Chilean Students’ Experience of Online Learning During COVID19 Sanitary Crisis

• In Event: Chilean Students' Experiences of Higher Education in Disruptive Times

Abstract

Higher education around the world has been profoundly disrupted due to the COVID19 sanitary emergency. During 2020, HEIs needed to adapt to what has been called emergency remote teaching (ERT), a form of instruction quickly set up – with no time for the careful instructional design employed in online learning – for supporting learning during the crisis (Hodges et al., 2020). Teaching rapidly moved to delivering classes through videoconferencing, providing learning resources through Learning Management Systems (LMS), and directing students to digital libraries for bibliographic resources.
In some manner, the digital technology radical transformation unfulfilled promise (Laurillard, 2008) advanced to materialized, although due to its capacity to face the crisis rather than the educational community being convinced of its value. In this scenario, several studies have investigated how students experience full online learning (de Boer, 2020; Yang & Huang, 2021). We add to this literature by examining how Chilean students employed digital technologies before and during the crisis and how they perceived the role of teachers and technology.
An approximate of 2500 students from eight higher education institutions, which roughly represent the HE system institutional diversity in Chile, answered an online survey. The responses demonstrated a sharp increase in video conferencing use. Before the pandemic, approximately half of students reported using it never or a few times, while almost all reported using it often or always during the crisis. Secondly, the LMS presented a moderate increase, most likely because it already had a high level of use before the pandemic. Thirdly, there was a limited increase in digital library use, which was relatively underused before the pandemic and continues in this situation during 2020. Finally, elevated use of other digital resources (i.e., Google, YouTube, Facebook, or WhatsApp) was reported before and during the COVID19 crisis. At the same time, students reported feeling stressed but recognized teachers’ efforts and commitment to adapt to the new disruptive scenario.
These results will be discussed in light of the international literature on students' experience and use of digital technology during the COVID19 pandemic. Also, a reflection on how the lessons learned can be helpful for the post-pandemic eventually hybrid future will be presented.

References

Charles Hodges, Stephanie Moore, Barb Lockee, Torrey Trust, & Aaron Bond. (2020). The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning | EDUCAUSE. EduCause. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning

de Boer, H. (2020). COVID-19 in Dutch higher education. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1859684

Laurillard, D. (2008). Digital technologies and their role in achieving our ambitions for education. Institute of Education, University of London.

Yang, B., & Huang, C. (2021). Turn crisis into opportunity in response to COVID-19: experience from a Chinese University and future prospects. Studies in Higher Education, 46(1), 121–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1859687

Authors

• Carlos Gonzalez, Universidad Catolica de Chile

• Ximena Catalan, Catholic University of Chile