A co-orientation analysis of teachers’ and students’ perceptions of online teaching and learning in Hong Kong higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Emergency Remote Learning in Higher Education in Cyprus during COVID-19 Lockdown: A Zoom-Out View of Challenges and Opportunities for Quality Online Learning

“…Students reported sometimes facing difficulties joining their online classes due to weak network connection and/or interruptions and taking a long time to download or view the learning material. Like many other studies conducted in different countries/continents during the pandemic [9,31,44,74,[76][77][78][79], we also found that network connectivity and speed/quality of the connection were more problematic when other members of their family were also using the internet at the same time.…”

“…Academics were requested to transform and adjust their teaching methodologies and educational material accordingly, in order to address the needs and demands of the unknown situation, employing ERL practices. Students, in turn, needed to adjust to the new learning environment (ERL), to experience social distancing from classmates, instructors and friends [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] and to cope with numerous educational, social, mental, health and technological challenges [11,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

“…Conducted research [38][39][40][41][42][43] suggests that the necessity to employ ERL was extremely challenging for institutions and for all stakeholders involved: educators, students, parents, policymakers, etc. The lack of preparation at institutional, technical [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][44][45][46][47][48][49] and human resource levels [9][10][11]28,45,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] intensified the challenges and obstacles revealed.…”

“…Students needed to adapt to several changes compared to what they had been familiar with concerning course delivery in the teaching and learning process. Given the fact that education was delivered completely online, students were restricted from any physical social interactions with their educators and peers, and their home became their in-classroom setting [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]19,34,50,[59][60][61]. Consequently, social isolation and restrictions and a lack of interactivity and educational interactions were some of the emergent new realities that students needed to face.…”

“…The pandemic exposed significant gaps and variation in educators' level of preparation and readiness to use technology and teach at distance, as well as to design and deliver in distance learning environments [43]. Along the same lines, gaps in educators' and students' digital literacy level and accessibility to technology were also revealed [9][10][11]28,45,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. Technology accessibility barriers were more pronounced for educators and students who did not have access to appropriate and/or enough technological devices in their homes, lacked adequate technological background knowledge and skills and depended on non-reliable internet access.…”