Affiliation

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Email

weiyunl@mun.ca

Abstract

Based on a literature review on some key issues regarding the effectiveness of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as online education platforms, challenges and difficulties of online education, students’ and teachers’ perceptions of online learning, and post-pandemic online education, this article discusses about the development of online learning in the post-pandemic period and gives some suggestions on how to combine online learning with traditional learning to improve the quality of education in the future.

Keywords

COVID-19 pandemic, effectiveness, online learning,

Introduction

The COVID-19 virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Since then, it has spread rapidly across the globe and caused a large number of infections and deaths. In January 2020, WHO declared COVID-19 as a health emergency worldwide for the first time (Spencer, 2023). To break the spread of COVID-19, countries around the world took various measures such as banning gatherings, social distancing, wearing masks, hand washing, vaccinating citizens, and even locking down cities with high infection rates and closing borders (Laili & Nashir, 2021). As a result of these effective public health measures, the number of people infected and dying from COVID-19 around the world has decreased significantly. As more than 90% of the world’s population has already acquired some level of immunity to COVID-19 through vaccination or infection over the past three years, The chief of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, declared at the end of 2022 that the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is not far away (Spencer, 2023). This vision is becoming increasingly realistic as more and more countries gradually return to normal after the initial declaration of a COVID-19 pandemic (Zeke & Amanda, 2023).

However, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on all aspects of life in the past three years has been tremendous, and they will not disappear immediately in the near future. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the education system was one of the most severely affected areas, along with the financial and healthcare systems. More than 94% of students in over 190 countries on all continents were affected by the disruption of education systems due to the pandemic (United Nations, 2020). Although online education has proven to be the best alternative to traditional education in maintaining student education during a pandemic (Xhelili et al., 2021), some issues related to the effectiveness of online education during the pandemic have emerged.

This paper explores some of the major issues regarding the effectiveness of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic and discussES the trend of online education in the post-pandemic period. Suggestions are provided for achieving the integration of online education with tradition education to improve the effectiveness and quality of future education.

Literature Review

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there has been a proliferation of research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. A focus of the research is on the shift to online education from traditional education due to the disruption of the education system during the pandemic. Kerres and Buchner (2022) conducted a literature review of published papers related to online learning during the pandemic. They (2022) divided these papers into three categories based on the research methods used, which are “prescriptive papers that aggregate existing knowledge about educational technologies for emergency distance learning,… theoretical analyses that reflect and frame the debate,…[and] empirical studies on the educational impact of pandemics” (p.1). Kerres and Buchner (2022) conclude that most of these papers are empirical research papers that provide a heterogeneous view of the positive and negative effects of pandemics on education. The majority of the research papers examined in this literature review are empirical research papers.

Shift to Online Education from Tradition Education

One of the biggest impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on education worldwide was the closure of educational institutions, which led to a sudden shift from traditional classroom learning to online learning at many institutions around the world. Although online learning has proven to be an effective way to protect teachers and students from the COVID-19 virus, there is still debate about its efficacy when deployed in places of classroom education during the pandemic.

Tradition Classroom Education

Traditional classroom education/learning has long been dominant in the modern educational system. According to Sobirova and Karimova (2021), traditional education is based on a set of organizational and methodological principles dating back four hundred years, which include the principles of citizenship, scientific character, and education, as well as the principles of fundamental and practical education. They point out several distinct advantages and disadvantages of traditional education, which are listed below. According to Sobirova and Karimova (2021), in classrooms where traditional teaching methods are used, students are passive learners; the teacher has complete control over the classroom, which inhibits not only student motivation and creative initiation, but also direct student-teacher communication; the level of mastery is low due to differences in student memory; and “there are no conditions for independent study and independent decision-making” (p.235). Based on the results of their study, Sobirova and Karimova (2021) suggest that it is necessary to apply non-traditional educational methods in the learning process to improve learning outcomes.

Figure 1

Advantages and disadvantages of traditional classroom education.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed one of the Achilles’ heels of traditional education, namely that it had to be delivered in a real-life context or physical classroom. In traditional education, learners must attend in-person classes that usually take place at schools. What learners learn and how they learn depends heavily on what they do in the classroom and how teachers organize and implement their lesson plans. Traditional education cannot be achieved without an authentic learning platform. This particular requirement has become the biggest obstacle to the proper functioning of traditional education during the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing a large number of educational institutions around the world to turn to online education to ensure the continuity and quality of education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Online Education

Online learning/education, also known as distance learning/education, or e-learning, is not a newly emerged form of education that was customized to address educational issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The concept of distance education first appeared in an article published in 1849 in a North American professional journal of education called The Journal, which introduced the idea of Sir Isaac Pitman to create a professional shorthand writing course by correspondence (De Oliveira et al., 2018). The University of Chicago in the United States established the world’s first education department by correspondence in 1900, and in 1971, the first institution engaged in distance education appeared at Empire State College in New York. The purpose of this institution was to improve access to higher education for students who were unable to attend classes on a college campus. In recent decades, the advent of the Internet and advances in educational technology have greatly accelerated the growth of online education. Online education plays an important role in the revolution of the modern education system in the 21st century (Hussain et al., 2020). As stated by Silaban et al. (2020), “the world of education has begun to shift the paradigm of 21st century learning from the traditional Era towards IT- based learning and the internet, so learning can be done anywhere and anytime, and also information can be obtained from anywhere” (p. 88).

Online learning uses information communication technologies (ICTs) through the Internet to provide flexible learning modes in virtual classrooms (Hussain et al., 2020), which is its greatest advantage over traditional learning during the pandemic. In virtual classrooms, learners have greater learning independence than in traditional classrooms because of the use of innovative, efficient, informative, and effective online learning tools (Hussain et al., 2020). In a qualitative study on online learning, De Oliveira et al.  (2018) concluded that the benefits of online learning for learners are flexibility, content availability, low cost (compared to traditional courses) and learning at home anytime, while for educational institutions, its benefits include low cost, no need for physical space, and a single class (video) serving to several classes. According to Mirholikovna (2020), availability is the key advantage of online learning, which allows learners to access knowledge from anywhere in the world. Other advantages he found for online learning are flexibility, relative economy of money and time, giving a specific set of knowledge and skills, relevance of lessons and improved technical skills. Based on the fact that nearly 3 million students enrolled in full-line programs and 6 million students took at least one online course as part of their higher education in 2020, he believes that online learning has become one of the most popular and effective alternatives to traditional education in higher education.

Effectiveness of Online Education During the Pandemic

A number of articles have been published on the effectiveness of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the great concern of scholars about the quality of education during the pandemic. Some of the lively discussions under this theme are:

• platforms for online education,
• challenges and difficulties of online education,
• student and teachers’ perceptions of online learning, and
• online education in the post-pandemic period.

Most of these studies have been conducted in higher education contexts, with a small number in elementary and high school contexts.

Online Education Platforms

During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning platforms played a key role in making the transition from traditional to online education. Due to the continuous development of educational technology, there are now many online learning platforms available for online learning such as MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), Zoom Cloud (Zoom, 2022) and WeChat Work (WeChat, 2022), which were among the most popular online learning platforms during the pandemic. The sudden shift of online learning from a supplementary form of learning prior to the pandemic to the only alternative form of learning to traditional learning during the pandemic has created some difficulties and challenges in the use of online education platforms (Chen et al., 2020), which has generated interest among some researchers to study this situation.

In a study of users’ use of online education platforms before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Chen et al. (2020) compared eight popular online education platforms used in China based on users’ experiences with the platforms. They found that users’ experiences of using online platforms differed significantly before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, “users concerned about the access speed, reliability, and timeliness of video information transmission of the platform” (p.28). After the pandemic outbreak, “users mainly focused on course management, communication and interaction, learning and technical support services of the platform” (p.28). Before the outbreak, users had the best experience with the Zoom Cloud platform, and after the outbreak, users had the best experience with DingTalk (2021). They provide a number of suggestions to improve the user experience of the online education platform during the pandemic. These suggestions were to improve support services by providing users with comprehensive, timely, convenient and fast support, improve the convenience of interactive communication, such as adding a split-screen function to the platform, optimize ease of use, and enrich platform resources.

In another study conducted by Chen et al. (2020) on user satisfaction of online education platforms in China, they concluded after analyzing the emotion data from online user reviews that “Ding Ding and Tencent Class provided high quality service, while Chaoxing Learning and MOOC encountered several problems, such as the inability to submit the learning time, lags, and a significant video delay” (p. 22), and they found that “users personal factors did not have a direct impact on their satisfaction, while platform availability had the greatest impact on user satisfaction” (p.22). Based on their findings, they suggest that “platform technology issues cannot be ignored” because “there are still many problems in the platform technology” (p. 23) and that “two-way interaction of teaching must be improved ” (p. 23) because “an increase in interaction can improve students’ learning enthusiasm and concentration” (p. 23). Pandey et al. (2021) concluded in their study that learning model or attitudes towards delivering of online class significantly affects students’ satisfaction with online learning.

Challenges and Difficulties of Online Education

The shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic posed a number of challenges and difficulties not only for governments and educational institutions, but also for teachers and students. In their study, Pandey et al. (2021) found that challenges to implementing online learning during in underdeveloped countries during the COVID-19 pandemic included lack of internet (most developing countries), security (cyber attacks), infrastructures like computers and ICT gadgets (regions with poverty), power supply (many underdeveloped regions in Africa), political will due to corruption (Africa), and scalable policies by government. They suggested that governments should take the following steps to overcome these challenges and improve the quality of online education. First, provide a reliable Internet network. Second, ensure sufficient power supply at subsidized rates. Third, establish strong institutions to combat corruption. Fourth, develop flexible government policies that are beneficial to citizens. Finally, raise ICT awareness by providing training to students and teachers to follow the ICT trend.

In their study of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal, Khati and Bhatta (2020) found that the country also faced many challenges in adopting online education during the pandemic, such as poor networking, Internet security, and possible Internet addiction. They argue that physical and human resource development is important for the sustainability of online education, and that improving infrastructure, training teachers and motivating students are exactly the things local stakeholders should focus on to improve the effectiveness of online education. They argue that online education in Nepal should be seen as a complement to traditional education, not a substitute for the traditional classroom, and be given an equal role in the future development of education.

In examining the challenges of online learning experienced by EFL teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mahyoob (2020) found that technical, academic, and communication challenges were the main factors affecting the effectiveness of EFL online learning during the pandemic, and that EFL teachers’ failure to accomplish the expected progress in language learning in the online classroom was the main reason for their dissatisfaction with online learning.

Simamora (2020) argues that governments, especially education authorities, should play a key role in addressing the challenges that learners face in online learning during a pandemic. They emphasize that simply providing students with online learning opportunities is not enough. It is important to develop independent learning skills and readiness to learn and to encourage independent learners with critical thinking skills through online learning.

Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions of Online Learning

Many scholars have explored the effectiveness of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic based on empirical studies of students’ perceptions of online learning and teachers’ perceptions of online learning. Although the results of these studies are inconsistent due to various factors, such as the geographic and academic backgrounds of the subjects involved, the specific timing of the studies, and the concerns of the researchers, they do reflect the reality of online education during pandemics in some countries around the world, particularly developing countries where online learning is underdeveloped.

Syofyan et al. (2020) conducted an online survey of 545 students and 36 faculty members at the University of Andalas, Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results showed that most teachers used Zoom to organize their online learning, with 47.3% of them using Zoom along with other media, most teachers and students felt that online learning could not achieve their attitude learning outcomes and skill learning outcomes, although they agreed that they could achieve knowledge learning outcomes, and more than half of the teachers and students said that online learning was not as effective as traditional learning. They conclude that careful selection of learning activities and media for online learning is key to achieving all aspects of learning outcomes.

Tuma et al. (2021) surveyed 636 students and 81 instructors at Wasit University School of Medicine in Iraq to explore the outcomes of distance medical education during the pandemic, and the researchers found that more than half of the instructors (51%) believed that online education was equal to or better than traditional face-to-face learning, while a smaller percentage of students, about 33%, held the same view. In addition, 51% of instructors and nearly 69% of students experienced more difficulties with online learning, largely due to the availability of technology, the reliability of their Internet connections and their fatigue in learning online. Based on the findings, the researchers acknowledge the important role online learning played in education during the pandemic and suggest that “adequate preparation, good quality audio-visuals and Internet, and student engagement activities” are key factors in improving the quality of education.

Meccawy et al. (2021) explored students’ and faculty members’ perceptions of online learning at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia during the pandemic. The results showed that students participating in the study had more positive perceptions of online learning than faculty members, who held slightly negative perceptions, and that gender had little effect on the difference between faculty and student perceptions of online learning. They conclude that:

improvements and modifications in both technical and non-technical aspects are necessary to achieve a higher level of satisfaction for both students and faculty and to make online distance learning a viable option worthy of further investments in the near future (p. 21).

Nambiar (2020) conducted an online survey on faculty and student perceptions and experiences of online courses among 70 faculty members and 407 college students in Bangalore, India. His findings indicate that “quality and timely interaction between student and professor, technical support availability, structured online class modules, and modifications to accommodate conduction of practical classes” (p. 783) were important factors influencing faculty and students’ satisfaction with online learning. He argues that “establishing a structured and user-friendly environment for online mode of learning” should be the main criterion for facilitating online learning, while “providing adequate technological training to teachers about method of conducting online classes” (p. 792) is a prerequisite for successful implementation of online learning. He argues that the improvement of the quality of online learning in higher education requires the efforts of various service providers, including the support of different colleges and universities.

Post-Pandemic Online Education

After three years of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the end of many pandemic restrictions is in sight (Spencer, 2023). Life is gradually returning to the normalcy that existed before the pandemic broke out. Most of the world’s educational institutions have opened their doors and moved back to traditional education from online learning. However, this does not mean that online education will be useless and replaced by traditional education. There are many good reasons for online education to stay in modern education. For example, it proved to be the only and best alternative to traditional education during the pandemic, providing students with not only a continuous education but also protection from the COVID-19 virus while studying online. More and more scholars are focusing on the implementation and development of online education in the post-pandemic period.

Lockee (2021) argues that the COVID-19 pandemic “could permanently change how education is delivered.” However, Kerres and Buchner (2022) are neutral to this statement. They argue that educational technology is an important tool for the implementation and advancement of online learning. In their study on the impact of the pandemic on education, they present two contradictory views on the role that educational technology will play in in post-pandemic education: a pre-digital view and a post-digital view. The former implies a return to normalcy, while the latter attempts to use the experience of the pandemic for corresponding educational reforms. They agree that the experience of online education during the pandemic provides an opportunity to “rethink education” after the pandemic (Zhao, 2020), but that the future of education depends heavily on how open the education system is to seize this opportunity.

Zhu and Liu (2020) note that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated the development of online learning in higher education in China, and its impact on the education system can provide potential development opportunities. They argue that infrastructures, such as the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, 5G, cloud-based platforms, and other technologies are critical to the development of a new education paradigm that “could represent a shift from traditional, teacher-centered, and lecture-based activities towards more student-centered activities including group activities, discussions, hands-on learning activities, and limited use of traditional lectures” (p. 697). However, achieving such a new paradigm requires “conceptual and philosophical rethinking of the nature of teaching and learning, and the roles and connections of teachers, learners, and materials in post-digital learning communities” (p. 697), in addition to infrastructure readiness.

Xie and Siau (2020) argue that online learning played a key role in education during the pandemic, but that it will not be the only form of education after the pandemic, but rather an integral part of the future of education. This argument echoes Bellini et al.’s (2021) view that the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for the education system to develop a changed educational model in which new and traditional forms of education will work side by side. Paudel (2021) found in his study that online learning can not function effectively in Nepal, although it could be used during the COVID-19 pandemic as an alternative to traditional education. He argues that blended learning would be a more effective and successful form of education in a setting like Nepal. Keshavarz (2020) proposes a “modified version of blended learning in the form of a hybrid campus” (p. 9) that can overcome the shortcomings of both online and traditional learning. This modified blended learning is “flexible, versatile, and adaptable, particularly at times of calamities and disasters” (p. 7) and environmentally friendly. It allows learners to take practical courses in person while taking theoretical courses online. However, the limitation of his model is that it is only applicable in the post-pandemic period.

Conclusion

This literature review paper explores some of the most common issues related to the effectiveness of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several conclusions can be drawn from the results of the literature review. First, the development of online education has varied from country to country around the world. Most of the published articles on the effectiveness of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the articles studied in this paper, come from developing countries. Inadequate accessibility of infrastructure such as computers, ICT gadgets, and Internet networks (Pandey et al.,2021) was one of the most prominent challenges affecting the success of online education in these countries during the pandemic, which increased the difficulties of online education for instructors and learners in these countries (Tuma et al.,2021).

Second, educational technologies, such as online learning platforms, information and communication technologies (ICT), and various online learning tools, are key components of online learning, without which online education would not have been possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. The availability of educational technologies affects not only the implementation and effectiveness of online learning, but also the satisfaction of learners and teachers with the online learning experience during the pandemic (Tuma et al., 2020). Educational technology also plays a key role in the future reform and revolution of education (Hussain et al., 2020; Kerres & Buchner, 2022). Third, teachers’ knowledge, skills and experience in using educational technology for online education is another factor that has a significant impact on the effectiveness of online learning. Even with sound infrastructures and educational technologies, such as online learning platforms and course resources, quality online learning will never be achieved without the proper guidance and assistance from teachers in the online classroom. Providing teachers with adequate technical training on how to conduct online classes with various online learning methods is a top priority to achieve successful online education (Nambiar, 2020). Finally, blended learning can be an ideal complementary education form to traditional learning as well as online learning in the post-pandemic period because it has most of the advantages of both traditional and online learning. The modified blended learning model proposed by Keshavarz (2020) is a good example of this. It can provide students with the most appropriate and effective learning platform to achieve their academic needs through either traditional or online courses. Regardless of the many advantages of blended learning, it cannot replace traditional learning in normal times and online learning in pandemic times.

Online learning has some unique advantages over traditional and blended learning, such as a high degree of flexibility and accessibility, which makes it an irreplaceable form of learning that can keep education systems running during emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore quite necessary to maintain the rapid development momentum of online learning during the pandemic and improve its compatibility with traditional learning after the pandemic. It is foreseeable that the future of education will take a more open form, with traditional learning, blended learning and online learning coexisting and complementing each other harmoniously, with the former two dominating general education in peacetime, and the latter standing out in abnormal times, when traditional classroom learning and blended learning do not work well.

In the post-pandemic period, it is significant to introduce online learning into traditional classroom, which is an important way to improve the efficiency and quality of education, and enhance the resilience and sustainability of education in the future. To achieve a successful combination of online learning and traditional learning, all parties involved have a role to play and should work together. First and foremost, governments should ensure that educational institutions, students and teachers have ready access to the infrastructure and resources needed for online learning. There is a strong need for governments to invest more in the development of educational technologies, online learning resources and learning tools, as they are essential components for achieving effective online learning. For educational institutions, they should be responsible for providing training opportunities for teachers to equip them with the knowledge and skills to implement effective online education. It is recommended that educational institutions should offer free courses on online learning to students to prepare them for online learning that may occur at abnormal times. These online learning experiences and knowledge from the online learning courses will help improve students’ learning outcomes and satisfaction with online learning, while reducing the difficulties and pressure they may experience in online classes. For teachers, they should take the initiative to improve their ability to design online learning instruction, as well as their knowledge and skills in using educational technologies for online teaching, such as online learning platforms, online learning tools and multi-media, which not only helps improve their professional skills, but also reduce the difficulties and challenges in their teaching. For students, they should strive to overcome the challenges and difficulties they may encounter in online courses, such as lack of self-discipline, learning autonomy and motivation, procrastination, online learning fatigue, etc. Since most online learning takes place in the home environment, it is quite important for parents to create a comfortable and distraction-free online learning environment for their children and provide them with the equipment and tools required for online learning, such as an Internet connection, headphones, and microphones.

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