3.1. Student Difficulties
In order to address our first research question, respondents were asked if any of their students had let them know that they had difficulty accessing material due to issues with broadband/Wi-Fi, hardware, software, or for personal reasons. Their responses are shown in
Table 2 below. It is clear that a significant portion of lecturers were aware of student difficulties under each of these headings, particularly in relation to broadband and personal reasons.
In total, there were 142 additional comments under this question, and the comments have been coded into a number of themes and sub-themes, summarised in
Figure 1. From the centre, there are arrows leading to the seven themes that emerged from this question: Wi-Fi, hardware, software, and personal reasons, which emerged directly from the question itself, and assessment, frequency of difficulties, and country. Leading from the three latter themes listed, we see arrows directing us to the subthemes that emerged from these themes. The numbers listed alongside each arrow indicates the number of comments within each theme/subtheme.
3.1.1. Poor Wi-Fi
Although poor Wi-Fi was the most common difficulty communicated by students to their lecturers, the comments under this theme were fairly uniform, with respondents simply highlighting the fact that “connection issues came up pretty much for everyone, including myself”. Some respondents mentioned that broadband service was significantly worse for those students who had gone home to rural locations (“Rural areas have serious difficulties with access to broadband”). This was particularly an issue when there were multiple people in the household trying to use the Wi-Fi at the same time (“not enough Wi-Fi when all work from home”). Other respondents found workarounds for students such as: turning off their camera during video calls (“with zoom it works if they did not turn their camera on”); providing recorded versions of synchronous lectures (“my Zoom lectures were recorded and sent by mail to those students who had problems with broadband”); or compressing their video files (“Some people were only able to download larger videos at night. This got resolved by me by compressing the videos”).
3.1.2. Caring Responsibilities
Primary among personal difficulties were caring responsibilities. Lecturers mentioned the lack of childcare impacting upon students’ ability to engage (“For example, I have a final year project student whose single parent is a nurse, so he is looking after a younger sibling all day”; “I have in my class a mother of two young children, there is no childcare at the moment”), as well as the issues for those caring for sick family members (“The difficulties were due to illness of…family members that they had to care for”). Students’ own illnesses also featured highly under the theme of personal difficulties, with some having contracted COVID-19 (“A…student contracted the virus and then felt unable to complete the module”) and others “with known mental health issues most obviously hit.” The absence of a safe, quiet space to study was highlighted by a number of lecturers (“Some students were homeless in shelters with poor Wi-Fi, others had homes they could not concentrate in”). In addition, respondents mentioned that some of their students had to work more than usual, either due to commitments at home (“Some students have gone home and now have farm work that prevents them from participating in morning activities”) or because they had frontline jobs (“Other students were working more than usual in supermarkets etc so had less time to engage in the materials”).
3.1.3. Hardware and Software
The lecturers stated that the main hardware issue reported by students to them was either not having a laptop (“One student was attempting to complete all her work on a smartphone. I sourced a laptop for her”) or their laptop breaking during lockdown (“One student’s laptop broke and there was nowhere to get it fixed or get a new one”). In other situations, the respondents said that their students were sharing a computer with others in their home, making it difficult for them to engage at specific times (“Not every household has enough computers for all family members to work online at the same time”).
Software issues were very specific to the particular software in use in class. Sometimes the issue was due to licencing (“We didn’t have enough online licences for Minitab, given that normally most of the students accessed it physically in the lab”), while others had installation difficulties (“Students...either did not manage to complete software installations themselves OR one particular software needed did not have permissions to be installed via vpn”). Most respondents reported finding alternatives for students (“For almost all cases, we managed to find a workaround, e.g., using MATLAB Online instead of downloading a local copy, use of Virtual Desktop to access other software”). One respondent observed that “(m)any students are…not technically as savvy with new technology as we sometimes assume”, which resulted in difficulties for some.
3.1.4. Assessment
Assessment emerged as a common theme among the responses. Assessment here encompasses any mention of a summative or formative mode of assessment, where feedback may or may not have been given, that contributed to a student’s end of semester grade. Many explained that they were flexible with regard to assessment deadlines in order to take into account issues students might be experiencing (“Some were directly or indirectly afflicted with COVID, so extensions and accommodations were made”). Others opted to grant a longer submission time to all students instead (“I chose to give them days rather than hours to complete assessments”). In other cases, the approach to assessment was changed to be more suitable to the situation (“We surveyed them anonymously and all these issues were reported to us. We took this into account in designing our assessment”).
3.1.5. Frequency
Some respondents commented specifically on the frequency of student difficulties they observed, in other words, how often they had students inform them that they needed help with some issue. Almost the same number said that they knew of very few students with difficulties as those who said the opposite. Some of those who observed very few pointed out that the issues were serious for the students in question (“Relatively small numbers but still significant impact on individual students”), while others reported that there were “only one or two problems and we got round these, e.g., delayed upload of test answers or rearranged meeting to suit the student’s availability.” On the other hand, there were respondents who stated that “(a)n awful lot of students had an extremely poor experience this semester” and “there is a long list of problems of my students,” with one respondent sagely observing that “I suspect there are more I haven’t heard about”.
3.1.6. Country
A number of respondents made specific references to difficulties experienced by students who returned to their home country during lockdown. There were several references made to students based in China, due primarily to differences in accessibility of particular online material there. Others mentioned the issue of differing time-zones (“Different time zones are a real problem, particularly if you are trying to run interactive sessions and you have some students in China and others in North America!”).
3.2. Students with Learning Difficulties/Disabilities/Anxiety
In addition to general student difficulties in the above areas, respondents were asked if any of their students had let them know that they had difficulty accessing material due to learning difficulties or disability. There were 253 responses to this question, and 85.4% said no. 33 respondents provided further comment here. Particular challenges were highlighted for students who were hearing impaired or visually impaired, with three respondents mentioning each. For the former, approaches included adjusting the online format to allow the student to see both the interpreter and the lecture itself (“he and the interpreter managed to work out how to do this eventually”); subtitling pre-recorded sessions; providing one-to-one tutor support; and answering questions via email or Pencast with no audio. For visually impaired students, all assessments were conducted orally. Three respondents also mentioned the challenges for autistic students, observing that they were “very thrown by the change in routine” and “disproportionately affected by circumstances.” A number of respondents mentioned liaising with the disability services in their university, who provided the students directly with support, and some highlighted the provision of extra time in assessments for these students, as per usual for examinations. A couple of respondents recorded their surprise that students had not reported more issues to them, as they are aware of the accessibility challenges that face some students using mathematical software, and raised the concern that they “fear that the students who may need help did not attempt to study the new material.” Given that the university closures took place partway through the semester, it is possible that students simply did not engage with material covered after that point.
Although it does not fall under the umbrella of learning difficulties or disabilities, a couple of respondents reported having students with “high maths anxiety” or receiving “(m)any many emails from distressed students” who had “psychological problems of various kinds”.
3.4. Engagement with Students
Finally, in order to address our third research question, respondents were asked if they had any regular engagement with students at this time and, of the 250 respondents, 79.6% said that they did. They were then asked about the nature of this engagement: whether it was scheduled/unscheduled, compulsory/optional, and daily or weekly. The responses are shown in
Table 4 below.
3.4.1. Scheduled
It can be seen that scheduled, optional, weekly engagement opportunities were the most common types offered, although a considerable proportion also offered unscheduled opportunities. There were 153 comments in response to this question. The most common form of engagement with students was via direct email with lecturers, with 38.6% of comments mentioning this. Some lecturers proactively used email to contact their students (“Constant emails to students asking for feedback on how they were coping with situation”), while others used it as a mechanism for students to approach them with queries (“I encouraged students to email me with any questions arising from the pre-recorded material I made available to them”). Many also commented that not many students availed of this form of communication (“it was a minority (about 20%), but those who engaged, engaged a lot, similar to many ways in terms of who comes up after class etc”).
3.4.2. Online Classes
The next most common engagement, with 36.6% of comments, was through some form of online class, whether it be a lecture, tutorial, or workshop of some format. Many respondents mentioned running classes at the usual scheduled times (“All classes & tutorials were delivered during regular timetabled hours”).
3.4.3. Virtual Office Hours
Virtual office hours accounted for 32.7% of comments (“I had a regular office hour and any student could visit it and ask questions or ask help to solve the exercises”); most were these were offered online, but some mentioned using the phone instead (“I have “phone office hours” when any student can call me”). The formats differed, with some respondents offering typical office hours where students could arrange a one-to-one consultation, and others offering a “drop-in” approach, where any number of students from a particular module could attend (“I offered Q&A sessions which were attended by about a fifth of the student population”). Engagement levels with office hours were mixed: some reported higher engagement levels than usual (“Honours students seemed to demand more of my time when communication was online (Skype/Zoom)”) while others reported consistently low engagement with only the most engaged attending (“My most keen students (4 out of a class of 160) came to my office hour each week”).
3.4.4. Video Conferencing Software
Video-conferencing software, such as Zoom, Teams, or Skype, was mentioned in 18.9% of comments, with respondents observing that, in group situations, some “(s)tudents mainly communicated using chat, rather than speaking.” In fact, several respondents stated that they “felt like more students interacted during the online teaching,” and theorised that this may be due to the fact that “the message board is more anonymous than a real life lecture.”
Some respondents set up a discussion forum for their students to use, both for direct support from the lecturer or for peer support, with 10.5% of comments referencing this. However, in general, these do not seem to have been a success in terms of engaging with students (“The forums I set up were not favoured by the students”).