COVID-19 Impacts on AEC Educators

Abstract

To alleviate the impact of COVID-19 on academia, numerous countries transitioned to electronic or online methods for education delivery. Within the US, during March and/or April 2020, numerous institutions transitioned to Online Learning Environment (OLE). However, very little is known about how the transition to OLE impacted the educators. Thus, the research aimed to determine the impact of OLE transition on AEC educators as per the academic ranks and gender. The study utilized an online survey method with the study emailed to 1,880 educators across the US during May-August 2020. The study presents the findings of 179 educators. The study found that with the transition to the OLE, proficiency with online content delivery was reported to have increased considerably. The majority of the respondents indicated that the transition to an OLE negatively impacted their productivity. Different faculty ranks perceived productivity impacts on "Research," "Service," or "both research and service" differently. Tenure-track balance faculty indicated that the "Research" productivity was negatively impacted, whereas part-time faculty and full-time non- tenure-track faculty indicated the "Service" productivity to be impacted negatively. Transition to an online environment also resulted in negative productivity across educator genders, with men reporting slightly higher negative productivity impacts than women.

Investigation of architecture and architectural engineering online education; educator experience, self-efficacy and success

“…The transition to OLE was difficult for both students and educators due to numerous factors, including but not limited to the lack of software, hardware, Internet availability (Asgari et al ., 2021), limited experience with teaching in the online environment (Langar et al. , 2022a, b), impact of COVID-19 on mental well-being (UAB, 2020; Brooks et al.…”

“…Technical aspects could impact how individuals perceive their abilities when applying self-efficacy). Further, students and educators (Asgari et al ., 2021; Langar et al ., 2022a) identified a lack of social interaction, which is a dimension of learning self-efficacy (Shen et al ., 2013). In India, training architecture educators, particularly in India, training was identified as a critical for educators success during the pandemic (Varma and Jafri, 2021).…”

Covid-19 Impact on Faculty Research Productivity

“…For example, Clemson et al ( 2022) identified research productivity as impacted among the pharmacy faculty in research-intensive colleges. Langar et al (2021) studied the impact of OLE on construction educators and found improvements in teaching with OLE while a declining in overall productivity.…”

“…The most common concerns impacting faculty during Covid-19 Pandemic included 1) limited interaction with the students, 2) background noise while participating in virtual meetings, 3) internet issues, 4) too many conference calls, 5) virtual meetings, and 6) limited work and life separation (Langar et al, 2022b). Further, Langar et al (2021) found that tenured or tenure-track educators were spending less time on research, whereas "non-tenured" spent more time developing and delivering content, resulting in a productivity decline in both research and content delivery. While some research indicates the benefits of working from home (especially during the pandemic), the consensus is that a significant proportion of educators realize research productivity being impacted (Clemson et al, 2022;Iwu et.…”

“…While some research indicates the benefits of working from home (especially during the pandemic), the consensus is that a significant proportion of educators realize research productivity being impacted (Clemson et al, 2022;Iwu et. al., 2022;UCLA 2021;Langar et al 2021).…”