COVID-19 Pandemic and University Teachers’ Experiences about Challenges of Online Teaching: A Phenomenography Approach

Abstract

With the advent of current Corona pandemic /COVID-19, the universities around the world were closed for face -to- face education. In the pandemic crisis, universities had to transform teaching- learning milieus instantly and online teaching went viral at universities. This transition from on campus to online education delivery services affected university teachers in many ways. By applying phenomenography approach, the present paper examines university teachers’ perceptions about the challenges they faced in Pakistani context, university teachers’ re-action towards university decision about the overnight teaching paradigm shift from face-to- face to online teaching, institutional support to teachers for online teaching; students’ caliber for online learning, and to assemble university teachers’ opinion about the pre- requisites of online teaching. The data was collected through written answers to open- ended research questions. Interpretative phenomenography analysis (IPA) framework was used to extract finding from the text data. The major findings emerged that mostly university teachers accepted the transition of teaching paradigm however some were under stressed for the online teaching. The training provided to teachers was not sufficient to meet actual requirements of online teaching. Teachers realized that universities did not have up-graded relevant infrastructure required for online education. Teachers perceived that mostly students did have the caliber to learn online moreover many students who were living in the remote areas did not have resources to get benefit from online classes. There was common consensus among university teachers that before launching online educational programs all pre- requisites of online education may be fulfilled at satisfactory level to achieve the targets.