Challenge Accepted: Experiences of Turkish Faculty Members at the Time of Emergency Remote Teaching

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic caught everyone unprepared. Higher education institutions were expected to be the least affected due to their long history of distance education, which has enabled the development of expertise and technical infrastructure, but were they? The present study focuses on faculty members’ experiences at the time of emergency remote teaching and afterwards. The survey method was devised to conduct the study. An online questionnaire called the Emergency Remote Teaching Views Questionnaire was developed by the researchers and administered at higher education institutions throughout Turkey. With a combination of convenience and snowball sampling, 351 faculty members from 72 different public and private higher education institutions were reached. The descriptive analysis of the data revealed that almost 62% of the faculty members had never taken any form of training regarding online distance education before the Covid-19 pandemic. Although one fifth of the faculty members indicated that they had had distance education experience three times or more before the pandemic, around 62% of them encountered remote teaching for the first time. Many faculty members indicated that they spent more time on remote teaching than face-to-face teaching; they had trouble following students’ development; the students were disinterested in the classes; they had technical problems, but they also received support from their institutions. Although only one fourth of the faculty members reported being unsure about the quality of their remote teaching, three fourths of them believed that it was not as fruitful as face-to-face teaching. This was especially evident in the area of assessment and evaluation. Based on these results, it can be concluded that higher education institutions were caught unprepared, but their adaptation was very quick.

Are the Benefits of Emergency Remote Education Truly Benefits? Ethical Dilemmas and Research Results on Emergency Remote Education from the Perspective of Prospective Teachers and the Foundations of Pedagogical Study Programmes

“…Here, we present the study in the post-pandemic era, which has allowed us to review previously published research in this area. Karataş et al (2021) analysed 20 surveys of students and teachers in the higher education sector in different countries, all published in 2020. The authors summarised the main and common findings of the different studies as follows.…”

“…Regarding the process of teaching and learning, Karataş et al (2021) summarised research findings demonstrating that many distracting factors in the home environment affected students' performance in learning: students expressed the difficulties of working at home because their parents and siblings were also at home during ERE. Most students agreed with the view that distractions caused by their physical environment reduced their ability to participate in online classes and to perform optimally.…”

“…Most students agreed with the view that distractions caused by their physical environment reduced their ability to participate in online classes and to perform optimally. Another significant problem pointed out by Karataş et al (2021) in their summary of research is related to assessment and evaluation: students involved in different surveys were concerned about the reliability and safety of exams and the difficulties in measuring and evaluating practical skills, technical competencies and skills such as teaching practice. The results of the studies analysed by Karataş et al (2021) indicate that the difficulties experienced during ERE affected learning in many ways.…”

“…Another significant problem pointed out by Karataş et al (2021) in their summary of research is related to assessment and evaluation: students involved in different surveys were concerned about the reliability and safety of exams and the difficulties in measuring and evaluating practical skills, technical competencies and skills such as teaching practice. The results of the studies analysed by Karataş et al (2021) indicate that the difficulties experienced during ERE affected learning in many ways. It was observed that students' class participation was reduced and communication between student-student and student-teacher was not conducted properly, while the rich interactions between students that are necessary for attendance, participation and learning were lost.…”

“…Regarding the implementation of ERE, it is clear that the analysis of surveys undertaken by Karataş et al (2021) focused on the material conditions for studying as experienced by students in their home environment, access to appropriate ICT resources necessary for studying, and issues related to ensuring fairness in the assessment of knowledge, as well as on some other pedagogical aspects of the implementation of the study. While some of the issues are related to the effectiveness of studying, the key questions raised by ERE are from the perspective of justice.…”