opened venues for online teaching with a completely new outlook for educators and learners. Online education requires teachers to change from the old teaching paradigm to new teaching methods that also matches with technology. Consultation with students regarding the teaching style is important to check if the students are keeping up with the lecture and helps identify various aspects of online teaching that needs to be adjusted accordingly. This paper presented the DLPCA strategy that paved the way for transition from traditional face-to-face to online instruction during the pandemic. DLPCA consists of asynchronous learning using pre-recorded videos and synchronous session of live exchanges. The major lessons of using DLCPA strategy during the lockdown were (i) asynchronous teaching using lecture videos allowed students to progress at their own pace because they can repeatedly watch the videos at any time, (ii) checklists such as progress trackers and weekly guides helped students organize and manage their tasks, and (iii) asynchronous assessments were effective in addressing problems with slow internet connectivity. However, preventive measures must be in place to prevent unauthorized student collaboration and internet searching. In addition, the benefits of DLCPA outweighs the costs in time associated with the preparation of pre-recorded lecture videos. The various insights and results discussed in this paper could be adapted for designing synchronous and/or asynchronous components of online, flipped, or hybrid classes. In addition, DLPCA strategy can be applied in future events such as disruption of classes due to inclement weather conditions, and emergency situations when a faculty member cannot be physically present in a classroom due to health reasons.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to the university administration for their support in providing trainings in online instruction. The authors are also appreciative to Dr. Edsel B. Calica for contributing materials and inputs for the learning theories.

Appendix A Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ece.2021.01.012 .

Appendix A. Supplementary data

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Managing attention and distractibility in online learning

Research-backed answers to some of the most commonly asked questions regarding attention and distractibility in the virtual classroom.

• Learning and Memory
• Perception and Attention
• Schools and Classrooms
• Technology and Design

This year, as COVID-19 disrupted traditional K–12 education, even the most experienced teachers felt suddenly thrown back into their first day, or first years, of teaching. Appearing in their virtual classrooms, many teachers found themselves looking at an array of squares on a screen, some with students looking back, some with a bare desktop and chair, some missing entirely. For many, this new environment felt foreign as their go-to strategies in the classroom setting did not seem to translate readily online. As a result, teachers were left with many questions and few clear answers.

Although the existing literature specific to virtual learning environments is limited, there is a robust research base on attention, engagement, distractibility, and learning in general, much of which can be adapted and applied in virtual settings. Below, we offer research-backed answers to some of the most commonly asked questions regarding attention and distractibility in the virtual classroom.

What do attention and engagement look like in an online environment?

In face-to-face settings, teachers typically rely on perceiving and responding to overt student behaviors as evidence of their attention. In an online setting, teachers may be able to see only a student’s head and shoulders at most, which limits the information available. In these circumstances, teachers must turn to other sources of input. In their 2011 book, “Creating the Opportunity to Learn,” Boykin and Noguera offer the following description for behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement:

Behavioral engagement is “on task behavior.” In a virtual environment, on task behavior may include students’ commenting in the chat function, asking and answering questions, seeking and providing help to peers, and participating in collaborative discussions. Cognitive engagement refers to effort aimed at understanding complex material or learning challenging skills. In a virtual environment, cognitive engagement may include students showing that they are willing and able to take on a task even if it is challenging ( Corno & Mandinach, 1983 ), the extent to which they persist on a task regardless of its difficulty, and the strategies they employ to assist them while learning (Richardson & Newby, 2006 ). Affective engagement refers to students’ emotional reactions including showing interest in, curiosity about, or enjoyment of a task, communicating a positive attitude, and expressing the value, importance, or personal relevance of a task (Boykin & Noguera, 2011). When students are not affectively engaged, they are likely to show boredom, stress, or anxiety.

How do I know my students are paying attention and engaged while I’m teaching online or with online work?

How teachers know if their students are paying attention and engaged is an issue of assessment. The classroom assessment process begins with asking yourself, “What do I want to know about my students’ engagement?” To ensure representativeness, teachers can include questions on each of the types of engagement discussed previously. For example, one might ask, “Are my students persisting even when they encounter difficult work?” Or, “Do my students appear to be interested during class-wide discussions?”

After teachers establish what they want to know, the next step is to determine what might count as evidence to answer that particular question. For example, teachers may look for evidence of student persistence by observing what students do when they encounter hurdles or stumbling blocks. If students continue steadily working and adjust and adapt their plans as needed, it might serve as evidence of persistence.

Knowing what evidence to collect, however, is only half the battle. As teachers, it is also important to have a host of strategies and techniques to collect such evidence. Classroom assessment does little to affect student learning unless teachers use the information from assessment events to inform their next teaching steps or to craft feedback that moves learning forward. That is why it is imperative that teachers draw on their knowledge of the curriculum and typical learning trajectories to inform teaching and learning.

How can I structure my online teaching to best engage my students, and what strategies can I use to reengage students who are distracted?

Many of the strategies that teachers use to increase student engagement in face-to-face classrooms can also be adapted to structure online teaching. For example, it is important to recognize the types of learning for which synchronous (active online) and asynchronous (offline) modalities are advantageous and to use each modality strategically.

The synchronous format is useful for introducing new topics, discussing complex ideas and challenging work, and promoting collaborative learning and student-teacher interactions. One of the disadvantages of the synchronous format is that students might find it difficult to remain engaged for long durations, and teachers should expect the duration of engagement to drop with age—ninth-graders will be able to stay engaged longer than fifth-graders, fifth-graders longer than third-graders, and so on.

Asynchronous learning could be used to reinforce what was taught and discussed during synchronous sessions and for tasks and activities that can be self-paced and that might require more time to complete, such as long-term projects. Because students work independently during asynchronous learning, it is important to break up activities into smaller chunks as well as to vary the types of activities, such as answering questions after watching a brief video or writing a short essay after reading assigned pages of a book. Asynchronous learning also has the advantage of promoting student self-regulation and sense of control over the learning process, factors known to increase student engagement (Fredricks et al., 2004).

Finally, students are more likely to be engaged if they feel respected and valued by their teachers and peers, and if they feel that they belong to the classroom and school community. Teachers can reinforce student engagement with praise or by allowing students to do a fun activity. In addition, establishing specific times during the week when students can collaborate on a creative activity, watch a short and lighthearted video together, or just talk could go a long way to creating positive bonds and an engaged community in a virtual environment.

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• Published: 09 January 2024

Online vs in-person learning in higher education: effects on student achievement and recommendations for leadership

• Bandar N. Alarifi 1 &
• Steve Song 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  86 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Science, technology and society

This study is a comparative analysis of online distance learning and traditional in-person education at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, with a focus on understanding how different educational modalities affect student achievement. The justification for this study lies in the rapid shift towards online learning, especially highlighted by the educational changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. By analyzing the final test scores of freshman students in five core courses over the 2020 (in-person) and 2021 (online) academic years, the research provides empirical insights into the efficacy of online versus traditional education. Initial observations suggested that students in online settings scored lower in most courses. However, after adjusting for variables like gender, class size, and admission scores using multiple linear regression, a more nuanced picture emerged. Three courses showed better performance in the 2021 online cohort, one favored the 2020 in-person group, and one was unaffected by the teaching format. The study emphasizes the crucial need for a nuanced, data-driven strategy in integrating online learning within higher education systems. It brings to light the fact that the success of educational methodologies is highly contingent on specific contextual factors. This finding advocates for educational administrators and policymakers to exercise careful and informed judgment when adopting online learning modalities. It encourages them to thoroughly evaluate how different subjects and instructional approaches might interact with online formats, considering the variable effects these might have on learning outcomes. This approach ensures that decisions about implementing online education are made with a comprehensive understanding of its diverse and context-specific impacts, aiming to optimize educational effectiveness and student success.

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Introduction.

The year 2020 marked an extraordinary period, characterized by the global disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments and institutions worldwide had to adapt to unforeseen challenges across various domains, including health, economy, and education. In response, many educational institutions quickly transitioned to distance teaching (also known as e-learning, online learning, or virtual classrooms) to ensure continued access to education for their students. However, despite this rapid and widespread shift to online learning, a comprehensive examination of its effects on student achievement in comparison to traditional in-person instruction remains largely unexplored.

In research examining student outcomes in the context of online learning, the prevailing trend is the consistent observation that online learners often achieve less favorable results when compared to their peers in traditional classroom settings (e.g., Fischer et al., 2020 ; Bettinger et al., 2017 ; Edvardsson and Oskarsson, 2008 ). However, it is important to note that a significant portion of research on online learning has primarily focused on its potential impact (Kuhfeld et al., 2020 ; Azevedo et al., 2020 ; Di Pietro et al., 2020 ) or explored various perspectives (Aucejo et al., 2020 ; Radha et al., 2020 ) concerning distance education. These studies have often omitted a comprehensive and nuanced examination of its concrete academic consequences, particularly in terms of test scores and grades.

Given the dearth of research on the academic impact of online learning, especially in light of Covid-19 in the educational arena, the present study aims to address that gap by assessing the effectiveness of distance learning compared to in-person teaching in five required freshmen-level courses at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. To accomplish this objective, the current study compared the final exam results of 8297 freshman students who were enrolled in the five courses in person in 2020 to their 8425 first-year counterparts who has taken the same courses at the same institution in 2021 but in an online format.

The final test results of the five courses (i.e., University Skills 101, Entrepreneurship 101, Computer Skills 101, Computer Skills 101, and Fitness and Health Culture 101) were examined, accounting for potential confounding factors such as gender, class size and admission scores, which have been cited in past research to be correlated with student achievement (e.g., Meinck and Brese, 2019 ; Jepsen, 2015 ) Additionally, as the preparatory year at King Saud University is divided into five tracks—health, nursing, science, business, and humanity, the study classified students based on their respective disciplines.

Motivation for the study

The rapid expansion of distance learning in higher education, particularly highlighted during the recent COVID-19 pandemic (Volk et al., 2020 ; Bettinger et al., 2017 ), underscores the need for alternative educational approaches during crises. Such disruptions can catalyze innovation and the adoption of distance learning as a contingency plan (Christensen et al., 2015 ). King Saud University, like many institutions worldwide, faced the challenge of transitioning abruptly to online learning in response to the pandemic.

E-learning has gained prominence in higher education due to technological advancements, offering institutions a competitive edge (Valverde-Berrocoso et al., 2020 ). Especially during conditions like the COVID-19 pandemic, electronic communication was utilized across the globe as a feasible means to overcome barriers and enhance interactions (Bozkurt, 2019 ).

Distance learning, characterized by flexibility, became crucial when traditional in-person classes are hindered by unforeseen circumstance such as the ones posed by COVID-19 (Arkorful and Abaidoo, 2015 ). Scholars argue that it allows students to learn at their own pace, often referred to as self-directed learning (Hiemstra, 1994 ) or self-education (Gadamer, 2001 ). Additional advantages include accessibility, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility (Sadeghi, 2019 ).

However, distance learning is not immune to its own set of challenges. Technical impediments, encompassing network issues, device limitations, and communication hiccups, represent formidable hurdles (Sadeghi, 2019 ). Furthermore, concerns about potential distractions in the online learning environment, fueled by the ubiquity of the internet and social media, have surfaced (Hall et al., 2020 ; Ravizza et al., 2017 ). The absence of traditional face-to-face interactions among students and between students and instructors is also viewed as a potential drawback (Sadeghi, 2019 ).

Given the evolving understanding of the pros and cons of distance learning, this study aims to contribute to the existing literature by assessing the effectiveness of distance learning, specifically in terms of student achievement, as compared to in-person classroom learning at King Saud University, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest higher education institutions.

Academic achievement: in-person vs online learning

The primary driving force behind the rapid integration of technology in education has been its emphasis on student performance (Lai and Bower, 2019 ). Over the past decade, numerous studies have undertaken comparisons of student academic achievement in online and in-person settings (e.g., Bettinger et al., 2017 ; Fischer et al., 2020 ; Iglesias-Pradas et al., 2021 ). This section offers a concise review of the disparities in academic achievement between college students engaged in in-person and online learning, as identified in existing research.

A number of studies point to the superiority of traditional in-person education over online learning in terms of academic outcomes. For example, Fischer et al. ( 2020 ) conducted a comprehensive study involving 72,000 university students across 433 subjects, revealing that online students tend to achieve slightly lower academic results than their in-class counterparts. Similarly, Bettinger et al. ( 2017 ) found that students at for-profit online universities generally underperformed when compared to their in-person peers. Supporting this trend, Figlio et al. ( 2013 ) indicated that in-person instruction consistently produced better results, particularly among specific subgroups like males, lower-performing students, and Hispanic learners. Additionally, Kaupp’s ( 2012 ) research in California community colleges demonstrated that online students faced lower completion and success rates compared to their traditional in-person counterparts (Fig. 1 ).

The figure compared student achievement in the final tests in the five courses by year, using independent-samples t-tests; the results show a statistically-significant drop in test scores from 2020 (in person) to 2021 (online) for all courses except CT_101.

In contrast, other studies present evidence of online students outperforming their in-person peers. For example, Iglesias-Pradas et al. ( 2021 ) conducted a comparative analysis of 43 bachelor courses at Telecommunication Engineering College in Malaysia, revealing that online students achieved higher academic outcomes than their in-person counterparts. Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gonzalez et al. ( 2020 ) found that students engaged in online learning performed better than those who had previously taken the same subjects in traditional in-class settings.

Expanding on this topic, several studies have reported mixed results when comparing the academic performance of online and in-person students, with various student and instructor factors emerging as influential variables. Chesser et al. ( 2020 ) noted that student traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion play a substantial role in academic achievement, regardless of the learning environment—be it traditional in-person classrooms or online settings. Furthermore, Cacault et al. ( 2021 ) discovered that online students with higher academic proficiency tend to outperform those with lower academic capabilities, suggesting that differences in students’ academic abilities may impact their performance. In contrast, Bergstrand and Savage ( 2013 ) found that online classes received lower overall ratings and exhibited a less respectful learning environment when compared to in-person instruction. Nevertheless, they also observed that the teaching efficiency of both in-class and online courses varied significantly depending on the instructors’ backgrounds and approaches. These findings underscore the multifaceted nature of the online vs. in-person learning debate, highlighting the need for a nuanced understanding of the factors at play.

Theoretical framework

Constructivism is a well-established learning theory that places learners at the forefront of their educational experience, emphasizing their active role in constructing knowledge through interactions with their environment (Duffy and Jonassen, 2009 ). According to constructivist principles, learners build their understanding by assimilating new information into their existing cognitive frameworks (Vygotsky, 1978 ). This theory highlights the importance of context, active engagement, and the social nature of learning (Dewey, 1938 ). Constructivist approaches often involve hands-on activities, problem-solving tasks, and opportunities for collaborative exploration (Brooks and Brooks, 1999 ).

In the realm of education, subject-specific pedagogy emerges as a vital perspective that acknowledges the distinctive nature of different academic disciplines (Shulman, 1986 ). It suggests that teaching methods should be tailored to the specific characteristics of each subject, recognizing that subjects like mathematics, literature, or science require different approaches to facilitate effective learning (Shulman, 1987 ). Subject-specific pedagogy emphasizes that the methods of instruction should mirror the ways experts in a particular field think, reason, and engage with their subject matter (Cochran-Smith and Zeichner, 2005 ).

When applying these principles to the design of instruction for online and in-person learning environments, the significance of adapting methods becomes even more pronounced. Online learning often requires unique approaches due to its reliance on technology, asynchronous interactions, and potential for reduced social presence (Anderson, 2003 ). In-person learning, on the other hand, benefits from face-to-face interactions and immediate feedback (Allen and Seaman, 2016 ). Here, the interplay of constructivism and subject-specific pedagogy becomes evident.

Online learning. In an online environment, constructivist principles can be upheld by creating interactive online activities that promote exploration, reflection, and collaborative learning (Salmon, 2000 ). Discussion forums, virtual labs, and multimedia presentations can provide opportunities for students to actively engage with the subject matter (Harasim, 2017 ). By integrating subject-specific pedagogy, educators can design online content that mirrors the discipline’s methodologies while leveraging technology for authentic experiences (Koehler and Mishra, 2009 ). For instance, an online history course might incorporate virtual museum tours, primary source analysis, and collaborative timeline projects.

In-person learning. In a traditional brick-and-mortar classroom setting, constructivist methods can be implemented through group activities, problem-solving tasks, and in-depth discussions that encourage active participation (Jonassen et al., 2003 ). Subject-specific pedagogy complements this by shaping instructional methods to align with the inherent characteristics of the subject (Hattie, 2009). For instance, in a physics class, hands-on experiments and real-world applications can bring theoretical concepts to life (Hake, 1998 ).

In sum, the fusion of constructivism and subject-specific pedagogy offers a versatile approach to instructional design that adapts to different learning environments (Garrison, 2011 ). By incorporating the principles of both theories, educators can tailor their methods to suit the unique demands of online and in-person learning, ultimately providing students with engaging and effective learning experiences that align with the nature of the subject matter and the mode of instruction.

Course description

The Self-Development Skills Department at King Saud University (KSU) offers five mandatory freshman-level courses. These courses aim to foster advanced thinking skills and cultivate scientific research abilities in students. They do so by imparting essential skills, identifying higher-level thinking patterns, and facilitating hands-on experience in scientific research. The design of these classes is centered around aiding students’ smooth transition into university life. Brief descriptions of these courses are as follows:

University Skills 101 (CI 101) is a three-hour credit course designed to nurture essential academic, communication, and personal skills among all preparatory year students at King Saud University. The primary goal of this course is to equip students with the practical abilities they need to excel in their academic pursuits and navigate their university lives effectively. CI 101 comprises 12 sessions and is an integral part of the curriculum for all incoming freshmen, ensuring a standardized foundation for skill development.

Fitness and Health 101 (FAJB 101) is a one-hour credit course. FAJB 101 focuses on the aspects of self-development skills in terms of health and physical, and the skills related to personal health, nutrition, sports, preventive, psychological, reproductive, and first aid. This course aims to motivate students’ learning process through entertainment, sports activities, and physical exercises to maintain their health. This course is required for all incoming freshmen students at King Saud University.

Entrepreneurship 101 (ENT 101) is a one-hour- credit course. ENT 101 aims to develop students’ skills related to entrepreneurship. The course provides students with knowledge and skills to generate and transform ideas and innovations into practical commercial projects in business settings. The entrepreneurship course consists of 14 sessions and is taught only to students in the business track.

Computer Skills 101 (CT 101) is a three-hour credit course. This provides students with the basic computer skills, e.g., components, operating systems, applications, and communication backup. The course explores data visualization, introductory level of modern programming with algorithms and information security. CT 101 course is taught for all tracks except those in the human track.

Computer Skills 102 (CT 102) is a three-hour credit course. It provides IT skills to the students to utilize computers with high efficiency, develop students’ research and scientific skills, and increase capability to design basic educational software. CT 102 course focuses on operating systems such as Microsoft Office. This course is only taught for students in the human track.

Structure and activities

These courses ranged from one to three hours. A one-hour credit means that students must take an hour of the class each week during the academic semester. The same arrangement would apply to two and three credit-hour courses. The types of activities in each course are shown in Table 1 .

At King Saud University, each semester spans 15 weeks in duration. The total number of semester hours allocated to each course serves as an indicator of its significance within the broader context of the academic program, including the diverse tracks available to students. Throughout the two years under study (i.e., 2020 and 2021), course placements (fall or spring), course content, and the organizational structure remained consistent and uniform.

Participants

The study’s data comes from test scores of a cohort of 16,722 first-year college students enrolled at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia over the span of two academic years: 2020 and 2021. Among these students, 8297 were engaged in traditional, in-person learning in 2020, while 8425 had transitioned to online instruction for the same courses in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, the student population consisted of 51.5% females and 48.5% males. However, in 2021, there was a reversal in these proportions, with female students accounting for 48.5% and male students comprising 51.5% of the total participants.

Regarding student enrollment in the five courses, Table 2 provides a detailed breakdown by average class size, admission scores, and the number of students enrolled in the courses during the two years covered by this study. While the total number of students in each course remained relatively consistent across the two years, there were noticeable fluctuations in average class sizes. Specifically, four out of the five courses experienced substantial increases in class size, with some nearly doubling in size (e.g., ENT_101 and CT_102), while one course (CT_101) showed a reduction in its average class size.

In this study, it must be noted that while some students enrolled in up to three different courses within the same academic year, none repeated the same exam in both years. Specifically, students who failed to pass their courses in 2020 were required to complete them in summer sessions and were consequently not included in this study’s dataset. To ensure clarity and precision in our analysis, the research focused exclusively on student test scores to evaluate and compare the academic effectiveness of online and traditional in-person learning methods. This approach was chosen to provide a clear, direct comparison of the educational impacts associated with each teaching format.

Descriptive analysis of the final exam scores for the two years (2020 and 2021) were conducted. Additionally, comparison of student outcomes in in-person classes in 2020 to their online platform peers in 2021 were conducted using an independent-samples t -test. Subsequently, in order to address potential disparities between the two groups arising from variables such as gender, class size, and admission scores (which serve as an indicator of students’ academic aptitude and pre-enrollment knowledge), multiple regression analyses were conducted. In these multivariate analyses, outcomes of both in-person and online cohorts were assessed within their respective tracks. By carefully considering essential aforementioned variables linked to student performance, the study aimed to ensure a comprehensive and equitable evaluation.

Study instrument

The study obtained students’ final exam scores for the years 2020 (in-person) and 2021 (online) from the school’s records office through their examination management system. In the preparatory year at King Saud University, final exams for all courses are developed by committees composed of faculty members from each department. To ensure valid comparisons, the final exam questions, crafted by departmental committees of professors, remained consistent and uniform for the two years under examination.

Table 3 provides a comprehensive assessment of the reliability of all five tests included in our analysis. These tests exhibit a strong degree of internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients spanning a range from 0.77 to 0.86. This robust and consistent internal consistency measurement underscores the dependable nature of these tests, affirming their reliability and suitability for the study’s objectives.

In terms of assessing test validity, content validity was ensured through a thorough review by university subject matter experts, resulting in test items that align well with the content domain and learning objectives. Additionally, criterion-related validity was established by correlating students’ admissions test scores with their final required freshman test scores in the five subject areas, showing a moderate and acceptable relationship (0.37 to 0.56) between the test scores and the external admissions test. Finally, construct validity was confirmed through reviews by experienced subject instructors, leading to improvements in test content. With guidance from university subject experts, construct validity was established, affirming the effectiveness of the final tests in assessing students’ subject knowledge at the end of their coursework.

Collectively, these validity and reliability measures affirm the soundness and integrity of the final subject tests, establishing their suitability as effective assessment tools for evaluating students’ knowledge in their five mandatory freshman courses at King Saud University.

After obtaining research approval from the Research Committee at King Saud University, the coordinators of the five courses (CI_101, ENT_101, CT_101, CT_102, and FAJB_101) supplied the researchers with the final exam scores of all first-year preparatory year students at King Saud University for the initial semester of the academic years 2020 and 2021. The sample encompassed all students who had completed these five courses during both years, resulting in a total of 16,722 students forming the final group of participants.

Limitations

Several limitations warrant acknowledgment in this study. First, the research was conducted within a well-resourced major public university. As such, the experiences with online classes at other types of institutions (e.g., community colleges, private institutions) may vary significantly. Additionally, the limited data pertaining to in-class teaching practices and the diversity of learning activities across different courses represents a gap that could have provided valuable insights for a more thorough interpretation and explanation of the study’s findings.

To compare student achievement in the final tests in the five courses by year, independent-samples t -tests were conducted. Table 4 shows a statistically-significant drop in test scores from 2020 (in person) to 2021 (online) for all courses except CT_101. The biggest decline was with CT_102 with 3.58 points, and the smallest decline was with CI_101 with 0.18 points.

However, such simple comparison of means between the two years (via t -tests) by subjects does not account for the differences in gender composition, class size, and admission scores between the two academic years, all of which have been associated with student outcomes (e.g., Ho and Kelman, 2014 ; De Paola et al., 2013 ). To account for such potential confounding variables, multiple regressions were conducted to compare the 2 years’ results while controlling for these three factors associated with student achievement.

Table 5 presents the regression results, illustrating the variation in final exam scores between 2020 and 2021, while controlling for gender, class size, and admission scores. Importantly, these results diverge significantly from the outcomes obtained through independent-sample t -test analyses.

Taking into consideration the variables mentioned earlier, students in the 2021 online cohort demonstrated superior performance compared to their 2020 in-person counterparts in CI_101, FAJB_101, and CT_101, with score advantages of 0.89, 0.56, and 5.28 points, respectively. Conversely, in the case of ENT_101, online students in 2021 scored 0.69 points lower than their 2020 in-person counterparts. With CT_102, there were no statistically significant differences in final exam scores between the two cohorts of students.

The study sought to assess the effectiveness of distance learning compared to in-person learning in the higher education setting in Saudi Arabia. We analyzed the final exam scores of 16,722 first-year college students in King Saud University in five required subjects (i.e., CI_101, ENT_101, CT_101, CT_102, and FAJB_101). The study initially performed a simple comparison of mean scores by tracks by year (via t -tests) and then a number of multiple regression analyses which controlled for class size, gender composition, and admission scores.

Overall, the study’s more in-depth findings using multiple regression painted a wholly different picture than the results obtained using t -tests. After controlling for class size, gender composition, and admissions scores, online students in 2021 performed better than their in-person instruction peers in 2020 in University Skills (CI_101), Fitness and Health (FAJB_101), and Computer Skills (CT_101), whereas in-person students outperformed their online peers in Entrepreneurship (ENT_101). There was no meaningful difference in outcomes for students in the Computer Skills (CT_102) course for the two years.

In light of these findings, it raises the question: why do we observe minimal differences (less than a one-point gain or loss) in student outcomes in courses like University Skills, Fitness and Health, Entrepreneurship, and Advanced Computer Skills based on the mode of instruction? Is it possible that when subjects are primarily at a basic or introductory level, as is the case with these courses, the mode of instruction may have a limited impact as long as the concepts are effectively communicated in a manner familiar and accessible to students?

In today’s digital age, one could argue that students in more developed countries, such as Saudi Arabia, generally possess the skills and capabilities to effectively engage with materials presented in both in-person and online formats. However, there is a notable exception in the Basic Computer Skills course, where the online cohort outperformed their in-person counterparts by more than 5 points. Insights from interviews with the instructors of this course suggest that this result may be attributed to the course’s basic and conceptual nature, coupled with the availability of instructional videos that students could revisit at their own pace.

Given that students enter this course with varying levels of computer skills, self-paced learning may have allowed them to cover course materials at their preferred speed, concentrating on less familiar topics while swiftly progressing through concepts they already understood. The advantages of such self-paced learning have been documented by scholars like Tullis and Benjamin ( 2011 ), who found that self-paced learners often outperform those who spend the same amount of time studying identical materials. This approach allows learners to allocate their time more effectively according to their individual learning pace, providing greater ownership and control over their learning experience. As such, in courses like introductory computer skills, it can be argued that becoming familiar with fundamental and conceptual topics may not require extensive in-class collaboration. Instead, it may be more about exposure to and digestion of materials in a format and at a pace tailored to students with diverse backgrounds, knowledge levels, and skill sets.

Further investigation is needed to more fully understand why some classes benefitted from online instruction while others did not, and vice versa. Perhaps, it could be posited that some content areas are more conducive to in-person (or online) format while others are not. Or it could be that the different results of the two modes of learning were driven by students of varying academic abilities and engagement, with low-achieving students being more vulnerable to the limitations of online learning (e.g., Kofoed et al., 2021 ). Whatever the reasons, the results of the current study can be enlightened by a more in-depth analysis of the various factors associated with such different forms of learning. Moreover, although not clear cut, what the current study does provide is additional evidence against any dire consequences to student learning (at least in the higher ed setting) as a result of sudden increase in online learning with possible benefits of its wider use being showcased.

Based on the findings of this study, we recommend that educational leaders adopt a measured approach to online learning—a stance that neither fully embraces nor outright denounces it. The impact on students’ experiences and engagement appears to vary depending on the subjects and methods of instruction, sometimes hindering, other times promoting effective learning, while some classes remain relatively unaffected.

Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, educational leaders should be open to exploring the nuances behind these outcomes. This involves examining why certain courses thrived with online delivery, while others either experienced a decline in student achievement or remained largely unaffected. By exploring these differentiated outcomes associated with diverse instructional formats, leaders in higher education institutions and beyond can make informed decisions about resource allocation. For instance, resources could be channeled towards in-person learning for courses that benefit from it, while simultaneously expanding online access for courses that have demonstrated improved outcomes through its virtual format. This strategic approach not only optimizes resource allocation but could also open up additional revenue streams for the institution.

Considering the enduring presence of online learning, both before the pandemic and its accelerated adoption due to Covid-19, there is an increasing need for institutions of learning and scholars in higher education, as well as other fields, to prioritize the study of its effects and optimal utilization. This study, which compares student outcomes between two cohorts exposed to in-person and online instruction (before and during Covid-19) at the largest university in Saudi Arabia, represents a meaningful step in this direction.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Alarifi, B.N., Song, S. Online vs in-person learning in higher education: effects on student achievement and recommendations for leadership. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 86 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02590-1

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Research Article

Student’s experiences with online teaching following COVID-19 lockdown: A mixed methods explorative study

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing and Health Promotion, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

• Kari Almendingen, 
• Marianne Sandsmark Morseth, 
• Eli Gjølstad, 
• Asgeir Brevik, 
• Christine Tørris

• Published: August 31, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378
• Reader Comments

The COVID-19 pandemic lead to a sudden shift to online teaching and restricted campus access.

To assess how university students experienced the sudden shift to online teaching after closure of campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Material and methods

Students in Public Health Nutrition answered questionnaires two and 12 weeks (N = 79: response rate 20.3% and 26.6%, respectively) after the lockdown in Norway on 12 March 2020 and participated in digital focus group interviews in May 2020 (mixed methods study).

Findings and discussion

Two weeks into the lockdown, 75% of students reported that their life had become more difficult and 50% felt that learning outcomes would be harder to achieve due to the sudden shift to online education. Twelve weeks into the lockdown, the corresponding numbers were 57% and 71%, respectively. The most pressing concerns among students were a lack of social interaction, housing situations that were unfit for home office purposes, including insufficient data bandwidth, and an overall sense of reduced motivation and effort. The students collaborated well in digital groups but wanted smaller groups with students they knew rather than being randomly assigned to groups. Most students agreed that pre-recorded and streamed lectures, frequent virtual meetings and student response systems could improve learning outcomes in future digital courses. The preference for written home exams over online versions of previous on-campus exams was likely influenced by student’s familiarity with the former. The dropout rate remained unchanged compared to previous years.

The sudden shift to digital teaching was challenging for students, but it appears that they adapted quickly to the new situation. A lthough the concerns described by students in this study may only be representative for the period right after campus lockdown, the study provide the student perspective on a unique period of time in higher education.

Citation: Almendingen K, Morseth MS, Gjølstad E, Brevik A, Tørris C (2021) Student’s experiences with online teaching following COVID-19 lockdown: A mixed methods explorative study. PLoS ONE 16(8): e0250378. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378

Editor: Mohammed Saqr, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SWEDEN

Received: September 30, 2020; Accepted: April 6, 2021; Published: August 31, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Almendingen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused extraordinary challenges in the global education sector [ 1 , 2 ]. Most countries temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus and reduce infections [ 3 ]. In Norway, the move to online teaching and learning methods accelerated as a consequence of the physical closure of universities and university colleges on 12 March 2020 [ 4 ]. Education is better implemented through active, student-centered learning strategies, as opposed to traditional educator-centered pedagogies [ 5 , 6 ]. At the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, the decision to boost the use of active student-centered learning methods and digitalisation had already been made at both the governmental and institutional levels [ 7 , 8 ] because student-active learning (such as use of student response systems and flipping the classroom) increase motivation and improve learning outcomes [ 5 , 7 , 9 ]. However, the implementation of this insight was lagging behind. Traditional educator-centered pedagogies dominated higher education in Norway prior to the lockdown, and only 30% of academic teachers from higher institutions reported having any previous experience with online teaching [ 4 ]. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, most educators had to change their approaches to most aspects of their work overnight: teaching, assessment, supervision, research, service and engagement [ 4 , 10 ].

Bachelor’s and master’s in Public Health Nutrition (PHN) represents two small-sized programmes at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). PHN is defined as ‘the application of nutrition and public health principles to design programs, systems, policies, and environments that aims to improve or maintain the optimal health of populations and targeted groups’ [ 11 , 12 ]. Traditional teaching methods dominated on both programs during winter 2020. Following the lockdown, online learning for the continuation of academic activities and the prevention of dropouts from study programmes in higher education were given the highest priority. Due to an extraordinary effort by both the administrative and academic staff, digital alternatives to the scheduled on-campus academic activities were offered to PHN students already in the first week following lockdown. The scheduled on-campus lectures were mainly offered as live-streamed plenary lectures lasting 30–45 minutes, mainly using the video conferencing tool Zoom. Throughout the spring semester educators received training in digital teaching from the institution and increasingly made use of online student response systems (such as Padlet and Mentimeter) as well as tools to facilitate digital group-work (Zoom/Microsoft Teams). Non-theoretical lectures (e.g. cooking classes), were cancelled, and face-to-face exams were re-organized into digital alternatives in order to ensure normal teaching operations. Several small tweaks were employed to minimize dropout. There was no time for coordinating the different courses with regards to the types of online teaching activities, exams and assessments. Social media, i.e Facebook, and SMS were the primary communication channels the first week after lockdown. The use of learning management systems (LMS) Canvas and digital assessment system, Inspera, remained mainly unchanged. Due to the new situation, the deadline for the submission of bachelor theses was postponed by 48 hours. In addition, bachelor students submitting their thesis where given permission to use the submission deadline for the deferred exam in August as their ordinary exam deadline. The deadline for the submission of master theses was extended by one week, but all planned master exams were completed by the end of June, including oral examinations using Zoom instead of the traditional face-to-face examinations on campus. Even though most of the new online activities where put in place with limited regard for subtle nuances of pedagogical theory, and did not allow for much student involvement, the dropout rate from PHN programs remained unchanged compared to previous years. PHN is a small-sized education with close follow up of students. However, although the students experienced a digital revolution overnight, we know little about how they experienced the situation after the university closed for on-campus activities.

Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to assess how Norwegian PHN students experienced the shift to digital teaching following campus lockdown. Students were also asked to provide feedback on what might improve the learning outcomes in future online lectures and courses.

Design and sampling

This study utilised a mixed methods cross-sectional design, where quantitative and qualitative methods complemented each other. An invitation to participate was sent out to 79 eligible students via multiple channels (Facebook, Teams, Zoom, LMS Canvas, SMS), with several reminders. The only eligibility criteria was being a student in PHN during spring 2020. All students received the quantitative survey. Due to few students eligible for each focus group interview, all who wanted to participate were interviewed/included. The invited students were in their second-year (n = 17) and third-year (n = 28) bachelor’s and first-year (n = 13) and second-year (n = 21) master’s programme at PHN in the Faculty of Health Sciences at OsloMet. The response rate was 16/79 (20.3%) and 21/79 (26.6%). Two focus group interviews were scheduled in each class (a total of 8) but only 4 interviews were conducted. The research team was heterogeneously composed of members with both pedagogical and health professional backgrounds.

Online questionnaire

To the best of our knowledge, this study was the first “corona” study at our Faculty. No suitable national or international questionnaire had been developed and /or validated by March 2020. Hence, online questionnaires for the present study were designed virtually ‘over-night’. The questions were however based on experiences from a large-scale interprofessional learning course using the blended learning approach at OsloMet [ 13 , 14 ] and specific experiences that academic staff in Norway reported during the first week of teaching during the lockdown [ 4 ]. The questionnaires were based on an anonymous self-administrated web survey ‘Nettskjema’ [ 15 ]. ‘Nettskjema’ is a Norwegian tool for designing and conducting online surveys with features that are customised for research purposes. It is easy to use, and the respondents can submit answers from a browser on a computer, mobile phone or tablet. During the first week after lockdown, the questionnaire was sent out to university colleagues and head of studies and revised accordingly. The questionnaires were deliberately kept short because the response rate is generally low in student surveys [ 16 ]. Ideally, we should have pretested and validated the questionnaires, but this was not possible within the short-time frame after lockdown. Items were measured on a five-level ordinal scale (Likert scale 0–5). The two forms contained both numerical and open questions, permitting both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The first questionnaire was sent out to the students on 25 March 2020 (two weeks after the closure of university campus; students were asked to submit their answers during the period from 12 March until the link was closed at Easter Holiday), and the second questionnaire was sent on 3 June 2020 (12 weeks after closure; students were asked to submit their answers during the period after Easter and until the end of the spring semester). The questionnaires were distributed as web links embedded in the LMS Canvas application. Because live-streamed lectures were offered primarily through Zoom during the first weeks, students were not asked about interactive digital teaching and tools in the first questionnaire. At the end of both questionnaires, the students were asked what they believed could improve the learning experience in future online education. The qualitative part consisted of text answers to open questions from the two electronic questionnaires.

Digital focus group interview

To capture meaningful insights into the participants experiences, we conducted digital focus group interviews [ 17 ], aiming to conduct one digital focus group interview in each class. PHN is a small sized education, and the teachers know all the students. The focus group interviews were therefore performed by two external independent researchers (EG and CT) who are not directly involved in the PHN education and had no prior knowledge to the students. The two interviewers (moderators) were middle-aged female teachers working in the university, and both have significant experience in digitalizing education. They were presented to the participants as researchers from the university. The report of this study was guided by the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ). The interviews were conducted via the video conferencing system Zoom during May 2020, following internal guidelines [ 18 ]. In the focus group interviews, the participants reflected on their own experiences, and the moderator guided the discussion using a semi-structured interview guide. This guide was prepared based on the research questions. One pilot interview was conducted, which resulted in some minor changes to the interview guide. The results from the pilot interview are not included in the results. The focus group interviews lasted for approximately one hour, and five students were invited to each focus group interview. The interviews were not recorded, but the moderator took notes, ensuring that the participants remained anonymised.

Data analysis

Quantitative data are described descriptively with numbers and percentages. Apart from re-categorization of response categories, no statistical analysis was performed. Quantitative data were extracted directly from the survey system. Answers in categories 0 or 1 were categorised as ‘Disagree/slightly agree’, answers in categories 2 or 3 were categorised as ‘Somewhat agree’ and answers in categories 4 or 5 were categorised as ‘Agree’. Qualitative data were analysed using systematic text condensation (STC), inspired by Giorgi’s phenomenological approach and modified by Malterud [ 17 ]. First, the entire texts (from the interviews) were read to get an overall impression, and preliminary themes were derived from the interviews. Then, meaning units, such as sentences and words, were identified and connected with the preliminary theme to elucidate the study question. The meaning units were then coded and systemized into groups, so that meaning could be abstracted from the different code groups. Finally, the meanings of the various units were summarised. The qualitative data from the questionnaire were then extracted by the moderators, and the words and sentences were identified and abstracted. In order to ensure quality, the notes from the focus group interviews and the text answers from the questionnaires were reviewed by both moderators.

Ethical considerations

All participants gave their informed consent. The questionnaires did not include questions about personal health information or sensitive data. The quantitative data were collected through an anonymous web survey using ‘Nettskjema’ [ 15 ]. Internal routines at OsloMet for using Zoom in research interviews were applied [ 18 ]. In the interviews, the participants provided their written consent in the chat without their names and remained anonymous. The data protection was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD, reference no. 846363), as PHN is a small-sized study programme and because Zoom was used for the digital focus group interviews.

Quantitative data

There were 16 (20.3%) and 21 (26.6%) students who answered the questionnaires two and 12 weeks after lockdown, respectively ( Table 1 ). Both samples had an even distribution of bachelor and master students.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t001

Among the respondents two and 12 weeks after lockdown, 7/16 students (44%) and 9/21 students (43%) reported having previous experience with online learning, respectively ( Table 1 ). After two weeks of forced online education, 8/16 students (50%) expected that their learning outcomes would be inferior with online education compared to their pre-COVID-19 education at campus. After 12 weeks, 15/ 21 students (71%) expected that their learning outcome would be lower, and, notably, none of the students expected that it would be higher. On both occasions, most students reported that studying had become more difficult compared to the time before the pandemic.

Several of the identified challenges with online education were reported by more than 50% of the students, and there was an uneven spread across categories of answers (Tables 2 and 3 ). Only one of 16 students (6%) agreed that they needed to increase their digital competence, but approximately half reported having technical challenges at home. All of the students agreed that the lack of contact with other students was a challenge. However, after 12 weeks, the lack of contact with academic staff seemed to pose less of a challenge.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t003

After 12 weeks, 20/21 students (95%) agreed that their motivation and effort had been reduced. At the same time, all students wanted to return to campus. Only 5/21 (24%) reported that their learning outcomes had not deteriorated.

Suggestions for how to increase learning outcome in future digital courses

Two weeks after lockdown, most students answered that the use of different components of online education would improve the learning outcomes in a future online course ( Table 4 ). Regarding participation in digital group work, there was a nearly even spread across the different categories of answers. Finally, participants preferred written home exams and feedback over the digital options suggested ( Table 5 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t004

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t005

After 12 weeks of (forced) online teaching, more ambivalence toward the use of digital learning tools could be detected ( Table 6 ). However, the proportion of students who agreed that digital group work would increase the learning outcomes seemed unchanged (around 1/3 of both samples). In line with the findings obtained only two weeks after lockdown, written submissions and feedback seemed to be preferable to digital exam options ( Table 7 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t006

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t007

After 12 weeks, 16/21 students (76%) agreed that social interaction plays a role in learning outcomes and well-being ( Table 8 ), and an equal proportion agreed that it was important that everyone had their camera on during teaching.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t008

There were 15/21 students (71%) who agreed that their digital competence and interest in digital teaching methods had increased while 6/21 students (29%) disagreed with this statement.

Qualitative data

In total, there were four master students who participated in digital focus group interviews (on two different occasions, with three students and one student in the groups, respectively).

Digital lectures.

The students were satisfied with the teaching and reported that the lecturers were competent in arranging online teaching. The lecturers were also good at adapting to the students’ wishes regarding teaching. Lectures that were streamed live (synchronous classes) were preferred over recordings (asynchronous). One student said it was a privilege to still be able to study even though the university campus was closed due to corona and all the lectures were digital. The students expressed that it is an advantage if the lecturer has digital competence to ensure that the lecture runs smoothly without digital/technical problems, or if there is a co-host who can assist. Technical competence is also important when invitation links are sent out. It signals that the student group is well taken care of. The informants described a course co-ordinator as a person with a good overview and sense of responsibility—someone who is good at structure and order. These qualities were highlighted as important in a fully digitalised teaching program.

The students did not support compulsory attendance, as it would reduce the feeling of freedom that most students value. If learning activities were compulsory, students felt it might also present challenges in dealing with their children and part-time work. The students expressed that most of their fellow students were present in lectures that went live on Zoom. One student stated that live digital lectures were best because it was easier to ask questions. When using a flipped classroom or recordings, the questions must be written down and asked afterwards, but both options (flipped classroom and live streaming) were perceived as fine.

Interestingly, the qualitative results from the questionnaire indicated that some students found it easy to ask questions, while others thought it had become more difficult. According to one student, ‘As long as we have the opportunity to ask questions online, I think it will go just fine. I commute three hours per school day to get to and from school, so I feel I have more time to work with school now that the lecture is online’.

One of the informants thought that interaction was challenging, and it did not feel as natural to ask questions in online classes. ‘Raising your hand’ was not perceived to be as easy as in the face-to-face setting on campus, which could mean that the students did not always get answers to their questions.

The students’ indicated that recorded lectures should not be longer than one hour, as it is easy to lose focus, and one must rewind the recordings. For live online lectures, two hours was deemed fine, and they were perceived as fun to watch. However, each session of the live online lectures should not be longer than 45 minutes.

The online teaching (mainly in the form of synchronous plenum lectures originally intended as on-campus lectures) was challenging in the beginning because some students fell out of the digital rooms due to technical reasons, but it got better over time. Some students experienced poor bandwidth, which led to them not being able to turn on their camera and reduced sound quality. One student stated that poor internet quality was something he could not do anything about, but it resulted in a non-optimal learning situation. It was suggested that using a flipped classroom/recorded lectures in the first weeks after lockdown could have solved this problem.

The respondents pointed out that the use of several conference systems/channels in addition to LMS Canvas provided a poor overview and ineffective communication, and they would prefer a single learning platform. The students were unsure how to contact their teachers in the first weeks after lockdown due to the use of several platforms. Even with a single contact channel (LMS), the students found that the threshold barrier for sending questions to the teacher through email was high.

When asked what they thought about ‘black screens’ (students turning off the camera), several answered that this reduced the quality of communication between the lecturer and student. The lecturer missed affirmative nods from students, and the students also likely missed parts of the communication when the camera was turned off. In some of the lectures, all of the students were encouraged to keep the camera on, and some of the lecturers asked the students questions to initiate two-way communication. The students expressed that it was nice to see the other attending students on video. Furthermore, the participants felt that the lecturers mainly engaged the students who had their camera on. However, several students said that they turned off their cameras during the lectures because the session was being recorded. Another stated that having the camera on was particularly useful when having discussions in digital groups. The students who participated in the survey wished for more recorded lectures, indicating that their lecturers did not do this often.

One of the informants assumed that she would have turned off the camera when recording the lecture, and she thought she had not contributed much. She would have to consider whether a question was ‘stupid’ before asking it, and probably she had not asked any questions at all. She thought this was due to habit, and she indicated that one might get used to being recorded. That is, if recording had been the norm and she had become accustomed to it, it would have been easier to relate to.

All of the informants agreed that presentations with audio were useful, as the material could be repeated by rewinding to the desired location. They also reported that it sometimes took a while for the teachers to post such files, even though the students found these learning resources very useful.

They noticed an increased attendance rate among their peers in the online lectures, which they perceived as positive. The reason for the increased attendance, they believed, was that many students have to make a long trip to attend class, and the threshold for participating had become lower now that all teaching was online. This was supported by the qualitative results from the questionnaire, where a student said, ‘I commute several hours per school day to get to and from school, so I feel I have more time to work with school now that the lecture is online’.

However, one of the informants pointed out that it is important for students to be able to talk to each other when the lecturer is not present, that group activities should be arranged and that they should be provided with opportunities for voluntary meetings on campus in their spare time. One of the informants believed it to be important that the students themselves have a responsibility to address the learning environment and initiate meetings in both academic and social arenas. One felt that it was not desirable that the university was responsible for social contact between peers. It was suggested that time could be set aside, for example, after teaching, so that only students could talk together. It was expressed that in order to preserve social aspects in digital teaching and learning, the first meeting should be on campus. A mentor scheme was suggested, where former students could give tips and advice on how to function as a ‘digital student’.

Digital group work.

The students expressed that they mainly collaborated well in digital groups (breakout rooms). Communication usually worked well with both the teacher and peers in these digital rooms. Nevertheless, some students reported that group work was not effective when it was carried out in ‘breakout rooms’. The students felt that the allocated time for group work was too short for collaboration, and some of the time was spent on technical challenges. There were also some students who withdrew from the group work, which the respondents believed was because some were shy. One student said that discussions during group work paid off and that communication worked well, but it was a pity that so few students participated. Getting to know the others in the group well was also deemed to be important for the level of collaboration and professional discussions. The students did not like to be randomly assigned into groups. However, they expressed that it would be advantageous to plan for more group work in smaller groups.

Another positive effect of online teaching the students highlighted was the increased amount of written feedback from lecturers on work submitted voluntarily. The students perceived that this was offered as a compensation for shorter teaching sessions.

One of the respondents thought that it was important to socially interact with peers and missed having lunch with fellow students. Others felt that there had not been many social gatherings in the group previously, and so they did not experience the absence of fellow students as a great loss. They also pointed out that students who had met each other physically at an earlier time had a different starting point in online meetings and for online education. One student stated, ‘Getting to know new peers digitally feels weird’. Furthermore, one of the informants pointed out that most people have a general need for physical contact, and that touching and eye-to-eye contact is important.

Motivation.

Some of the students were more motivated to participate in online learning activities, yet it was perceived to require greater effort to stay motivated and ‘in the course’. Some students work alongside their studies and thus do not attend classes, and others have children who must be tended to. Some indicated that student response systems such as Mentimeter, Quizlet, Padlet, Kahoot! and the use of polls was motivating factors, but it depended on the context in which they were used. Some of the students reported that they especially liked Kahoot, but it was important that the use of such response systems was done in a structured way. They expressed that they liked the teaching programme, which consisted of an introductory video and teaching in which the basics were presented, followed by group work and finally teaching, where the teacher went more in depth. This approach made it easier to follow the teaching and to ask questions.

The students said it was good for motivation when an overview of the course content was published, as it contributed to predictability and more people participate when they know what is planned.

Nevertheless, the qualitative results from the questionnaire indicated that it was difficult to get an overview of everything that needed to be done. It could be challenging to concentrate and have self-discipline due to many distractions, which reduced the students’ motivation. Several students expressed that they felt alone in their studies, and it was difficult to feel alone with the responsibility for learning the curriculum. One student wrote that there was considerable uncertainty, which negatively affected concentration, and that the COVID-19 crises was a difficult time for everyone.

Overall, these students were satisfied with the ad hoc online teaching after the lockdown, although they experienced self-perceived reduced learning outcomes compared to the pre-pandemic situation. It appears that they adapted quickly to the new situation, but they also reported difficulties with the transition to new teaching methods. Based on both the surveys and interviews, the most pressing concerns among students were a lack of social interaction, housing situations that were unsuitable for home office purposes, including insufficient data bandwidth, and a sense of reduced motivation and effort. PHN is a small sized education which enables close contact between educators and students. The low student volume might explain why the dropout rate from the bachelor and master programs remained unchanged compared to that in previous years.

Receiving teaching, supervision, exams and assessments solely through online solutions was a new experience for these students. Apart from a 15-credit mandatory bachelor course offered as hybrid learning (7), traditional teaching methods still dominated the bachelor and master study programmes of PHN in winter 2020. Importantly, the students evaluated the ad hoc solutions offered during the chaotic spring of 2020 rather than a well-planned, high-quality online education using student-active methods [ 5 ]. Teachers switched to online teaching without any time to learn the technology, or standard quality online teaching practices [ 4 ]. They had many years of experience teaching in -person, and they had arranged their lessons and interactive elements around this mode of learning. Alternatively, they had very little experience teaching online. The students’ experiences in these online learning environments, which were thrown together at the last minute, are not necessarily indicative of students’ experiences in a quality online course based on principles from Quality Matters online education [ 19 ].

Although the students reported reduced learning outcomes after 12 weeks dominated by synchronous live-streamed lectures lasting for 30–45 minutes on Zoom, they had positive attitudes toward use of digital learning materials and tools in future online courses. For asynchronous lectures, the rule of thumb in online education is less than 10–15 minutes [ 19 ]. Although lectures of 45 minute duration is far beyond what is recommended for digital teaching [ 19 ], the students responded based on their recent experiences where many teachers, for reasons of feasibility, conducted their planned on-campus lectures digitally shortly after lockdown. Some of the students also reported that they especially liked Kahoot, however, since we wanted to keep the research questionnaire short, we did not ask more in detail for concrete digital tools. A pre-corona study from OsloMet reported that physiotherapy students’ attitudes toward a flipped classroom intervention were mainly positive, although the academic outcomes from the final exam were similar to those in previous years [ 20 ]. Further, in a recent large-scale pre-COVID-19 blended learning interprofessional course conducted a few weeks ahead of the lockdown, first-year bachelor’s students at OsloMet reported positive perceptions of the blended learning approach, using only short video clips (less than 10 minutes) [ 21 ]. Approximately 3/4 of the students in that study disagreed that virtual group discussions resulted in better learning outcomes than face-to-face group discussions. The present data do not conflict with the findings from that larger-scale study.

The students expressed in various ways that online teaching with a lack of social interaction leads to worse learning outcomes and lower levels of motivation and well-being. Concerns about lack of face-to-face contact may have been aggravated by the stressful situation, and contentment with teaching methods would likely improve if teachers had been able to integrate the appropriate elements in a fully digitalized course. Face-to-face interactions provide the foundation for social communication, the lack of which can be viewed as a critical disadvantage of online learning [ 5 ]. Face-to-face training may be particular crucial for candidates expected to have communication skills, such as nutritionists [ 11 , 12 , 22 – 24 ]. The ad hoc solutions for teaching offered during the 2020 spring term were thus not in agreement with the suggested conceptual dimensions, which allow students to expand their knowledge beyond the intended learning outcome established by the teacher: motivation and attention [ 5 ].

The students expressed concerns that are common in traditional in‐class teaching as well, and such issues should not be overlooked in online teaching [ 25 , 26 ]: insufficient pre‐class study preparation, limited participation and inadequate depth in class discussions. Quality of education lies in the knowledge, skills and expertise that are conveyed as well as in the manner in which they are communicated and learned [ 7 , 26 ]. In different ways, the students’ responses revolved around central quality aspects, such as learning objectives, content, programme design, adaptation, teaching, work methods, supervision and forms of assessment [ 7 ]. These findings are in agreement with other studies on COVID‐19 and education [ 4 , 25 , 27 ].

The students stated that they received insufficient information about the exams. This is understandable because staff initially did not know how the different exams would be digitally transformed in spring term 2020. Asked about exam preferences students said that they preferred longer written exams at home, over old campus-style exams, with short timelines, adapted to an online format. They also preferred multi-day written home exams over potential alternatives such as video or podcasts, which none of them had tried before. It should be noted that they had limited experience with digital options. Student-produced podcast and video have been used as formative assessment forms at our university [ 14 ], but to lesser extent as formative assessment forms. The preference for written home exams over digital options was thus likely influenced by student’s familiarity with the former since no exams during this time-period were in the form of podcast or video. Feedback and guidance from academic staff have been found to be key aspects of study quality, and good feedback contributes to increased motivation and improved learning outcomes (6). Exam uncertainty causes undue stress, and thus a key recommendation during the transition to online learning is to ensure that all information about exams is communicated to the students clearly and in a timely manner [ 27 ].

‘Black screens’ do not necessarily reflect individuals lack of motivation and attention or embarrassment, but they may reflect a lack of digital training among freshmen or technical issues, such as poor bandwidth. Broadband bandwidth overload issues and a lack of suitable equipment will probably not be significant problems in Norway in the future. The students suggested that both flipped classrooms and live streaming should be used in future online courses. Flipping the classroom [ 9 ] ahead of live streaming, with the possibility for the students to write down questions during the live streaming or afterward in a seminar, increases flexibility. Asynchronous tools may be utilised to support students to work at different times. We cannot overlook the possibility that new students might have needs that differ from those of senior students in terms of getting accustomed to online education. Nevertheless, our date indicates that clarification of expectations constitutes an important success criteria for online teaching, especially when it comes to group work and formative and summative assessment [ 4 , 27 ].

The closure of campus may have unknown implications for society in both the short and long term [ 28 – 30 ], including impacts on educational quality and the mental health of students and academic staff [ 31 ]. If students are unable to study effectively for some unknown reason, it will make online learning ineffective, regardless of educational quality. The situation after the lockdown in Norway was confusing, and many students lost their jobs and moved back in with their parents [ 4 ]. We did not collect person-sensitive data, and thus we know little about these students’ circumstances. The dropout rate remained nearly unchanged among these students as compared to previous years. Being a small-sized education, the staff were able to follow-up each student individually using digital videoconference tools, such as Zoom and Teams. In the future, more sustainable approaches should be developed, for example, by increasing peer-to-peer interactions and through mentoring programs [ 1 ]. Reducing dropout and increasing completion rates was a strategic goal for higher education before the lockdown [ 29 ], and we do not know the impact of the lockdown on future dropout and completion rates. The high dropout rate from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has been a major concern of researchers and educators over the years [ 32 ]. Although some universities worldwide had already started offering MOOC-based undergraduate degrees before the COVID-19 pandemic [ 32 ], most MOOCs do not lead to degrees. The online courses offered in spring 2020 after the lockdown were mandatory courses leading to degrees, and thus they were not directly comparable to the voluntary MOOCs. However, such issues are premature for consideration in the present study. OsloMet is currently participating both in the future ‘The COVID-19 Multi-Country Student Well-being Study’[ 33 ] and the ‘Corona and Campus’ study [ 34 ]. The ‘Corona and Campus’ study has secondary outcomes related to teaching satisfaction and learning outcomes, and such data will have the power to inform future decision-making [ 30 ]. However, the present data were collected shortly after the national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic on aspects of digitalisation relevant to the (post)-pandemic situation.

Strengths and weaknesses of the study

This study has several strengths. The most important strength is data collection shortly after a national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The combined use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches enabled different perspectives to be captured and adds strength to the study. The triangulation allowed us to identify aspects more accurately and helped to offset the weaknesses of each approach alone. Group dynamics in focus group interviews can help bring out nuances in the data material beyond the answers to the predefined quantitative questions in the electronic questionnaires [ 17 ]. Another strength was the research team consisting of both external moderators providing objectivity, lack of vested interest and a fresh perspective, and internal evaluators who were familiar with the education and the students. One limitation is using a questionnaire which was not pre-tested or validated. However, due to time constraints shortly after campus lockdown following the COVID-19 outbreak, it was not possible to perform pre-testing or validation of the instruments used in the present study. Many of the necessary ad hoc changes to the course plans and exams (spring semester 2020) had yet to be made and decided upon when the present study was initiated, even when the first questionnaire was sent out before Easter 2020. The candidates actual achieved learning outcomes and working skills are unknown due to limited opportunities to monitor the quality of their work [ 4 ]. We do not consider it to be relevant to repeat the study, or reuse its instruments, since the acute phase after lockdown is over. PHN is a small-sized education, and the total number of students were only 79 individuals. The stress associated with the unprecedented situation may have contributed to a low response rate. Private circumstances such as poor internet connection, children at home, and lack of an adequate home office may also have contributed to a low response rate. A low response rate is also a limitation in studies performed in a normal situation [ 16 ]. We cannot rule out selection bias in the sample. The students who volunteered for the digital focus group interviews were positive and thorough. In particular, they seemed to reflect on a more general level, not restricted to their own personal situations. However, the range in age among the study participants was representative for the age range of all PHN students, and both bachelor and master students participated in the study. Data are collected from one single university, and the results might not be representative for large sized educations. Since the study is exploratory, we had not planned the data collection in order to test hypotheses. The study seeks to provide a snapshot in time of an evolving situation. Even with some limiting factors we believe the explorative study offers value since it provides a student perspective on an unprecedented black-swan event in higher education.

Conclusions

Although they had little previous experience with online education, these students seemed to adapt quickly to the sudden shift to ad hoc online education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The most pressing concerns among students were a lack of social interaction, a feeling of being alone in their studies, unfit housing situations for home office purposes, including insufficient data bandwidth, and a sense of reduced motivation and effort. Although our data indicate that face-to-face contact was greatly missed during this time-period, a thoroughly planned online course with numerous contact points between teachers and students would likely have been received more favorably. Finally, the students expressed that they wanted more structure in future digital courses. Due to the very unusual circumstances experienced both by students and teachers in the early stages of national lockdown in Norway, we are hesitant to conclude with regards to students preferences for future online courses.

Supporting information

S1 file. spss file questionnaire 1—please see line 154..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s001

S2 File. SPSS file Norwegian questionnaire 1—please see line 154.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s002

S3 File. SPSS file questionnaire 2—please see line 154.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s003

S4 File. SPSS file Norwegian questionnaire 2—please see line 154.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s004

S5 File. Structured interview guide–please see line 145.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s005

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participating students and the academic and administrative staff at Oslo Metropolitan University for their contributions.

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