A comparative study of perceptions and experiences of online Chinese language learners in China and the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This study compared the perceptions and experiences of 173 students studying Chinese as a foreign language in universities online during the COVID-19 pandemic in China and the United States. Controlling students’ previous diversity of Chinese course delivery modes across countries and Chinese language levels, three two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted to compare differences among three dependent variables: 1) satisfaction towards online classes; 2) self-perceived learning effectiveness online versus onsite; and 3) willingness to take a virtual Chinese course in the future. The results did not find statistical significances regarding students’ satisfaction and willingness across countries and language levels. However, the results found students in the United States (US) viewed online classes as significantly less effective than learning in-person, which was different from the views of students in China. The Pearson correlation analysis indicated that there were positive correlations among these three variables. Pearson chi-squared tests found that, significantly, students in the US preferred to take Chinese courses in-person. Pearson’s chi-squared tests on categories formed from the three open-ended questions highlighted the importance of four factors influencing the success of students’ online classes: technology, emotion and motivation, learning productivity, and teaching presence. Pedagogical recommendations are discussed.

An investigation into the attitudes of Iranian EFL instructors and students towards online education: Lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic

“…Thus, online education may offer a potential benefit for environmental sustainability. As such, our findings reiterate other recent studies on the advantages of online education (Aldaghri & Oraif, 2022;Almahasees et al, 2021;Hassani, 2021;Wang et al, 2022).…”

“…These merits may show students' satisfaction with online education and reduce students' concerns about time and place to carry out their assignments (Suwantarathip, 2019). Such research findings can bolster the fact that flexibility and accessibility of technology-supported education empower students of either gender to experience sustainable development and attend online classes anytime or anywhere as self-paced learning (Hodges et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2022). It may also signify that the shift to online education can reduce the carbon footprint of universities and minimise the need for students and university instructors to travel to a university campus.…”

“…Within the education system, schools, training institutes and higher education institutions around the globe were subjected to unprecedented disruption and had to move to emergency online teaching and learning formats in order to maintain instructional continuity. Online teaching and learning formats had to be adopted in order to protect university instructors' and students' educational prospects, health and life (Wang et al, 2022). However, while many university instructors and students considered online education to be a novel learning environment, others found it difficult to adjust to since they were not sufficiently prepared for its different demands (Crawford & Cifuentes-Faura, 2022;Curelaru et al, 2022;Rafiee et al, 2022).…”

How can distance learning offer opportunities for developing countries? Case of Turkey and Kazakhstan

“…However, a literature review reveals very few studies comparing countries (e.g. Srivastava, 2002;Zubcova, 2021;Suárez Lantarón, García-Perales & Elisondo, 2021;Navickas et al, 2022;Wang, Zhan & Liu, 2022).…”

Comparative study between delivery modalities in higher education during emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19

“…Therefore, learning environments based on alternative delivery modalities made it possible for higher education professors to keep uninterrupted their students' learning process. Several studies have been carried out to analyze different delivery modalities in Rodríguez-Hernández and Rincon-Flores 10.3389/feduc.2023.1179330 higher education during ERT (e.g., del Arco et al, 2021a,b;Foo et al, 2021;Fretheim et al, 2021;Ramos-Pla et al, 2021Villa Castaño et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2022;Yousry and Azab, 2022). Four main conclusions can be drawn from these studies.…”