Digital Andragogical Competences of Ecuadorian Higher Education Teachers during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;">The changes brought about in higher education by the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic require effective action. Teachers must be trained to work on university platforms. The study allows us to analyse the current educational problems, which are found in many countries, not only in Ecuador. The research aimed to determine the virtual andragogical competencies of Ecuadorian university education during the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed research approach was used. A quantitative analysis was applied first, followed by a qualitative analysis. The sample selection was participatory and non-probabilistic. The sample consisted of 1003 active higher education teachers in Ecuador. A questionnaire of 106 questions divided into four variables was applied. A multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed. The analyses demonstrated the need to apply four integral competencies. First the teacher must "Know how to be", through continuous ICT training. After the teacher has been trained, he/she must "Know". This process involves mastering educational technology. After updating knowledge, they must "Know how to live together". Develop critical and constructive communication. Then "Know how to do" by applying an effective guiding methodology. Teacher training under the competency-based approach is seen as a viable alternative.</p>

University faculty perceptions of online education: A systemic review of leadership and educational innovation

“…The results support hypothesis H1, indicating that FSBSUTM faculty's educational leadership training and experience have significant effects on leadership difficulty and application. These findings are consistent with the studies of Mendoza Velazco et al [35] , who highlighted the importance of training and experience in university leadership.…”

Virtualidad y rendimiento académico en la educación superior para adultos en tiempos de COVID-19

“…Ante este panorama se enfrenta la educación superior para adultos, que a diferencia de la educación regular, se utilizan otras técnicas de enseñanza que en su conjunto es llamado andragogía, la misma que según Knowles, conocido como el padre de la andragogía, se basa en el supuesto de que los alumnos adultos ya cuentan con la capacidad, la necesidad y el deseo de ser responsables de su propio aprendizaje, son autodirigidos y tienen experiencias acumuladas del cual sacar provecho a medida de que van adquiriendo nuevos conocimientos y habilidades, reflejándose todo ello en los roles sociales donde participan; ello hace que salten diferencias significativas con los estudiantes regulares o tradicionales, con respecto a sus características personales, académicas y psicológicas (Yuebo, et al, 2022;Mendoza, et al, 2021). A razón de ello, la educación universitaria para adultos comprende los programas que imparten las universidades a personas adultas con experiencia laboral, con estudios inconclusos o sin ellos, y que suelen implementarse en horarios muy flexibles, en la cual se aplican técnicas andragógicas que son más orientadas a las necesidades propias de los adultos, permite el desarrollo de las competencias cognitivas y metacognitivas teniendo como principal motivación la obtención de un certificado o título que avale su experiencia laboral (Ramírez y Victor-Ramírez, 2010;Sianes-Bautista, 2015;Alonso, 2012); ahora nos enfrentamos a la enseñanza virtual en el ámbito andragógico, es por ello, que los docentes especializados deben "aprender a aprender", debido a que la mayoría han aprendido estrategias de aprendizaje digitales de manera intuitiva o con poca capacitación (Mendoza, et al, 2021). En el escenario peruano, tenemos universidades que han implementado programas de educación para adultos o también conocido como programas para gente con experiencia laboral, las cuales presentaban ciertas flexibilizaciones en cuanto a los horarios y el tiempo de estudio que oscilaban entre 2.5 a 3 años, ello cambió a raíz de un pronunciamiento de la Superintendencia Nacional de Educación Superior Universitaria (SUNEDU) donde el plan de estudio debe estar diseñado para 5 años cumpliendo con 200 créditos, los mismos que serán verificados por el ente supervisor (SUNEDU, 2016).…”

Teachers’ Agency in Technology for Education in Pre- and Post-COVID-19 Periods: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Research studies conducted during the post-COVID era present contradictory findings compared to the pre-COVID context. Accordingly, the levels of competence in technology were not sufficient for implementing education at a distance, and it was found that teachers had difficulty in moving and establishing themselves on digital platforms due to a lack of prior exposure [30,31,36,37,39,[58][59][60][61]. Various difficulties in adapting to technology during the early stages of the transition were observed.…”

“…Irrespective of the COVID pandemic, teachers experienced and perceived that technology integration is time-consuming. Considerable time is required for teachers to learn and understand the use of the tool, and it discourages incorporating technology into their classroom activities [35,36,39,40,48,51,52,61,66]. In the studies before the pandemic, teachers claimed they were not interested in using technology in class due to limited time to deliver the lesson [41,50,52,66].…”

“…Due to the COVID, teachers have been forced to shift to digital platforms. They had to change the materials, contents, and teaching plans to make them suitable for online delivery, and these changes added extra workload, which consumed more time [35,54,61,73]. Due to a lack of familiarity, teachers had to spend considerable time practising new features [73].…”