The changing nature of university teaching: students' learning experience during the Covid-19 pandemic

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Mitsakis, F. ORCID: 0000-0001-8454-5777 and Mahtab, N., 2022. The changing nature of university teaching: students' learning experience during the Covid-19 pandemic. In: 22nd University Forum of Human Resource Development (UFHRD) Conference - "Mind the Gap – Bridging Theory and Practice in the Post Covid Era", Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, 8-10 June 2022.

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Abstract

Brief background/rationale: The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic challenged higher education (HE) institutions across the globe, mainly through necessitating an urgent shift of their teaching and learning activities to a hybrid approach. Universities came up with several technological challenges, amongst others, in securing a smooth delivery of their hybrid approach, yet major obstacles and challenges were also experienced by all university students owing to this urgent shift. With hybrid teaching and learning to becoming the new pedagogical norm of the higher education sector globally, this research seeks to assess, evaluate and compare the students’ new learning experiences of hybrid teaching delivery within two diverse/distinct teaching environments, and to outline the main impediments and challenges associated with their learning experience during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Research Aim(s): This study seeks to identify the impediments and challenges faced by university students in two distinct educational institutions (i.e., British and Bangladeshi), and to evaluate and compare their learning experiences of online / hybrid teaching and learning.

Research findings: So far, 548 students completed the questionnaire (e.g., 285 British and 263 Bangladeshi). The vast majority from both cohorts are undergraduate students (214 UG / 71 PG British – 168 UG & 95 PG Bangladeshi), with an equal representation of male and female students.

Research findings highlight students’ dissatisfaction of hybrid teaching and learning, mainly because of the lack of fulfilling their university life experience due to self-isolation, limited social interaction, lockdown restrictions, technology challenges (e.g., bandwidth, connectivity, familiarity with tools, right equipment etc.).

Contribution: This research contributes to the existing International HE literature by providing important insights relating to the adoption of online / hybrid teaching and learning in two distinct educational institutions. Our research findings and discussion further offer recommendations to policymakers to understand, assess and evaluate better key aspects of the hybrid provision, and accordingly to suggest innovative e-learning solutions post-pandemic. Further research is called to examine the challenges identified by students, and thus to allow HE institutions to offer better teaching and learning solutions to enhance their students’ learning experience. Although this working paper is limited by the selection criteria being employed, it could set the foundational point of future research.

Item Type:

Conference contribution

Creators:

Mitsakis, F. and Mahtab, N.

Date:

June 2022

Identifiers: