Strengths and Weaknesses of Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education From the Students’ Perspective: The Portuguese Case

Abstract

Motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, most students of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Portugal experienced online learning from March 2020 to July 2020. Based on the answers obtained from students to a set of two open questions included in a questionnaire, this article aims to identify the positive (strengths) and negative (weaknesses) aspects of online learning during this period, which is also known as emergency remote teaching (ERT). A total of 2,107 valid answers were gathered. Issues related to comfort and time management were the topics most frequently mentioned by students as strengths, particularly for those who are simultaneously workers. In contrast, the assessments, interaction, and self-confidence comprised the set of the most frequently mentioned by students as weaknesses. In this latter context, the most evident differences were found by age, type of course, and students’ status. The breakdown by gender did not show any relevant difference, regardless of the item under analysis. These findings may be useful for decision-makers to plan their actions, particularly regarding the new challenges for the future of higher education programs. Those actions may include the options regarding the most proper learning model among face-to-face, online, or blended learning by case, as well as the measures to improve the overall quality of the online learning to increase the students’ satisfaction.

An Empirical Study on Emergency of Distant Tertiary Education in the Southern Region of Bangladesh during COVID-19: Policy Implication

“…The study's participants found evidence of the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on various aspects of students' learning, including class projects, assignment loads, learning quality, motivation for learning, educational activities, goals, subject knowledge, learning performance, educational opportunities, and the length of their studies. This outcome corroborates the findings of previous research [5,87]. The effects of anxiety on many pupils' learning and academic performance have been detrimental.…”

“…It argues that when students have a positive growth opportunity, they produce meaning, which leads to changes in their attitudes, behaviors, and perception. As students undergo mindset changes, they should be given challenging tasks that require them to think critically and rationally to evaluate their understanding of what is happening [5,12,13]. Moor [64] also stated that transformative learning occurs when learners interact with their surroundings and integrate with the learning process.…”

“…Moor [64] also stated that transformative learning occurs when learners interact with their surroundings and integrate with the learning process. Learners may face issues with accessing resources in developing countries because the facilities are limited [5]. As a result of this pandemic, students' academic outcomes in higher education have been impacted.…”

“…To gather information from the respondents, we conducted semi-structured interviews. The interview questions were adapted from earlier literature [5,7,8,74] and were also shared with two of our colleagues for feedback and suggestions. The questions were revised and improved based on their input and ideas.…”

“…The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020 [2]. A new variant of COVID-19 called Omicron has been identified [2,[5][6][7][8]. The COVID-19 pandemic was first detected in Bangladesh on 8 March 2020, when a couple of men and a woman, aged 20 and 35, were diagnosed with the disease [9].…”