DOI: https://doi.org/10.26758/14.1.6
(1) (2) (3) University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania,
E-mails: (1) vmarinescu9@yahoo.com; (2) a_rodideal@yahoo.com; (3) ramona.marinache@gmail.com
Address correspondence to: Valentina Marinescu, University of Bucharest, Bvd. Schitu Măgureanu nr. 9, Cp 010181, Bucharest, Romania, e-mail: vmarinescu9@yahoo.com
Abstract
Objectives. To provide an answer to the question: What were the main obstacles faced by teachers in Romanian pre-university education during the COVID-19 pandemic? School closures during pandemic effects will be investigated from the perspective of the difficulties in the educational process during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Material and methods. Qualitative methodology using four online focus groups (18 teachers from the pre-university education system in Romania) centered on topics related to education and teacher-student relations. Data collection period: July 27–September 13, 2022.
Results. Most respondents rated their digital skills as “good” or “very good” (46.5%). The main difficulties they faced online were: poor internet connection (71.2%), lack of software and applications (45.3%), lack of adequate equipment (38.8%), lack of digital knowledge (35.5%), decrease in student motivation (61.2%), fatigue (67.7%), and assessment errors (45.9%). Most respondents were aware of GDPR regulations (69.4%), and only 5% of them did nothing to ensure the students and teachers online safety.
Conclusions. The online educational activities during the COVID-19 pandemic had positive aspects (e.g., the ability to adapt quickly to the online education requirements; the development of new digital skills) and negative aspects (decreased student motivation; the emergence of new psychological phenomena—digital fatigue, student assessment errors). The main obstacles faced by teachers in Romanian pre-university education during the COVID-19 pandemic were professional, administrative, and psychological. Future studies are needed to identify ways to support teachers, on the horizon of the present economic and social crisis.
Keywords: Assessment of students’ knowledge, COVID-19 pandemic, Digital competences, Online education, Online security.
Introduction
On March 11, 2020, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, announced the beginning of the first pandemic of the 21st century (WHO, 2020):
“In the past two weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases outside of China has increased 13 times, and the number of affected countries has tripled… Therefore, we have assessed that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. Pandemic is not a word to be used lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear or unwarranted acceptance that the fight is over, leading to needless suffering and death.”
In order to prevent illness with the COVID-19 virus worldwide, numerous measures have been taken, such as: long-term quarantine; limitations of people’s physical mobility; the obligation to carry out tele-work for non-essential jobs; limiting or prohibiting gatherings; physical distancing from from everyone, even if they do not appear to be sick; and moving school activities into the online, virtual space. (These advices for the public, along with avoiding the three Cs — social encounters that would take place in crowded and closed spaces and that would lead to close contacts —WHO, 2023) During the COVID-19 pandemic, similar measures were taken in Romania as in other European countries, among which those that affected the education system were among the most disruptive.
According to the statements of the Minister of National Education, at the beginning of the 2019–2020 school year, 2.8 million students and 215,289 teachers were enrolled in the system (Ofițeru, 2018). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of them were put in a position to adapt to distance education, mediated online, with teachers having to teach in the virtual space and learn the ways of teaching in the online system on the go.
The needs and challenges arising in the context of moving face-to-face teaching to the online environment can be divided into two broad categories, namely challenges faced by teachers on the one hand and challenges faced by students on the other. According to the specialized literature (Nistor, 2020), each category has two dimensions: logistics literacy and digital literacy. On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the acceleration of the development of the online learning industry, globally, being the main method approached in most countries of the world (Todorov, 2022) to continue education and maintain social distancing and isolation. The idea of online learning is not new, but now it has been exploited on a large scale, considering not only the needs but also the benefits already noted, such as more independence and flexibility for learners, improved self-motivation, and better time management learning. However, the disadvantages of online education should not be minimized, which include the need for self-coordination, less social interaction, and more effort for pupils and students, as stated in the same paper.
In the following, the main current points of view regarding online versus physical education, face-to-face, will be detailed, starting from the various research studies carried out previously and/or during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of delimiting the theoretical framework that substantiated the research with pre-university teachers regarding how they adapted and used the online environment to continue teaching activities in the conditions of social isolation imposed by the pandemic.
The theoretical framework
One of the first concerns determined by the move of education to the online environment was the exposure of children and adolescents to the inherent risks due to the long time spent online: from the “classic” risks, such as behavior (cyberbullying, sexting), content (exposure to pornography, cyberhate, exposure to extreme violence), or contact (harassment, theft of personal data) (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021), the discussions extended to emerging risks, such as the datafication of children through the use of digital educational solutions and new technologies and platforms (VR, AR, online games) and the commercialization of the educational act (Velicu, 2021). The studies carried out during the pandemic demonstrated the increase in cases of problems with the security of personal data and fraud in the online environment, the disruptive intrusion of strangers in online classes, and the exposure of children and adolescents to inappropriate content and cyberbullying (Khlaif, Salha, Fareed, & Rashed, 2021; Lassoued, Alhendawi, & Bashitialshaaer, 2020).
Starting from the model developed within the EU Kids Online project, with regard to all types of risks of the online environment, it must be taken into account that the risk is not equivalent to a negative impact on the user, but there is a relativity in terms of the effects on which risks have on children, some being more vulnerable than others (it all depends on the degree of resilience development of each) (Livingstone, Mascheroni, & Staksrud, 2018). It should also be taken into account that evidence shows that risks are generally associated: exposure to one of the online risks often involves experiencing other online risks, and those vulnerable in the offline environment are also victims in the online environment and vice versa (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021; Stoilova, Livingstone & Khazbak, 2021).
An emerging risk of the pandemic period that affects children and adults, students and teachers alike, is “zoom fatigue”, a term used to describe the fatigue generated by the excessive use of video conferences at work, and which is also associated with online education, mediated by the different platforms that make it possible to learn “synchronously”. Research shows that this syndrome is characterized by increased levels of anxiety, depression, social and emotional isolation, and loneliness (Elbogen et al., 2022). Children and young people who have experienced online schooling for long periods of time during the pandemic have been affected by these issues: excessive exposure to screens, social isolation, a lack of breaks, and the opportunity to think critically (Ringelstein, 2020). To these are added problems related to the difficulty and errors related to assessment, the process of teaching-learning-assessment being affected by the transition of all educational processes online.
Another controversy related to online education is the issue of social inequalities. On the one hand, it can have beneficial effects on social inclusion, but on the other hand, it can deepen social and educational inequalities if it is not properly implemented, with special consideration of these aspects. The implementation of online education must take into account the risk of deepening social inequalities both in terms of access to infrastructure (Internet technology, connected devices) and in relation to a number of social aspects of this form of education. Family support is also often necessary for online education, and children from disadvantaged backgrounds are often at risk of not receiving this support due to the poor literacy of their parents or grandparents, their low digital skills, or a lack of time (in single-parent families, for example). Moreover, for some of these children, attendance at school represents more than access to information, especially access to a space and time dedicated to learning, which are sometimes limited within the household (cases in which children help with household chores, take care of younger brothers/sisters, or do not have enough space to access the virtual learning space, even if they have access to such devices) (Velicu, 2021). All this should have been taken into account when online education was extended for most of the 2020–2021 school year in Romania, so that online education would not be an extra burden for the family (and thus increase the risk of school dropout) or to deprive children of the right to education. In Romania, the situation is quite serious regarding these gaps, considering the fact that it was ranked first in terms of the number of children at risk of poverty and social exclusion (41.5%) (Eurostat, 2021).
For a good implementation of online education, digital skills are needed by students, teachers, and even parents (Cachia, Velicu, Chaudron, Di Gioia, & Vuorikari, 2021), even more so in the case of young students or children with special educational needs. These digital skills should not be reduced to operational skills (to use the Internet and connected digital devices at a basic level), but should be understood globally, according to the DigComp grid (Vuorikari, Kluzer, & Punie, 2022) developed at the level of the European Commission, which carries out a detailed operationalization of them. Digital competences develop on three dimensions: cognitive, practical (skills), and attitudinal, each of which is detailed in five thematic areas that conceptually define the DigComp model, i.e., information literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, online safety issues, and digital problem solving. Only with such a holistic understanding of digital skills and aiming at at least an average level of development at the level of teachers can online learning be successfully applied. Thus, for example, without real skills of communication and collaboration in a digital environment or of creating content using online resources, the use of digital technology is reduced to being a parallel teaching environment, through which is conveyed what would be transmitted identically transmitted face-to-face, as many voices have identified as the case during the pandemic (Bülow, 2022).
In this context, teachers in Romania, forced to move quickly and learn on-the-go didactic strategies useful for adapting to the online environment, have faced a series of specific problems, to a greater or lesser extent related to issues at the international level. The qualitative research, through the method of online focus groups carried out with Romanian teachers, aimed precisely to identify the particular aspects specific to the national framework regarding the adoption of online education.
The methodology
The present article had as its research objective the identification of possible answers to the question:
The research question is: “What were the main obstacles faced by Romanian pre-university teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic?”
In order to identify possible answers, this study analyzed a set of data obtained within the “DigiTeaL” (Digital Teaching Literacy) project, an Erasmus+ project carried out during 2021–2022 during 18 months, in partnership between the University of Bucharest (Romania); the University of Wolverhampton (Great Britain), and some non-governmental organizations: “Demokritos” (Cyprus), “Emphasis” (Greece), and “Beno” (Germany). More precisely, in the second stage of the project, between September 9 and 11, 2021, a set of four online focus groups with 18 teachers from pre-university education in Romania was conducted in Romania.
Results
The analysis of the results of the focus groups indicated that, in terms of online teaching, the teachers developed a series of new skills. Thus, on the one hand, teachers had the opportunity to develop new skills and learn many new things (e.g., the development of digital and online teaching and assessment skills).
“I can tell that the kids have done better with the new technology, and they’re actually becoming teachers of teachers.” (FG3)
“We used more informational materials to create new, engaging lessons for students.” (FG3)”For the French and English teachers, it was a challenge to choose the platform, attract them with new materials, etc.” (FG4)
At the same time, an extremely interesting aspect of the focus group sessions was the skill set needed by a teacher in online teaching, comprising two aspects. One aspect aims at learning the creative use of digital tools (especially video programs), but also various quiz applications and didactic games:
“As for the extras related to online teaching here, I would mention games, puzzles that were appreciated by the students.” (FG1)
“I can say that in 2020 I learned a lot from the students and less from my colleagues.” (FG3)
The second aspect concerns the more effective use of already existing online teaching platforms:
“Most students have the necessary digital skills. Over time, I have used a lot of gaming apps. For example, Jamboard is very popular with students.” (FG1)
“We had to put in a lot of hours using platforms that allow teachers to be creative. I can say that a creative activity requires a lot of time and the development of clear technical skills for us teachers.” (FG1).
Regarding assessment, teachers stated that they too could not assess student achievement in an objective and fair way because of the environment in which teaching took place (exclusively or partially online).
“I lost a lot of children. It is true that two pupils with special educational needs benefited, but they did their homework with their parents, and we don’t know who actually did the homework.” (FG2)
“I would say that I evaluated 30% of the activity submitted by the students. And let’s not forget that grades were higher online than offline.” (FG3)
“It was very difficult to mobilize and control the class during online classes.” (FG4)
As for the difficulties of online teaching, they were of several types: technical, social, related to class management, and personal.
Regarding the technical difficulties, the teachers participating in the focus groups indicated the lack of appropriate technology (laptops, tables, mobile phones) or the existence of problems related to the Internet connection and platform security.
“The students lacked many devices at the beginning. It is clear that here, in terms of devices, the state that spent on the purchase of tablets benefited. But overall, even if the state won education, it lost, and I say this not only for students from 1 to 8, but also for those aged 16–19!”(FG1)
“We sought to protect online students from different individuals accessing the online class link. So that the students were initially introduced one at a time, and only the students of the respective class could enter at that time.” (FG3)
“Our internet often goes down in the winter, and we don’t have an internet connection in the commune.” (FG4)
From the perspective of social difficulties, the group discussions highlighted the emergence of new types of relationships within the “golden triangle” (teacher-child-parent) and, simultaneously, the development of new social roles for the child and parent within the educational process.
“I didn’t know who was connected: the student, the parent, (or) a sibling? There was also a problem with the lack of feedback because the students no longer say if they understood, and it is not known if they actually understood something from the lesson.” (FG3)
“The parents also participated in the classes, a fact that wouldn’t bother me anymore if it weren’t for the situations in which they intervened during the activity. One of them drew my attention, saying that he knows how to solve a math problem. Another came over another child, saying to let him answer as well… A series of situations to which I didn’t even know how to react anymore!” (FG2)
The classroom management difficulties concerned, on the one hand, the emergence of extremely high barriers related to attracting and maintaining students’ attention and the existence of obstacles in the individual assessment of learning performance, on the other.
“It is very difficult with young students who are not prepared. They play but don’t want to attend classes. At the same time, parents complain that they have no way to help them get online. The lucky ones are the ones who have older siblings and help them with online classes.” (FG1)
“It’s clear that students’ concentration level decreases with online classes; it’s something that I and my colleagues have also noticed.” (FG3)
The fourth category of difficulties, those of a personal nature, was identified by participants in the focus group sessions as related to their need to learn and develop new skills related to online teaching, the emergence and persistence of time management problems, and the increase in the time allocated by them for the preparation of lessons.
“Online education is totally different from face-to-face education. At first, the children worked in the classroom in teams; then it was no longer possible online. We tried, but the students complained that it was difficult and not good. Likewise, the hybrid system was very difficult because there were overlaps and broken hours.” (FG2)
“I won’t hide from you that preparing the online classes took longer than when I was preparing them for the classic system.” (FG3)
Group discussions also revealed that pre-university teachers had to attend training courses to refine their technical-digital, social, and psychological skills needed in online interactions with students.
“I attended paid online courses for the assessment sheet. Before, there were free courses through Casa Corpului Didactic, but the courses that were previously free are now paid.” (FG3)
Discussions and conclusions
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a series of important changes in the education system, both in terms of the large-scale introduction of digital technology in the teaching-learning-assessment act and in terms of the main online teaching methods used by teachers in Romanian pre-university education.
Most of the teachers included in the focus group discussions had mixed evaluations of online teaching during the period of total isolation (March–May 2020) and the 2020–2021 school year. On the one hand, teachers had the opportunity to develop new skills and learn many new things. On the other hand, they could not assess the children’s achievements in an objective and fair way because of the environment in which the teaching took place (exclusively or partially online).
Teachers identified several types of problems they faced during this pandemic. Thus, in terms of technical difficulties, they talked about the lack of appropriate technology (laptops, tables, mobile phones) or the existence of problems related to the Internet connection. From the perspective of social difficulties, they mentioned: new types of relationships within the “golden triangle” (teacher-child-parent) and the emergence of new social roles for the child and parent in the educational process. In terms of personal difficulties, teachers mentioned the need to learn and develop new skills related to online teaching. From the perspective of difficulties related to managing students in an online classroom versus a face-to-face situation, the participants in the online discussions indicated the existence of extremely high barriers related to the individual assessment of learning performance; problems related to teaching and assessment of performance; and in the case of teaching classes, problems related to maintaining the attention of students during online classes. A highly interesting aspect of the focus group sessions was the skill set required of a teacher in online teaching, including: learning to use digital tools creatively (especially video programs), making more efficient use of already existing online teaching platforms, and attending training courses to refine the social and psychological skills needed in online interactions with students.
Although this research has a number of limits, especially related to representativeness, the results cannot be extrapolated to the level of all Romanian pre-university teachers, the results obtained and the ideas provided by the participating teachers are valuable to demonstrate once more that pre-university teachers Romanian reacted quickly, accepting and adapting to the challenges induced by the pandemic and moving the school to the online environment: they acquired new digital skills either by participating in training courses or through their own effort and self-learning, they became more creative, they made efforts to continue the educational process adapting to the context of each school and the specific needs of the students.
Finally, this article contributes to the ongoing discussions about the efficiency and effectiveness of online learning in the pre-university education system by presenting the main challenges Romanian teachers were facing during the pandemic. Nowadays, as the pandemic is over and technological advancements continue to provide solutions for integrating online learning into the classroom, teachers and stakeholders should keep in mind the lessons learned during that period and propose better solutions. Online learning alone is proving to be a “bad solution” with many drawbacks, but the idea of integrating online resources into the physical classroom is a necessity to teach children digital skills. Teachers have proven during the pandemic that they are open and interested in using digital technologies for learning and teaching. Therefore, they should be further trained to be better equipped to use online platforms and tools in the classroom. Online platforms, VR (virtual reality), and AR (augmented reality) technologies continue to evolve to help teachers deliver complex and relevant learning experiences to children and students, enhancing the blend between theory and practice. Knowing that learning by doing and practice are the most efficient ways to help students acquire the desired competencies, future research should focus on finding the best mix for integrating online resources and digital technologies into the classroom to avoid the disadvantages and promote the benefits of technological development.
Acknowledgements
A summary of this paper was presented at the online international conference: Individual, Family, Society – Contemporary Challenges, fifth edition, October 4-5, 2023, Bucharest, Romania, and published in the journal Studii şi Cercetări de Antropologie, No. 8/2023.
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