Remote learning during COVID-19: cognitive appraisals and perceptions of english medium of instruction (EMI) students

Abstract

Many countries responded to the Covid-19 pandemic by transforming all face-toface (F2F) courses to emergency remote teaching with a sudden decision. This rapid shift was unexpected and staggering for the university students. The purpose of the present study is to explore how students studying in English Medium Instructed (EMI) programs cognitively appraised the transformation from F2F to online learning, and to examine if there is any relation between perceived self-efficacy in academic second language (L2) use, quality of interaction, and course satisfaction. Using an online survey, data was collected from a total of 306 graduate and undergraduate students studying in different universities in Turkey. The study found that the majority of the students appraised the transformation as a threat. The students' cognitive appraisals and perceived level of interactional quality, and satisfaction negatively correlated. There was a strong positive correlation between the perceived level of interactional quality and satisfaction. Observed gender, major and year level differences are also reported. The findings have significant implications for decision makers and instructors. Universities are likely to continue remote teaching for a while, thus institutions need to capture how students are affected by the remote learning experience to envisage short and long-term scenarios, and to optimize the quality of their services accordingly.

Student satisfaction with EMI courses: the role of motivation and engagement

“…Independent variable. Motivation was measured through a measurement scale of five items developed by Yeh (2014). This scale was recently developed and used in Taiwan, a research context that has many similarities to Vietnam.…”

“…Tsui and Ngo (2017) claimed that both learning English for a career and for internationalization have positive effects on students' satisfaction with their university. Karakas (2017) found that the majority of Turkish students were satisfied with EMI in general, the four components of teaching, content instructors' English, their institutions, and their institutions' policies and procedures regarding English language use and instruction while (Yüksel, 2022) discovered that the perceived level of interactional quality and satisfaction had a strong positive correlation. Kim and Yoon (2018) examined the reactions of Korean students to EMI in the field of science and engineering.…”

“…Bozdogan and Karlidag (2013) indicated that Turkish students assume there are specific advantages to learning through English, such as improving their English, leading to job opportunities. In Taiwan, Yeh (2014) addressed five reasons that students choose EMI classes, including the instructors' expertise in the field, the teaching methods of the instructors, a drive to improve their English, an EMI course requirement in the syllabus, and interest in English. Rose et al (2020) revealed that Japanese students measure their success in terms of their final grades, ability to understand lectures, progress in improving their English language skills, and prospects for long-term employment.…”

Internationalization, community, and pandemic pedagogies: a reflective case study of a highly international university during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…During the pandemic, L2-speaking faculty at CEU and elsewhere adopted new communication strategies fitting the online environment. They looked for efficient words to motivate seemingly disengaged students and produced greater amounts of complex written text (Cicillini and Giacosa, 2020;Pun and Thomas, 2020;Yüksel, 2022). Furthermore, instructors had to swiftly improve not only their fluency in the language of instruction but also in the "language" of hardware, software, and their uses in teaching (Kohnke and Jarvis, 2021).…”

Learning from home: the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning

“…Nevertheless, the author believes that the students’ perceptions and feelings have been left aside in all these hassles. The transition from face-to-face to drastic online teaching can be said to have a mental impact on tertiary level students (Yüksel, 2022) as they are left on their own to manage both their personal and educational lives. Therefore, it becomes very important to understand the online teaching and learning components from a student’s perspective.…”