COPING WITH THE EDUCATIONAL DISRUPTION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY UNIVERSITY LECTURERS IN THAILAND
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a major change in people's lifestyles, and also a huge transformation in the way organizations operated amidst compulsory lockdowns. The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to investigate the university lecturers' experiences in coping with the educational disruption as they suddenly transitioned from Face-to-Face (F2F) classes to Online Teaching (OT) during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand. Ten university lecturers in Thailand from seven different universities and seven faculties participated in 45-minute in-depth structured interviews via Line video calls. Despite the sudden inevitable shift to a new way of working, the participants were intrinsically motivated to make the necessary changes and adjustments, exhausting a lot of effort, time, and thought to ensure online education work for students. The effectiveness was not solely dependent on the lecturers, but also on the cooperation of students, which was reported to be lacking. Although the initial responses to online teaching were more of a shock, the two years of the new way of working actually transformed the attitude of some participants. Up to 40% of them were so satisfied with their new online teaching experience that they were willing to take up permanent online teaching positions. The varying amounts of time taken to adapt to the new way of working, and the satisfaction received were influenced by a couple of factors such as the training and support provided, the previous exposure to digital usage, and their previous familiarity with the platforms. Internet connectivity issues were a major frustration, while cheating and unresponsive students added to the existing frustrations that could not be remedied. It was no wonder why 50% of the participants wanted to move back to F2F teaching as they could eradicate those problems.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The owner of the article does not copy or violate any of its copyright. If any copyright infringement occurs or prosecution, in any case, the Editorial Board is not involved in all the rights to the owner of the article to be performed.
References
Ali, S., Naoreen, B., Iqbal, A., & Jalal, H. (2021). Online teaching, psychological state, and job satisfaction: Teachers’ perspective during COVID-19 Pandemic. Ilkogretim Online, 20(2), 358–364. https://doi.org/10.17051/ilkonline.2021.02.37
Anomsari, S., Handaru, A., & Ahmad, G. (2021). The influence of work from home and work discipline on the performance of employees with Work-Life balance as mediating variable in the COVID-19 outbreak period.
Accounting & Finance/Oblik i Finansi, 94, 91–98. https://doi.org/10.33146/2307-9878-2021-4(94)-91-98
Aristovnik, A., Kerzic, D., Ravselj, D., Tomazevic, N., & Umek, L. (2020), Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on life of Higher Education students: A global perspective. Sustainability, 12(20), 8438. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12208438
Bozkurt, A., & Sharma, C. (2020). Emergency remote teaching in a time of global crisis due to Coronavirus pandemic. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 1-6. Retrieved from https://www.asianjde.com/ojs/index.php/AsianJDE/article/view/447
Bryson, R., & Andres, L. (2020). Covid-19 and rapid adoption and improvisation of online teaching: curating resources for extensive versus intensive online learning experiences. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 44(4), 608–623. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2020.1807478
Burgess, S., & Sievertsen, H. (2020). Schools, skills, and learning: The impact of COVID-19 on education. VoxEU.Org. Retrieved from https://voxeu.org/article/impact-covid-19-education
Cole, W., Lennon, L., & Weber, L. (2019). Student perceptions of online active learning practices and online learning climate predict online course engagement. Interactive Learning Environments, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2019.1619593
Das, R., & Meredith, D. (2021). Factors affecting effective online teaching transition in Asian universities during COVID-19. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 18(8), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.8.8
Dlamini, R., & Ndzinisa, N. (2020). Universities trailing behind: Unquestioned epistemological foundations constraining the transition to online instructional delivery and learning. South African Journal of Higher Education, 34(6), 52–64. https://doi.org/10.20853/34-6-4073
Fraenkel, J., & Wallen, N. (2019). How to design and evaluate research in education (10th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Gonzalez, R., Sandnes, T., & Fagernes, S. (2021). Student perspectives on the digital learning experience during COVID-19 Lockdown. Proceedings of the European Conference on E-Learning, 203–209.
Gonzalez T., de la Rubia, A., Hincz, P., Comas-Lopez, M., Subirats L., Fort S., & Sacha, M. (2020), Influence of COVID-19 confinement on students’ performance in higher education. PLoS ONE, 15(10), e0239490.
Hill, G., Mason, J., & Dunn, A. (2021). Contract cheating: an increasing challenge for global academic community arising from COVID-19. Research & Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 16(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-021-00166-8
Houlden, S., & Veletsianos, G. (2020). Coronavirus pushes universities to switch to online classes – but are they ready? Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/coronaviruspushes-universities-toswitch-to-onlineclasses-but-arethey-ready-132728
Joseph, C., Henderson, K., Rudolph, J., Malkawi, B., Glowatz, M., Burton, R., … Lam, S. (2020). COVID-19: 20 countries’ higher education intra-period digital pedagogy responses. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2020.3.1.7
Kaqinari, T., Makarova, E., Audran, J., Döring, K., & Göbel, K. (2021). The switch to online teaching during the first COVID-19 lockdown: A comparative study at four European universities. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 18(5), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.5.10
Kinicki, A. (2020). Organizational Behavior: A Practical, Problem-Solving Approach (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
Küçükler, H. (2021). Online education in language learning/teaching in Universities: The Covid-19 and digital transformation. Journal of Social Sciences/Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 37, 71–99. https://doi.org/10.14520/adyusbd.808733
Lambie, I., & Law, B. (2020). Teaching online during a pandemic: Pedagogical skills transfer from face to face support to online synchronous support provision. Proceedings of the European Conference on E-Learning, 270–277. https://doi.org/10.34190/EEL.20.063
Martin, F., Budhrani, K., & Wang, C. (2019). Examining faculty perception of their readiness to teach online. Online Learning Journal, 23(3), 97–119. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v23i3.1555
Martin, F., Polly, D., Coles, S., & Wang, C. (2020). Examining higher education faculty use of current digital technologies: Importance, competence, and motivation. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 32(1), 73-86.
Moessenlechner, C., Obexer, R., Pammer, M., & Waldegger, J. (2021). Switching gears: Online teaching in Higher.
Education in the first wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning, 14(2), 27–43. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijac.v14i2.24085
Naz, F., Awan, R., & Noureen, G. (2021). Managing the porous boundaries: Impact of working from home on work life balance of university teachers during COVID 19. Journal of Arts & Social Sciences, 8(2), 85–96. https://doi.org/10.46662/jass.v8i2.129
Nga, T., & Huong, T. (2022). Factors affecting students’ desire to take upcoming online courses after E-learning experience during COVID-19. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 16(1), 22–37. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v16i01.26777
Nuankaew, W., & Nuankaew, P. (2021). Educational engineering for models of academic success in Thai universities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learning strategies for lifelong learning. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy, 11(4), 96–114. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v11i4.20691
Porter, J., Barbagallo, M., Peck, B., Allen, L., Tanti, E., & Churchill, A. (2020) The academic experiences of transitioning to blended online and digital nursing curriculum. Nurse Education Today, 87, 104361.
Protsiv, M., & Atkins, S. (2016). The experiences of lecturers in African, Asian and European universities in preparing and delivering blended health research methods courses: A qualitative study. Global Health Action, 9(1), 28149. https://doi:10.3402/gha.v9.28149
Rapanta, C., Botturi, L., Goodyear, P., Guàrdia, L., & Koole, M. (2020). Online university teaching during and after the Covid-19 crisis: Refocusing teacher presence and learning activity. Postdigital Science and Education, 2(3), 923-945. https:// doi:10.1007/s42438-020-00155-y
Sahoo, P., Gulati, A., & Ul Haq, I. (2021). COVID-19 & prospects of online work from home using technology: Case from India. International Journal of Online and Biomedical Engineering, 17(9), 106–118. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v17i09.23929
Salleh, M., & Azman, N. (2020). Lecturer POV: Moving toward virtual learning. Global Business & Management Research, 12(4), 24–33.
Samuel, S., & Khan, S. (2020). Work from home: Challenges during lockdown. Research Horizons, 21–31.
Scherer, R., Howard, K., Tondeur, J., and Siddiq, F. (2021). Profiling teachers’ readiness for online teaching and learning in higher education: Who’s ready? Computers in Human Behavior, 118, 106675.
Shanmugam, K., Zainal, N., & Gnanasekaren, C. (2019). Technology foresight in the virtual learning environment in Malaysia. Journal of Physics Conference Series, 1228(1): 012068. https://doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1228/1/012068
Tejedor, S., Cervi, L., Perez-Escoda, A., Tusa, F., & Parola, A. (2021). Higher Education eesponse in the time of Coronavirus: Perceptions of teachers and students, and open innovation. J. Open Innov. Technol. Mark. Complex, 7(1), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc7010043
Tuaycharoen, N. (2021). University-wide online learning during COVID-19: From policy to practice. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 15(2), 38–54. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v15i02.18143
Vanhorn, S., Pearson, J., & Child, J. (2008) The online communication course: The challenges. Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 9(1), 29-36. https://doi:10.1080/17459430802400332