Teaching Online during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Study of Physical Therapist Faculty in Brazil, Cyprus, and The United States

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a global transition from in-person to online instruction leaving many higher education faculty with little time or training for this responsibility. Physical therapist education programs were especially impacted since a large part of the development of skills rely on face-to-face onsite practice. This phenomenological study explored the perceptions of physical therapist educators in three countries—Brazil, Cyprus, and the United States, who transitioned to an entirely virtual medium of teaching during the pandemic. Sixteen faculty participated in 1:1 semi-structured interviews. Trustworthiness of qualitative inquiry was ascertained using triangulation, thick descriptions, and peer reviews. Four major themes emerged from analysis of participants’ interview data: adapting pedagogy in real-time, expected excellence, limitations of the medium, and informing future teaching practice. All participants described teaching during the pandemic as one of the most challenging experiences of their professional careers. Despite available resources, faculty noted challenges in making authentic connections with students, adapting to technological interruptions, assessment of student understanding of content, and managing work-life balance. Despite the challenges, faculty worked collaboratively with peers to innovate new approaches of creating social, cognitive, and teaching presence. Unique opportunities arose from the pandemic to enhance future teaching practice.

Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance

“…Indeed, an unfamiliar model of assessment (online), as well as the lack of vigilance during the exam performed at home, could lead students to academic misconduct (e.g., cheating, hint) [ 33 ]. Furthermore, the high workload to produce didactic resources, the need to perform concomitant extra academic duties (e.g., clinical service in challenging circumstances), and the difficulty to separate professional and personal activities [ 4 , 5 ], could have impacted the educator and may have in turn influenced the assessment process.…”

“…With no time for extensive training on online teaching and learning and no possibility to change the course contents, physiotherapy lecturers were faced with the challenge of effectively teaching core skills to entry-level physiotherapy students online, assuring the same competence level gained by their predecessors [ 5 ]. In the meanwhile, physiotherapy students, who were already experiencing the impact of the pandemic on their psychosocial wellbeing, had to manage the amplification of the level of negative emotions due to rapid changes in learning habits [ 6 , 7 ].…”

Higher Education Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning during COVID-19—A Comparative Study

“…Several studies have been conducted [2,5,21,30,43] to understand and investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education. This study compared the perceptions of higher education students about the impact of COVID-19 on their student learning experience in universities from three different countries.…”

Digital Entry-Level Education in Physiotherapy: a Commentary to Inform Post-COVID-19 Future Directions

“…1), caution should be adopted in generalising and transferring results to the current educational settings since data sampled from a nonemergency social context might not be applied to the context of the COVID-19 pandemic [19]. Moreover, some critical issues emerged from interviews and focus groups on students [48] and educators [49] involved in entry-level physiotherapy education should be acknowledged as limitations of its applicability during COVID-19 pandemic and behind (Fig. 2).…”