Research that captured the experience of the student learner and the teacher in a professional practice profession during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools rapidly switched to fully online programming will be presented. Issues, challenges, perceptual consistencies and differences will be highlighted and best online pedagogical practices will be discussed.
Abstract
Rapidly changing on the fly has become the new normal for most faculty and students in education since the declaration of the global pandemic. This presentation will present the results of a descriptive survey study that captured the experience of the student learner and the faculty teacher during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were rapidly required to shift all their programming online. The issues and challenges of remotely fully online teaching and learning for a professional practice profession will be shared, while highlighting the perceptual consistencies and differences between faculty and student perceptions in relation to the rapid learning environment shift. Attendees will engage in a discussion of best pedagogical practices when learning and teaching remotely online and contribute to the generation of feasible and effective alternatives.
Learning Outcomes:
- To understand the experience of students and faculty teaching and learning remotely in the online environment which began in a rapid shift to fully online environment during the COVID-19 pandemic among three universities.
- To acquire knowledge related to the differing perceptions between students and faculty when teaching online in a professional practice profession.
- Contribute to the generation of best online pedagogical practices to assist with future program planning.
Background
With the declaration of a provincial state of emergency in March 2020 related to the COVID-19 pandemic, post-secondary institutions in many countries closed campuses and moved learning and teaching online to complete the winter term courses that were in progress. The three university schools of nursing in one province offer the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree program on a tri-semester basis which includes a 12-week spring/summer semester that is normally comprised of theory and clinical practice courses. With the suspension of clinical placement for student learners in most clinical practice areas, schools worked rapidly on the fly to rearrange the course offerings to increase theory in the spring/summer semester, move this learning to the online environment and shift clinical practice to the fall semester, as well as adding virtual clinical simulation to student learning throughout the spring/summer courses.
Literature Review
The literature review yielded few results beyond editorials, student and faculty reflections, and blog postings in relation to COVID-19. Rose (2020) provided a viewpoint related to medical education and the need to transition theory courses to the online environment, including small group work and examinations, and stressed that the transitions from the work world to the home world results in isolation, increased use of email, and struggles with establishing boundaries between work and home. An editorial (Bauchner & Sharfstein, 2020) calls for a suspension of medical education in the US for the fall of 2020 and enrolling those students in an online service program for Public Health while others (Harvey, 2020; Mahase, 2020) are advocating for early registration of medical students and newly educated doctors. Crisis, such as COVID-19 pandemic, is fluid with requirements and plans changing on a daily and at times, even an hourly basis. Thus, it is imperative that educators be innovative and leverage technology to rise to the current challenge of maintaining quality education (Liang, Ooi, & Wang, 2020). The key to harnessing the current pandemic as an opportunity lies with a thorough evaluation of the learning and teaching that has occurred in an abrupt, almost immediate move from the face-to-face to the online learning environment. One published cross-sectional study (Taghrir, Borazjani, & Shiraly, 2020) surveyed medical students to assess their knowledge, preventative behaviours and risk perception related to COVID-19 among Iranian medical students, but the study was not related to education and online learning. The team was unable to locate any published research studies related to the nursing student or faculty experience of learning and teaching in the online environment during the COVID-19 pandemic while in a provincial/national/global state of emergency. It is crucial that we learn from the experience of students and faculty to evaluate the novel and innovative approaches to learning this past spring/summer and prioritize a well-thought out and scholarly plan for future educational programming.
Design
The purpose of this research is to gather the student and faculty experience of rapidly shifting learning and teaching to a solely online environment in three universities during a global pandemic. The intent of this multi-site research was to capture what it was like to be a student, or a faculty member, rapidly shifting teaching and learning to an online environment during a global declared pandemic, from remote locations.
The study population is all nursing students who are currently enrolled at the three Universities in semester/term 3 through 8 and all nursing faculty who taught online during the spring/summer semester 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research questions are:
- What was the experience of nursing students and faculty learning and teaching in the fully online environment during the COVID-19 pandemic at three universities in the same province?
- Is there a relationship between the student perception and the faculty perception of the effectiveness, engagement, and comfort in the online learning/teaching experience?
Using a descriptive survey design, participants will be invited to complete an online survey related to their experience of learning or teaching in the fully online environment. Two surveys will be administered: The Student Survey of Online Learning Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Faculty Survey of Online Teaching Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic. The quantitative data will be analyzed using descriptive (frequencies, means, modes) statistics to describe the experience from the faculty and student perspective and inferential (t-test) to investigate if there are perceptual differences between the faculty and the student perspective related to the effectiveness, engagement, and comfort in the online learning/teaching experience. Qualitative data will be analyzed using thematic analysis following a six-step process as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). The resulting knowledge will provide in-depth understanding of the learning and teaching experience during a global pandemic that will be invaluable to inform future program planning in relation to online learning and teaching in a professional practice profession.
Results
The survey tools will be shared at the presentation as well as the analyzed results. Results will not be available until August 2020 and will be added to this section prior to the November conference. Approximately 682 email invitations will be sent out with an anticipated response rate of 30%. Results will be reported to compare faculty and student perceptions of various aspects of online learning as well as their perceptions as to what they prefer and do not prefer, and what was most effective for their learning. Various online pedagogical technologies (e.g., audio conferencing, video conferencing, learning managment platforms, virtual simulations, gaming online) are being assessed from the learner and teacher perspective and results will be presented. An additional unique aspect of this research is that it is being conducted in a professional practice profession, where there are many tudent learner outcomes that include applicationa nd critical thinking (e.g., psychomotor technical skill learning, communication learning, clinical decision-making, critical thinking and clinical judgement) which can present challenges in the online learning environment. For example, how to teach, demonstrate and evaluate students completing a head to toe physical examination, or preparing and administering medication. Student and faculty identified issues, challenges and opportunities will be shared and how they correlate, or not, with each other. In these novel and unprecendented times in education, it is important to capture our current experience to gather evidence as we move forward as it is anticipated that online programming will continue, to some degree, into the future.
Conclusion
The last few months have been anything but normal in our global world, including institutions of higher education, with the only true “given” in our lives is that change is ongoing at warp speed. Changing on the fly has become a part of what we do every day, at times even hour by hour. This presentation will capture the experience from the learner and the teacher perspectives providing information to inform future program planning.
References
Bauchner, H., & Sharfstein, J. (2020). A bold response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Medical students, national service, and public health. Jama, doi: https://dx-doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.1001/jama.2020.6166
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101.
Harvey, A. (2020). Covid-19: Medical students and FY1 doctors to be given early registration to help combat covid-19. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 368, m1268. doi: https://dx-doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.1136/bmj.m1268
Liang, Z. C., Ooi, S. B. S., & Wang, W. (2020). Pandemics and their impact on medical training: Lessons from singapore. Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, doi: https://dx-doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.1097/ACM.0000000000003441
Mahase, E. (2020). Covid-19: Medical students to be employed by NHS as part of epidemic response. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 368, m1156. doi: https://dx-doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.1136/bmj.m1156
Rose, S. (2020). Medical student education in the time of COVID-19. Jama, doi: https://dx-doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.1001/jama.2020.5227
Taghrir, M. H., Borazjani, R., & Shiraly, R. (2020). COVID-19 and Iranian medical students; A survey on their related-knowledge, preventive behaviors and risk perception. Archives of Iranian Medicine, 23(4), 249-254. doi: https://dx-doi-org.ezproxy.library.dal.ca/10.34172/aim.2020.06