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• Introduction

Characteristics of distance learning

Correspondence schools in the 19th century, behaviourism and constructivism, technological aides to education.

• Web-based courses
• Web-based services
• Open universities
• Academic issues and future directions
• What was education like in ancient Athens?
• How does social class affect education attainment?
• When did education become compulsory?
• What are alternative forms of education?
• Do school vouchers offer students access to better education?

distance learning

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• CORE - Distance Education and the Evolution of Online Learning in the United StatesUnited States
• Pressbooks - Effective Online Learning
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• StateUniversity.com - Distance Learning in Higher Education
• Table Of Contents

distance learning , form of education in which the main elements include physical separation of teachers and students during instruction and the use of various technologies to facilitate student-teacher and student-student communication . Distance learning traditionally has focused on nontraditional students, such as full-time workers, military personnel, and nonresidents or individuals in remote regions who are unable to attend classroom lectures. However, distance learning has become an established part of the educational world, with trends pointing to ongoing growth. In U.S. higher education alone, more than 5.6 million university students were enrolled in at least one online course in the autumn of 2009, up from 1.6 million in 2002. Students of all ages, around the world, were forced into distance learning in early 2020 once the global  coronavirus pandemic  resulted in the widespread closure of many schools.  Videoconferencing software such as  Zoom  gained greatly from this development. Zoom became one of the most popular services of its kind, one of the most downloaded applications worldwide, and a household word. Teaching, and the student-teacher relationship, was fundamentally changed.

An increasing number of universities provide distance learning opportunities. A pioneer in the field is the University of Phoenix , which was founded in Arizona in 1976 and by the first decade of the 21st century had become the largest private school in the world, with more than 400,000 enrolled students. It was one of the earliest adopters of distance learning technology, although many of its students spend some time in classrooms on one of its dozens of campuses in the United States , Canada, and Puerto Rico . A precise figure for the international enrollment in distance learning is unavailable, but the enrollment at two of the largest public universities that heavily utilize distance learning methods gives some indication: in the early 21st century the Indira Gandhi National Open University, headquartered in New Delhi , had an enrollment in excess of 1.5 million students, and the China Central Radio and TV University, headquartered in Beijing , had more than 500,000 students.

Students and institutions embrace distance learning with good reason. Universities benefit by adding students without having to construct classrooms and housing, and students reap the advantages of being able to work where and when they choose. Public-school systems offer specialty courses such as small-enrollment languages and Advanced Placement classes without having to set up multiple classrooms. In addition, homeschooled students gain access to centralized instruction.

Various terms have been used to describe the phenomenon of distance learning. Strictly speaking, distance learning (the student’s activity) and distance teaching (the teacher’s activity) together make up distance education. Common variations include e-learning or online learning, used when the Internet is the medium; virtual learning, which usually refers to courses taken outside a classroom by primary- or secondary-school pupils (and also typically using the Internet); correspondence education, the long-standing method in which individual instruction is conducted by mail; and open learning, the system common in Europe for learning through the “open” university ( see below ).

Four characteristics distinguish distance learning. First, distance learning is by definition carried out through institutions; it is not self-study or a nonacademic learning environment . The institutions may or may not offer traditional classroom-based instruction as well, but they are eligible for accreditation by the same agencies as those employing traditional methods.

Second, geographic separation is inherent in distance learning, and time may also separate students and teachers. Accessibility and convenience are important advantages of this mode of education. Well-designed programs can also bridge intellectual , cultural, and social differences between students.

Third, interactive telecommunications connect individuals within a learning group and with the teacher. Most often, electronic communications, such as e-mail , are used, but traditional forms of communication, such as the postal system , may also play a role. Whatever the medium, interaction is essential to distance education, as it is to any education. The connections of learners, teachers, and instructional resources become less dependent on physical proximity as communications systems become more sophisticated and widely available; consequently, the Internet, mobile phones , and e-mail have contributed to the rapid growth in distance learning.

Finally, distance education, like any education, establishes a learning group, sometimes called a learning community , which is composed of students, a teacher, and instructional resources—i.e., the books, audio, video, and graphic displays that allow the student to access the content of instruction. Social networking on the Internet promotes the idea of community building. On sites such as Facebook and YouTube , users construct profiles, identify members (“friends”) with whom they share a connection, and build new communities of like-minded persons. In the distance learning setting, such networking can enable students’ connections with each other and thereby reduce their sense of isolation.

Early history of distance learning

Geographical isolation from schools and dispersed religious congregations spurred the development of religious correspondence education in the United States in the 19th century. For example, the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly in western New York state began in 1874 as a program for training Sunday school teachers and church workers. From its religious origins, the program gradually expanded to include a nondenominational course of directed home reading and correspondence study. Its success led to the founding of many similar schools throughout the United States in the chautauqua movement .

It was the demand by industry, government, and the military for vocational training , however, that pushed distance learning to new levels. In Europe, mail-order courses had been established by the middle of the 19th century, when the Society of Modern Languages in Berlin offered correspondence courses in French, German, and English. In the United States, companies such as Strayer’s Business College of Baltimore City (now Strayer University), which was founded in Maryland in 1892 and included mail-order correspondence courses, were opened to serve the needs of business employers, especially in the training of women for secretarial duties. Most nonreligious mail-order correspondence courses emphasized instruction in spelling, grammar, business letter composition , and bookkeeping, but others taught everything from developing esoteric mental powers to operating a beauty salon. The clear leader in correspondence course instruction in American higher education at the end of the 19th century was the University of Chicago , where William Rainey Harper employed methods that he had used as director of the Chautauqua educational system for several years starting in 1883.

Early educational theories and technologies

During the first half of the 20th century, the use of educational technology in the United States was heavily influenced by two developing schools of educational philosophy . Behaviourism , led by the American psychologist John B. Watson and later by B.F. Skinner , discounted all subjective mental phenomena (e.g., emotions and mental images) in favour of objective and measurable behaviour. The constructive approach arose from ideas on progressive education advanced by the American philosopher John Dewey and others, who emphasized the education of the “whole child” to achieve intellectual, physical, and emotional growth and argued that learning is best accomplished by having children perform tasks rather than memorize facts. Constructivism, whose leading figure was the French developmental psychologist Jean Piaget , asserted that learning arises from building mental models based on experience. These theories led to different techniques for the use of media in the classroom, with behaviourism concentrating on altering student behaviour and constructivism focusing on process- and experience-based learning.

One of the first technological aides to education was the lantern slide (e.g., the Linnebach lantern ), which was used in the 19th century in chautauqua classes and lyceum schools for adults and in traveling public-lecture tent shows throughout the world to project images on any convenient surface; such visual aides proved particularly useful in educating semiliterate audiences. By the start of the 20th century, learning theories had begun concentrating on visual approaches to instruction, in contrast to the oral recitation practices that still dominated traditional classrooms.

The first significant technological innovation was made by the American inventor Thomas Edison , who devised the tinfoil phonograph in 1877. This device made possible the first language laboratories (facilities equipped with audio or audiovisual devices for use in language learning). After World War I , university-owned radio stations became commonplace in the United States, with more than 200 such stations broadcasting recorded educational programs by 1936.

Edison was also one of the first to produce films for the classroom. Many colleges and universities experimented with educational film production before World War I, and training films were used extensively during the war to educate a diverse and often illiterate population of soldiers in a range of topics from fighting technique to personal hygiene. Improvements in filmmaking, in particular the ability to produce “talkies,” were put to use just before and during World War II for technical training and propaganda purposes. While the most artistically acclaimed propaganda production may have been Triumph of the Will (1935), one of a series of films made by Leni Riefenstahl during the 1930s for the German Nazi government, similar films were produced by all the major belligerents . In the United States the army commissioned Hollywood film director Frank Capra to produce seven films, the widely acclaimed series Why We Fight (1942–45), in order to educate American soldiers on what was at stake.

Instructional television courses began to be developed in the 1950s, first at the University of Iowa . By the 1970s community colleges all across the United States had created courses for broadcast on local television stations. Various experiments in computer-based education also began in the 1950s, such as programmed or computer-assisted instruction , in which computers are used to present learning materials consisting of text, audio, and video and to evaluate students’ progress. Much of the early research was conducted at IBM , where the latest theories in cognitive science were incorporated in the application of educational technology. The next major advancement in educational technology came with the linking of computers through the Internet , which enabled the development of modern distance learning.

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With Online Learning, ‘Let’s Take a Breath and See What Worked and Didn’t Work’

The massive expansion of online higher education created a worldwide laboratory to finally assess its value and its future.

By Jon Marcus

This article is part of our Learning special report about how the pandemic has continued to change how we approach education.

Kameshwari Shankar watched for years as college and university courses were increasingly taught online instead of face to face, but without a definitive way of understanding which students benefited the most from them, or what if anything they learned.

As an associate professor of economics at City College in New York, Dr. Shankar knew that one of the most important requirements of scientific research was often missing from studies of the effectiveness of online higher education: a control group.

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MINI REVIEW article

Massive distance education: barriers and challenges in shifting to a complete online learning environment.

• 1 Program of Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan
• 2 Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

The global pandemic has dramatically changed how the world functions and impacted all sectors of society including all educational institutions. Government and educators respond with immediate online teaching and learning for all students. Massive distance education has been drawn into the picture to provide non-stop learning in most countries worldwide. This study focuses on examining different orders of barriers educators have encountered during the Covid-19 pandemic. The barriers to massive online teaching and learning included the first-order barrier (technological or external barrier), the second-order barrier (internal barrier or teachers' and parents' beliefs), the third-order barrier (design thinking barrier), and the 2.5th order barrier (the classroom management barrier). Both teachers and students are suffering from unstable or limited internet connectivity and it directly hinders students' rights in the massive online education. Teachers are facing the need for sudden pedagogical redesign while parents are enduring the burden of providing all kinds of support for their children's online learning at home. Some learners are experiencing videoconferencing fatigue and struggling with overwhelming resources and an excessive amount of technology time. This study also identifies a group of forgotten learners, the videoconferencing refugees, who have limited access to the Internet and lost their learning opportunities. From a global perspective, shifting to massive online education may be possible with all four orders of barriers being overcome.

Introduction

“Lockdown” and “Coronavirus (Covid-19)” have been two of the most popular searched terms on the Internet since 2020. The year 2020 has been an unusual and extremely difficult time for the entire world due to the major outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic ( Spinelli et al., 2020 ). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there have been more than 300 million confirmed Covid cases globally prior to January 2022. The critical situation has also impacted the educational settings and brought in many unexpected challenges for educators and learners around the world ( Dhawan, 2020 ; Eradze et al., 2021 ; Muthuprasad et al., 2021 ). Modern crises such as global warming, pollution, and pandemic, all of which may lead to education fall off in a high-risk society ( Pietrocola et al., 2021 ). Unexpectedly, this global pandemic has affected our living conditions dramatically and changed how we function every day ( Spinelli et al., 2020 ). The sudden dramatic change leaves no time and space for traditional classroom teaching and learning ( Kapasia et al., 2020 ). School across from K12 to universities around the world such as Australian universities faced a sudden shift to online teaching and learning during the pandemic ( Smith and Kaya, 2021 ). All stakeholders need to keep up with many uncertainties of the pandemic, including policymakers, educators, parents, and learners will now have to quickly respond to teaching, learning, and collaborating online through different online learning platforms and tools ( Gonzalez et al., 2020 ; Junus et al., 2021 ). During the pandemic, all learning modes are shifted online due to the lockdown of campuses and schools ( Dhawan, 2020 ; Asanov et al., 2021 ; Muthuprasad et al., 2021 ). Challenges, barriers, and potential concerns appeared when it comes to shifting all teaching and learning to an online mode. As a result, there is an urgent need for teachers and educators to adopt new ways of teaching ( Harsha and Bai, 2020 ; Junus et al., 2021 ).

Massive Distance Education

Distance education across different regions and countries in the world has been utilized to fulfill a small student population's learning need. Students who are unable to attend face-to-face classes can participate in distance education courses ( Beldarrain, 2006 ). Distance education, clearly, should rely on technology-assisted instruction or online education ( Beldarrain, 2006 ). In online education, teachers and individual students interact with each other in online learning environments using the Internet and technology ( Beldarrain, 2006 ), some common technology that supports learning are mobile phones, laptops, tablets, computers, etc. ( Singh and Thurman, 2019 ). Different from distance education which offers small-scale learners experience in the same class at the same time, massive online open courses (MOOCs) intend to offer opportunities and facilitate learning outside of the classroom settings ( Kop, 2011 ), meaning an unlimited number of learners can attend the same course at any time globally ( Grover et al., 2013 ; Joia and Lorenzo, 2021 ).

Now, as all learners are required to attend classes online worldwide, the status quo becomes a massive distance education setting during the pandemic. Unlike MOOCs that offer certain courses online, thousands of daily routine K-12 classes and higher education courses are pushed online entirely during the pandemic, meaning a remarkable number of learners are currently participating in a massive distance education environment worldwide. With the increasing need for online technology-assisted teaching and learning, teachers and learners encounter some barriers and challenges. Reimers and Schleicher (2020) pointed out the need for redesign in all aspects including the roles of teachers and students, curriculum design, classroom activities, assessment, as well as support for student wellbeing. Furthermore, to maintain non-stop learning in basic education, school districts and universities have considered and included online learning tools such as Zoom or Google Meet ( Alameri et al., 2020 ; Rahiem, 2020 ; Serhan, 2020 ; Muthuprasad et al., 2021 ).

Online learning provides learners and faculty members with another way to maintain education during the pandemic ( Olivares et al., 2021 ). Many instructors in higher education have switched to online teaching and focused on technology integration for students' learning at home in most countries during the pandemic ( Alameri et al., 2020 ). With online learning, the government and school districts hope that students can attend classes without being exposed to any potential viruses and maintain proper social distances ( Toquero, 2020 ; UNESCO, 2020 ). However, there are some potential difficulties and uncertainties when all teachers and students are forced to learn in the same online mode ( Hodges et al., 2020 ; Kapasia et al., 2020 ; Zalat et al., 2021 ). Educators, clearly, encounter barriers and challenges in online teaching and learning settings ( Reimers and Schleicher, 2020 ; Engzell et al., 2021 ).

Barriers to Technology Integration in Education

Ertmer (1999) proposed a framework elaborating on first-order barriers and second-order barriers for technology integration in education. The first-order barrier includes some external factors that may constrain classroom technology integration, such as lack of adequate access, time, training, and institutional support. These factors are extrinsic to teachers. Furthermore, the author added the second-order barrier, which is more intrinsic to teachers, includes teachers' beliefs in pedagogy, beliefs in technology integration, and teachers' willingness to change ( Tsai and Chai, 2012 ); these are teachers' personal beliefs that may promote or burden the implementation of technology integration in classrooms. In addition, Tsai and Chai (2012) proposed the teachers' design thinking as the third-order barrier to technology integration. Tsai and Chai (2012) further explained that teachers can use design thinking to redesign lessons and offer creative activities to better facilitate different groups of learners' needs.

Re-Examine the Barriers to Massive Distance Education

As shown in previous studies, teachers face three orders of barriers in classroom technology implementation. Now, it is time to re-examine the three orders of barriers in massive distance education settings, the first-order barrier—technology integration (extrinsic barrier), the second-order barrier—teachers' personal beliefs (intrinsic barrier), and the third-order barrier—design thinking.

Teachers may run into a variety of difficulties and obstacles as they try to integrate technology into their teaching ( Ertmer, 1999 ). Ertmer (1999) categorized the barriers in two different orders. The first-order barrier in technology integration in classrooms is extrinsic, both preservice and in-service teachers may run into first-order barriers in resources such as available technology, sufficient training, planning time, and relevant administrative support ( Ertmer, 1999 ; Lin et al., 2014 ). Teachers' technological skills directly impact the effectiveness and quality of online teaching ( Danchikov et al., 2021 ). Teachers are also reporting barriers to the lack of access to the internet and devices in e-learning implementation ( Almanthari et al., 2020 ). Moreover, teachers do not have sufficient experience in a fully online learning environment ( Lase et al., 2021 ).

In modern education, students' technological skills become essential in obtaining the learning resources ( Rasheed et al., 2020 ). Danchikov et al. (2021) pointed out that students' technological skills affect the effectiveness of their online learning. Limited internet access directly impacts the parents who work from home and homeschool children during the pandemic ( Alba and Kang, 2020 ; Stelitano et al., 2020 ). Lack of proper devices and stable internet connectivity hinder e-learning at home ( Almanthari et al., 2020 ). In addition, parents have the extra burden to ensure students have all the learning materials ready and set up the technology for their children to attend online classes ( Iivari et al., 2020 ). In the current situation, parents are also experiencing the burden and barrier of providing and maintaining proper online learning technology for their children ( Abuhammad, 2020 ; Aliyyah et al., 2020 ; Garbe et al., 2020 ). Students' participation in online learning activities is interrupted due to deficient internet connectivity in rural areas and the slow internet connection frustrates the learners while trying to access the learning platforms and materials ( Muthuprasad et al., 2021 ). Students find it challenging to stay connected and learn online from home ( Rahiem, 2020 ). Therefore, immediately intervention strategies should be considered to help strengthen the communication and collaboration between schools and parents to better facilitate children's learning ( Aliyyah et al., 2020 ; Manca and Meluzzi, 2020 ). The factors mentioned above are categorized as first-order barriers.

The second-order barrier is intrinsic, including factors such as teachers' personal beliefs about technology integration, willingness to change, and teachers' pedagogical beliefs ( Ertmer, 1999 ; Tsai and Chai, 2012 ). Unlike traditional classrooms without technology implementation, teachers may be dealing with multiple changes in teaching methods, assessment, and management styles ( Kerr, 1996 ). These second-order barriers are more likely to hinder classroom technology integration as they are deeply rooted in teachers' personal beliefs ( Dede, 1998 ; Ertmer, 1999 ). Extensive research has also been done in addressing teachers' beliefs and conceptions of the technology-enhanced learning environment ( Ellis et al., 2006 ; González, 2009 , 2010 ; Sherman and Howard, 2012 ; Schweighofer and Ebner, 2015 ; Svihla et al., 2015 ; Saxena, 2017 ; Durff and Carter, 2019 ).

During the pandemic, parents and teachers become the essential support for students to foster a proper attitude toward online learning ( Manca and Meluzzi, 2020 ). Parents are having a difficult time becoming teachers at home due to their inability to provide effective distance learning support for their children ( Lase et al., 2021 ). As participants, parents' and students' intrinsic beliefs about online learning may also affect the learning outcome. Parents' assistance in the massive online education becomes crucial; however, they may not see the positive learning outcome of online learning. Students are dealing with learning challenges with limited non-verbal cues in an online learning environment ( Khalil et al., 2020 ). It becomes challenging for learners to keep learning and stay connected in a comfortable online learning environment ( Muthuprasad et al., 2021 ). In Scull et al. (2020) 's engagement study of Australian university students, they found that students need more guidance on how to ask the right questions and seek help in an online learning environment. In taking distance education courses, major concerns such as time management, motivation, and language skills should be taken into account ( Fidalgo et al., 2020 ). As a result, teachers and school administration at all education levels should seek possible ways to overcome the second-order barrier to further assist the parents and students. These are the crucial factors in the second-order barrier.

In the past, researchers developed very few platforms for totally online teaching. The learning systems and platforms are easier to implement if they could be integrated with traditional face-to-face instruction before the pandemic. Most teachers did not have rich and adequate experiences of totally online education or teaching. Educators are ill-prepared in transitioning into the online teaching setting ( Rahiem, 2020 ). Traditionally, technology integration instruction is designed as a part of face-to-face teaching. Teachers who have experience in teaching in online settings do not encounter as many obstacles as teachers who have none or minimal online teaching experience. Dhawan (2020) stated that teachers will need to find new ways to provide meaningful learning and engage the students in the online setting. Tsai and Chai (2012) pointed out the third-order barrier—the design of teaching strategies. The authors discussed the possibilities of achieving successful technology integration after the first and second-order barriers are being overcome. As the teachers have sufficient technology with adequate pedagogical beliefs, they may still encounter the third-order barrier, which is the need to redesign learning materials to cater to different learners' needs in a completely online setting.

Design thinking skills in education help promote creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills ( Caruso, 2011 ; Scheer et al., 2012 ; Watson, 2015 ; Henriksen et al., 2017 ; Lambert et al., 2021 ; Nguyen et al., 2021 ). Design thinking is a powerful process to solve problems collaboratively ( Deitte and Omary, 2019 ; Panke, 2019 ). Tsai and Chai (2012) indicated that design thinking intends to make changes and solve current issues with a creative mindset. With all being said, teachers may face different challenges when it comes to design thinking in online settings ( Vallis and Redmond, 2021 ). Teachers need design thinking skills to overcome the potential challenges of online teaching ( Vallis and Redmond, 2021 ). Muthuprasad et al. (2021) indicated the key factor of a successful online class is interactivity. In addition, they explained that constant meaningful activities help engage the learners in online classes. In massive online education, teachers must create a collaborative online learning environment to enhance the effectiveness of massive online education. Teachers with design thinking skills act as facilitators to provide students with creative learning experiences and guide students to deal with challenges ( Noweski et al., 2012 ; Lambert et al., 2021 ). The design thinking skill is the third-order barrier.

Apart from all three orders of barriers, Chen et al. (2022) found the 2.5th order barriers: classroom management for totally online teaching. The authors studied the potential barriers to teachers' use of mobile devices in classrooms. They added that when using the mobiles devices to attend online classes, teachers found it challenging to engage the students and maintain their attention. Students were often distracted by other tablet applications or accidently clicked on the wrong button that led to other matters. This would require the teachers to use a different set of classroom management skills specifically for online teaching. They further explained that as all three barriers are overcome, the barrier of classroom management may still affect teachers' willingness to integrate technology in their classrooms. One of the biggest concerns for K-12 teachers and higher education instructors is that they may not have sufficient educational knowledge for online teaching ( Ching et al., 2018 ). Ghateolbahra and Samimi (2021) indicated teachers need to put in extra effort in dealing with online classroom management to provide meaningful learning. In the totally online teaching environment, classroom management becomes another crucial factor that affects the effectiveness of online teaching and learning. Classroom management in the online education environment leads to a new view in primary schools ( Lathifah et al., 2020 ). Teachers can address the online classroom management challenge by setting up comfortable relationships with the students, paying extra attention to in-class disruption, and having inclusion plans for students with special needs ( Baker et al., 2016 ). Constant monitoring of student practice and effective feedback are also important in an online learning environment ( Prilop et al., 2021 ). The classroom management strategy is the 2.5th order barrier.

Videoconferencing Fatigue and Videoconferencing Refugees

When it comes to online learning challenges, the term “digital divide” was highly discussed in the United States and in Europe ( Van Dijk and Hacker, 2003 ). Hargittai (2003) stated that the digital divide is a social issue representing the gap between those who have Internet access and those who do not have any. Rogers (2001) also discussed the extent to which individuals become a disadvantaged group of people in society due to the lack of access to the Internet. During the current pandemic, as all students are pushed to a massive distance learning environment, similar to the digital divide issue, it is unfortunate to see a countless number of students are losing their learning opportunities and falling behind the curriculum in massive distance education. Currently, many countries face the challenges of not having reliable Internet connectivity or sufficient digital devices ( Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021 ). Some students are facing the problem of restricted or no electricity ( Lathifah et al., 2020 ). On top of internet connectivity concerns, the students are struggling with issues such as technical problems, utilizing online learning strategies, social isolation, stress, etc. ( Elmer et al., 2020 ; Babicka-Wirkus et al., 2021 ).

As all teaching and learning shift online entirely during the pandemic, an increasing number of students are required to join the online learning environment ( Serhan, 2020 ). Now, with campus lockdown, many higher education institutions and teachers use common online video conferencing tools such as Google Meets, Microsoft Team, or Zoom ( Almendingen et al., 2021 ; Jindal et al., 2021 ). Higher education institutions have moved all learning online and utilized web conferencing tools for course content delivery ( Bullock et al., 2021 ). Serhan (2020) states that the use of video conferencing tools is not new in the education field. At the university level, videoconferencing was used during office hours to answer students' questions and concerns regarding course content ( Danchikov et al., 2021 ). During the pandemic, more research attention has been given to the use of video conferencing tools, more specifically, the use of Zoom in K12 to higher education classes ( Serhan, 2020 ; Singhal, 2020 ; Joia and Lorenzo, 2021 ; Wiyono et al., 2021 ). To facilitate learning at home, some school administrators and teachers provide computers, tablets, and Internet access for students to learn online and get through the transition ( Serhan, 2020 ). For students who have sufficient necessary resources at home, they have stable Internet connectivity, computers, laptops, tablets, and even smartphones. These students are the somewhat fortunate ones who have abundant resources. However, these resources can be overwhelming and sometimes disrupting when it is all combined with the online classroom. With the sudden dramatic growth of screen time and intense online learning schedule, the situation can go out of control and easily lead to videoconferencing fatigue for learners in higher education.

Bailenson (2021) defined “Zoom Fatigue” as an exhausting situation where the use of Zoom video conferencing increased dramatically during the pandemic. Fosslien and Duffy (2020) further explain that the intense focus on verbal conversations makes Zoom users debilitating. In K-12 education, all learners have been learning and completing assignments online during the pandemic ( García and Weiss, 2020 ; Serhan, 2020 ) and there is no foreseeable end date to the current situation. Dorn et al. (2021) point out that students struggle with multiple difficulties in class scheduling, technical issues, and Zoom fatigue. Notably, students are unprepared and overwhelmed with the given information and they may not have all the necessary technological skills to navigate around the online learning platforms. Bullock et al. (2021) mentioned the overuse of technology could lead to extra stress both mentally and physically as more higher education institutions move to online learning. In addition, learners are experiencing a lack of physical interaction such as body gestures and facial expressions or responses in Zoom classes ( Peper et al., 2021 ).

Many students are facing troubles such as attending and logging on to online classes, uploading assignments, getting used to the functions to share their screens or express their opinions, etc. ( Goldstein et al., 2020 ). Moreover, student engagement and learning assessment are unclear in remote learning during the pandemic ( Asanov et al., 2021 ). This group of learners suffer from the overwhelming online learning environment and are potentially experiencing videoconferencing fatigue. Furthermore, they have to stay online all day without any social interaction with their peers ( García and Weiss, 2020 ). Ferri et al. (2020) identified similar situations as social challenges where the students have no social interaction with their teacher or other students and they also lack support from their parents or caretakers who might be working from home in the same space. There is an urgent need for an appropriate and effective remote teaching and learning plan for both teachers and students.

Educators face the fast change into emergent remote teaching and teachers need to rely on educational tools such as computers/ laptops, the Internet, online platforms, social media, etc. to offer a sufficient online learning environment ( Svrcek et al., 2022 ). Besides the challenges and barriers teachers encounter, the student's access to technology at home also affects their learning quality ( Muthuprasad et al., 2021 ). Other than learners who are receiving overwhelming resources and experiencing videoconferencing fatigue, there is another group of learners who are dealing with limited or no access to necessary technology tools or have insufficient internet connectivity and limited access to educational resources ( Asanov et al., 2021 ; Lai and Widmar, 2021 ). Manca and Meluzzi (2020) pointed out there is a group of underserved students who do not have any access to the necessary technology to attend online classes. In contrast to learners who are experiencing zoom or videoconferencing fatigue, the authors of this paper would call this group of struggling learners the videoconferencing refugees .

Videoconferencing refugees, coined by this paper, are the forgotten ones during the pandemic, both emotionally and academically. Unfortunately, they are not just being left behind; they are being forgotten in the online learning environment. As the pandemic transformed learning, the video conferencing refugees lost their fair chances to learn or participate in any learning activities due to insufficient technology, digital resources, or Internet connectivity. Padilla Rodríguez et al. (2021 ) pointed out that rural area students are suffering from unstable internet connectivity, limited electricity, and unqualified teacher in the online learning environments. The learners do not have any opportunities to continue learning even if they wanted to.

During the pandemic, students from low socioeconomic families are facing the challenge of not having a stable internet connection, proper technology, or parent support ( Rahiem, 2020 ; Azubuike et al., 2021 ). Learners deal with different levels of online learning difficulties while trying to learn at home ( Padilla Rodríguez et al., 2021 ). Some school districts are providing limited hotspot services for families in rural areas ( Lai and Widmar, 2021 ). The achievement gap among the disadvantaged students widened during the pandemic ( Dorn et al., 2021 ). Kapasia et al. (2020) state that some students are now dealing with an unfavorable learning environment due to the pandemic. From computer technical skills to understanding the academic content in online settings, they have no support and are left with no other choices to maintain basic education; hence, the feeling of isolation and anxiety increases as the lockdown period extends. Online learning can be overwhelming and can lead to extra potential stress on the students ( Shanahan et al., 2020 ). In Shanahan et al.'s study of 768 participants, their results indicate an increasing level of emotional distress during the pandemic. Teachers are reporting that their students are not logging into the online sessions, especially the lower-income students and there is a clear increase in student absences rate in the United States ( Goldstein et al., 2020 ). Videoconferencing refugees do not have stable internet connectivity and access to adequate learning resources or technology simply lose their fair chance to learn as much as their peers. As mentioned above, there is a remarkable number of students who are now required to learn online worldwide. Other than instructions given by their teachers, the students, and the parents are fighting the battle alone at home.

Overall Challenges in COVID

There are multiple aspects of challenges all stakeholders need to deal with during and after the pandemic. In massive distance education, teachers in K-12 and higher education are facing totally online teaching and lesson redesigning obstacles. Teachers need to find the appropriate ways of expression through the online manner and the usage of different modalities to enrich teaching or course materials. The teaching materials (readings, videos, exercises, etc.) become an influential factor as students are spending more time reading and reviewing the lesson materials on their own at home ( Rapanta et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, the use of various online platforms or the fear of monopolies of certain platforms may affect the quality of totally online teaching and learning. The different platforms offer different interactions among various parties ( Kennedy, 2020 ). K12 to higher education teachers need to know how to effectively use online tools, systems, or modules developed before in such a massive distance education setting. In addition, educators can use new technologies (such as automatic analysis) to detect students' engagement, boredom, frustration, success, or failure in learning. Another challenge is the course redesign for skill-based or internship courses. Educators will have to find ways to accommodate students' learning in skill-based courses in the massive distance education setting. For the skill-based courses, instructors may incorporate immersive virtual reality (VR) as a possible solution to ensure meaningful learning takes place in massive distance education. VR offers faculty and students a meaningful and reality-informed learning experience ( Schott and Marshall, 2021 ). Khalil et al. (2020) mentioned the use of virtual simulation technologies can facilitate clinical practice for medical students. The group chat application is used in sharing information and collaborating globally during the pandemic in medical education; virtual learning can also benefit the fellow-in-training (FIT) in multiple medical areas with proper planning for its implementation ( Almarzooq et al., 2020 ).

As for the learner challenges in massive distance education settings, they may face the expression challenges in using various tools of verbal, written, or visual representations. They will also need extra guidance to reach fluent communication through different modalities such as text, verbal, facial expression, social media, etc. In massive distance education settings, students' self-regulation in both synchronous and asynchronous modes becomes another issue for teachers and parents. Parents' concerns, opinions, and time management toward massive distance education should not be overlooked. In addition, school districts and parents need to consider the investment in the infrastructure of massive distance education and the technical support at different levels including for learners, teachers, schools, and parents. Overall, the quality of massive distance education and online learning should be reexamined.

Further Thoughts in Global Perspectives

As more vaccines are given to citizens worldwide, perhaps we will be seeing the end of this Covid pandemic; yet, will life go back to normal or will this be a constant change? It is time to consider possible ways to overcome the challenging and overwhelming online learning environment to avoid and decrease the level of videoconferencing fatigue. In the transition to massive online education, how do we move forward in higher education? Engzell et al. (2021) mentioned the pandemic has brought significant impact and concerns in students' learning. In their study of national data of The Netherlands students ( n ≈ 350,000), they found that learning from home students make minimal or nearly no learning progress, especially the disadvantaged students. The disadvantaged students are at risk while coping with learning from home. Furthermore, the quality of learning is being impacted without thorough online teaching and learning planning. After the technological and pedagogical barriers are being overcome with proper online classroom management strategies and appropriate design thinking, the quality of massive online education could be raised to a satisfactory level. To build on the pandemic online teaching experience in higher education, we can possibly make extensive use of all the online learning data collected during the pandemic in the massive distance education to provide more comprehensive support for precision education. The collected data may be studied to improve the quality of massive online education for colleges and universities. As we move along, it is important to keep in mind that videoconferencing refugees in all education levels, from K-12 to university levels should not be held back or forgotten. What will online teaching be like in the near future for higher education institutions? What will online learning be like in the near future for all learners? With all being said, more research should be done to provide a full scope of e-pedagogy in response to such a global crisis.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

This work was financially supported by the Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) from the Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan and Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (Grant numbers: MOST108-2511-H-003-038-MY3 and MOST 109-2511-H-003-013-MY3).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: massive distance education, barriers, videoconferencing fatigue, videoconferencing refugee, online learning, fully online learning

Citation: Yeh C-Y and Tsai C-C (2022) Massive Distance Education: Barriers and Challenges in Shifting to a Complete Online Learning Environment. Front. Psychol. 13:928717. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.928717

Received: 26 April 2022; Accepted: 30 May 2022; Published: 23 June 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Yeh and Tsai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Ching-Yi Yeh, tracyyeh420@gmail.com ; Chin-Chung Tsai, tsaicc@ntnu.edu.tw

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 20 May 2020

Students’ perceptions on distance education: A multinational study

• Patricia Fidalgo 1 ,
• Joan Thormann 2 ,
• Oleksandr Kulyk 3 &
• José Alberto Lencastre 4  

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education volume  17 , Article number:  18 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Many universities offer Distance Education (DE) courses and programs to address the diverse educational needs of students and to stay current with advancing technology. Some Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) that do not offer DE find it difficult to navigate through the steps that are needed to provide such courses and programs. Investigating learners’ perceptions, attitudes and willingness to try DE can provide guidance and recommendations for IHEs that are considering expanding use of DE formats. A survey was distributed to undergraduate students in Portugal, UAE and Ukraine. The results of this pilot study showed that in all three countries, students’ major concerns about such programs were time management, motivation, and English language skills. Although students were somewhat apprehensive many indicated they were interested in taking DE courses. Six recommendations informed by interpretation of students’ responses and the literature, are offered to assist institutions who want to offer DE as part of their educational strategy.

Introduction

The World Wide Web has made information access and distribution of educational content available to a large fraction of the world’s population and helped to move Distance Education (DE) to the digital era. DE has become increasingly common in many universities worldwide (Allen & Seaman, 2017 ). Nonetheless, there are still many universities that do not provide this opportunity because it is not part of their institutional culture. As DE becomes more prevalent, countries and Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) that do not provide DE courses will need to look at this option to retain and expand their student population. (Keegan, 1994 ; Nakamura, 2017 ).

In order to develop such programs, it is useful to determine if students are receptive to taking such online courses and are prepared to do so. This study addresses students’ perceptions and their interest in DE. In addition, it provides a comparative analysis across three countries whose IHEs do not have extensive offerings in DE. The results of this research provide some strategies to encourage and support students to take DE courses.

Literature review

A seminal article by Keegan ( 1980 ) presents key aspects of DE. Some of the elements are: physical separation of teacher and learner, learning occurs in the context of an educational institution, technical media are used, teacher and learner communicate, face to face meetings are possible, and an industrial model of providing education is used. More recently varying definitions of DE seem to be based on the perspective of various educators and to reflect the educational culture of each country and IHE. However, some common descriptors seem to be accepted by most stakeholders in the field. Distance education is an educational experience where instructors and learners are separated in time and space (Keegan, 2002 ) which means it can happen away from an academic institution and can lead to a degree or credential (Gunawardena, McIsaac, & Jonassen, 2008 ).

Although there are different types of DE, this research focuses on online learning. The following types of online learning will be investigated: synchronous, asynchronous, blended, massive online open courses (MOOC), and open schedule online courses. In synchronous instruction, teachers and learners meet (usually online) for a session at a predetermined time. According to Watts ( 2016 ) live streaming video and/or audio are used for synchronous interaction. Although videoconferencing allows participants to see each other this is not considered a face-to-face interaction because of the physical separation (Keegan, 1980 ).

Asynchronous instruction means that teachers and learners do not have synchronous sessions and that students have access to course content through the Internet at any time they want or need. Communication among the participants occurs mainly through email and online forums and is typically moderated by the instructor (Watts, 2016 ). According to Garrison ( 2000 ) “Asynchronous collaborative learning may well be the defining technology of the postindustrial era of distance education.” (p.12) Yet another type of DE is blended learning (BL). Garrison and Kanuka ( 2004 ) define BL as combining face-to-face classroom time with online learning experiences. Although it is not clear as to how much time is allocated to online in the blended model “the real test of blended learning is the effective integration of the two main components (face-to-face and Internet technology) such that we are not just adding on to the existing dominant approach or method.” (p.97) In the BL format different teaching strategies and instructional technology can be used to help individuals who have different learning styles, needs and interests (Tseng & Walsh Jr., 2016 ).

Another type of DE is MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses). This format was first introduced in 2006 and offers distributed open online courses that are available without cost to a very large number of participants (Cormier, McAuley, Siemens, & Stewart, 2010 ). MOOCs origins can be traced to the Open Access Initiative in 2002 which advocates sharing knowledge freely through the Internet. By providing educational opportunities MOOCs can address the increasing demand for training and education (Zawacki-Richter & Naidu, 2016 ). Finally, in open schedule online courses students work asynchronously with all the materials being provided digitally. Although there are deadlines for submitting assignments, students working at their own pace have some independence as to when they do their coursework (Campus Explorer, 2019 ).

There are advantages and disadvantages in taking DE courses. Some of the advantages are self-paced study, time and space flexibility, time saving (no commute between home and school) and the fact that a distance learning course often costs less. Disadvantages include a sense of isolation, the struggle with staying motivated, lack of face-to-face interaction, difficulty in getting immediate feedback, the need for constant and reliable access to technology, and occasionally some difficulty with accreditation (De Paepe, Zhu, & Depryck, 2018 ; Lei & Gupta, 2010 ; Venter, 2003 ; Zuhairi, Wahyono, & Suratinah, 2006 ).

Most of the literature concerning student perception of DE courses, both blended and entirely online, involves students who have enrolled in online courses. Some articles address comparisons of perceptions between face-to-face and online students regarding DE (Daniels & Feather, 2002 ; Dobbs, del Carmen, & Waid-Lindberg, 2017 ; Hannay & Newvine, 2006 ; Lanier, 2006 ). Additional studies address adult and undergraduate students and cover many aspects of the online experience (Dobbs et al., 2017 ; Horspool & Lange, 2012 ; Seok, DaCosta, Kinsell, & Tung, 2010b , a ). However, little, if any research has been conducted that only addresses perceptions of students who live in countries in which few IHEs offer online courses.

In a study comparing online and face-to-face learning, Horspool and Lange ( 2012 ) found that students chose to take online courses to avoid travel time to class and scheduling problems. A majority of both face-to-face and online students did not experience technological issues. Both groups also found that communication with the instructor was adequate. Online students indicated that instructor response time to questions was prompt. By contrast online students perceived peer communication as occurring much less often. Course satisfaction was comparable for both formats (Horspool & Lange, 2012 ). Responses to another survey concerning online and traditional course formats found that students’ reasons for taking online courses included flexibility to accommodate work and family schedules, the ability to avoid commuting to the university and more online courses being available to them (Dobbs et al., 2017 ). Both online and traditional students agreed that traditional courses were easier, and they learned more in that format. They also concurred that online courses required more effort. Experienced online students indicated that the quality of their courses was good while traditional students who had never taken an online course felt that the quality of online courses was lower.

There is additional research that focuses on students including those enrolled in community colleges, MOOCs, blended learning as well as adult learners. Community college students’ and instructors’ perceptions of effectiveness of online courses were compared by Seok et al. ( 2010b , a ). The researchers focused on pedagogical characteristics (management, Universal Design for Learning, interaction, teaching design and content) and technical features (interface, navigation and support). In addition, responses were examined based on various aspects of the subjects’ demographics. Two surveys with 99 items were distributed electronically. One survey was for instructors and the other for students. In general, instructors and students indicated that teaching and learning online was effective. Female students responded more positively to most questions concerning effectiveness, and instructors also found it more positive (Seok et al., 2010b , a ).

Students who enrolled in a MOOC were motivated to take other courses in this format based on their perception that it was useful for achieving their goals. In addition, their motivation was high if the course was posted on a platform that was easy to use (Aharony & Bar-Ilan, 2016 ). This study also found that as students proceeded through the course, they gained confidence.

Blended learning was examined by Kurt and Yildirim ( 2018 ) to determine student satisfaction and what they considered to be important features of the blended format. The results indicated that the Turkish students who participated, almost unanimously felt that BL was beneficial and that their own role and the instructors’ role was central to their satisfaction. The authors stated, “the prominent components in the process have been identified as face-to-face lessons, the features of online course materials, LMS used, design-specific activities, process-based measurement and evaluation, student-student interaction and out-of-class sharing respectively.” (p. 439) DE has a growth potential and offers the opportunity to reach many people (Fidalgo, 2012 ), hence it can be used as a technique for mass education (Perraton, 2008 ). According to Perraton ( 2008 ) DE can be adapted to the needs of current and previous generations who did not complete their education. DE can also reach individuals who live in remote locations and do not have the means to attend school.

Methodology

Study goals.

The goal of this pilot study is to examine what undergraduate students’ perceptions are concerning DE and their willingness to enroll in this type of course. This study focuses on three countries that do not offer extensive DE accredited programs. By comparing three countries with similar DE profiles, commonalties and differences that are relevant and useful can be found. When the IHEs from these countries decide or have the conditions to move towards DE, the results of this study may help them adapt this format to their particular context and students’ needs. Results may also help IHEs plan their strategy for offering online courses to current and future students and attract prospective students who otherwise would not be able to enroll in the face-to-face courses that are available.

Research questions

Have undergraduate students taken an online course previously?

What are undergraduate students’ perceptions of distance education?

What are the reasons for undergraduate students to enroll/not enroll is distance education courses?

What preparation do undergraduate students feel they need to have before taking distance education courses?

What is the undergraduate students’ receptivity towards enrolling in distance education courses?

What types of distance education would undergraduate students be interested in taking?

This research was conducted at IHEs in three countries (Portugal, Ukraine and UAE). A description of each country’s sociodemographic and technological use provides a context for this study.

Portugal, a country located at the western end of the European continent, has a resident population of just over 10 million people (Instituto Nacional de Estatistica, 2019 ). Data collected by Instituto Nacional de Estatistica in 2019 indicated that almost 81% of households in Portugal had Internet access at home. According to the Portuguese National Statistical Institute ( 2019 ), the rate of Internet use by the adult population is about 76%. Among this population, people who attend or have completed secondary and higher education have a higher percentage of Internet use (98%) (Instituto Nacional de Estatistica, 2019 ).

The most used devices to access the Internet are smartphones and laptops. Regarding computer tasks, the most frequent ones are copying and moving files and folders and transferring files from the computer to other devices (PORDATA - Base de Dados Portugal Contemporâneo, 2017 ).

Among Internet users, 80% use social networks, which is a higher percentage than the European Union (EU) average. Mobile Internet access (outside the home and workplace and on portable devices) is 84% and maintains a strong growth trend (Instituto Nacional de Estatistica, 2019 ).

Ukraine is one of the post-soviet countries located in Eastern Europe and it strives to be integrated in economic and political structures of the EU. The current population of the country is 42 million. Despite the low incomes of many Ukrainians, modern technological devices are widespread among the population. The State Statistics Service of Ukraine ( 2019 ) reported that there were 26 million Internet subscribers in the country in the beginning of 2019. However, Ukrainians do not have a high level of digital literacy yet. According to the Digital Transformation Ministry of Ukraine (Communications Department of the Secretariat of the CMU, 2019 ), almost 38% of Ukrainian people aged from 18 to 70 have poor skills in computer literacy and 15.1% of the citizens have no computer skills.

According to the survey conducted by the Digital Transformation Ministry of Ukraine (The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2019 ) 27.5% Ukrainian families have a tablet, and 30.6% have one smart phone, 26.4% have two smart phones, 16.5% have three smart phones and 10.8% have four and more smart phones. As for laptops, 42.7% Ukrainian families have a laptop and 45.6% have a desktop computer (The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2019 ). The data from the ministry did not indicate if families have multiple devices, however the data shows that technological devices are widespread.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country located in the Persian Gulf that borders with Oman and Saudi Arabia. The UAE has a population of 9.77 million and is one of the richest countries in the world based on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The resident population consists of 11,5% Emiratis and the remaining residents are expats from countries such as India, Pakistan, Philippines, Egypt and others (Global Media Insight, 2020 ).

Regarding technology use, 91% of the residents use mobile Internetand over 98% of the households have Internet access (Knoema, 2018 ). Mobile devices such as smartphones are used to access the Internet mainly at home or at work (Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, 2017 ).

In 2017 the most frequent Internet activities were: sending/receiving emails (61%), posting information or instant messaging (55%), getting information about goods or services (45%), reading or downloading online newspapers, magazines or electronic books (41%) and telephoning over the Internet/VOIP (33%). Downloading movies, images, music, watching TV or video, or listening to radio or music is also a frequent activity performed by 27% of the Internet users followed by Internet banking (25%) and purchasing or ordering good and services (22%) (Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, 2017 ).

While these three countries were selected due to the location of the researchers and thus provided convenience samples, the three countries have a similar lack of DE offerings. Online surveys were emailed to students enrolled in a variety of undergraduate face-to-face courses during the fall semester of 2018. The students in Portugal and the UAE were enrolled in a teacher education program and the survey was emailed to two course sections in Portugal (73 students) and four course sections in the UAE (108 students). At the IHE in Ukraine, students were majoring in applied mathematics, philology, diagnostics, social work and philosophy, and surveys were emailed to 102 students who were enrolled in five course sections. In Portugal and Ukraine, the URL for the online survey was emailed by the instructor of all the course sections. In the UAE the instructor who emailed the URL for the survey taught two of the course sections. The students in the other two sections knew this instructor from taking courses with her previously. The students participating in this study were a convenience sample based on the disciplines taught by the researchers.

Data collection

An online survey with 10 closed questions about undergraduate students’ perception and receptivity towards enrolling in DE courses was developed by the researchers. Ary, Jacobs, Sorensen, and Walker ( 2010 ) compared traditional methods (i.e. face-to-face, paper and pencil) with web-based surveys and found the latter to be are more effective for gathering data from many participants. The questions designed by the researchers were informed by their experience/practice as well as in-depth literature review. The survey was created to respond to the research questions that guided this study. Response choices to the multiple-choice questions were based on issues and concerns related to DE. Students’ responses were collected towards the end of the first semester of the 2018/19 academic year.

The survey was developed to address research questions that assess undergraduate students’ perceptions of DE and students’ receptivity towards enrolling in DE courses (c.f. Appendix ). The use of surveys allows researchers to “obtain information about thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, personality and behavioral intentions of research participants.” (Johnson & Christensen, 2014 , p. 192) The survey questions included multiple response formats: Likert scale, select more than one response and multiple choice. Surveys for Portugal were presented in Portuguese. In Ukraine the surveys were translated into Ukrainian. Since English is the language of instruction at the UAE institution, their survey was in English. The URL for the survey was emailed to students by their instructors and was available in an online Google Form. The survey took approximately 10 min to complete. The study consisted of a “self-selected” convenience sample.

Data analysis

Survey results were recorded in Google Forms and an Excel spreadsheet was used to collect students’ responses. Descriptive statistics of the responses to the survey are presented in graphs and tables with percentages of responses displayed. The descriptive statistics provide summaries about the sample’s answers to each of the questions as well as measures of variability (or spread) and central tendency.

Research approval and data management

The research proposal was submitted to the Research and Grants Committee and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the college in the UAE. No personal information (name, College ID number or any other type of information that allows the identification of students) was asked from the students in the surveys. The surveys were anonymous. Only the Principal Investigator (PI) had access to all the data collected. The data will be stored in the PI’s password protected computer for 5 years.

Fifty five of the 73 Portuguese students who received the survey responded and 98 of the 108 UAE students responded. In the Ukraine 102 students were sent surveys and 70 responded. Below are participants’ responses to questions concerning age, gender, as well as level of confidence using the computer and the Internet.

Students’ age range was from 17 to 50 years old. Most students’ age ranges were between 17 and 29 years. Survey responses indicated that 7% of the students in the UAE were male and 93% female, in the Ukraine 43% were male and 57% female and in Portugal 9% male, and 91% female.

Participants were asked about their level of confidence using a computer and the Internet. Results are presented in Table  1 .

The use of participants from three countries allows the study of trends and to determine differences and/or similarities of perceptions about DE. Although the students were enrolled in courses in diverse content areas, they were all undergraduates, almost all under 30 years old, and most were confident using the computer and Internet. These demographic similarities provided a relatively cohesive group for this study while allowing a comparison across countries.

A range of questions were asked about students’ attitudes towards and experience with DE. To determine the participants’ experience with DE two questions were asked.

The data indicates that out of 223 students who responded to the survey, a total of 63 students have taken DE courses. Half of the Ukraine students, about one quarter of the UAE students and only 5% of students in the group from Portugal had taken DE courses (Fig.  1 ). As shown in Fig.  2 , of the students who have had previous experience in DE, most Ukraine students have taken one or two online courses, most UAE students have taken one course and a few Portuguese students have taken one course.

Students that have taken distance education courses

Number of distance education courses taken

More than half of Portuguese students, about two thirds of the Ukraine students and a little over one third of UAE students had a Very favorable or Favorable attitude towards DE. Approximately one third of Portuguese and Ukraine students were Neutral/Unable to judge their attitude. A little less than half of UAE students also indicated this. A small percentage of Portuguese, and one fifth of UAE students indicated their attitude was Very unfavorable or Unfavorable and no Ukraine students reported this (Table 2 ).

More than one third of Portuguese students shared that managing class and study time, saving time by choosing study location and working at their own pace were reasons to enroll in DE. About two thirds of the students from Ukraine reported that working at their own pace and managing their study time were reasons to enroll. A little more than half of these students reported that reasons for enrolling in DE included managing class time, saving time by selecting study location and not having to travel to school as well as having more options for courses or colleges to attend. Almost half of the UAE students had similar reasons for enrolling in a DE courses including managing class and study time, saving time by choosing study location and working at their own pace. In addition, a little more than half of the UAE students also shared that having more options for courses or colleges to attend were reasons to enroll. The reasons that were selected the least by all three groups were that courses were less expensive and enrolling in a preferred program (Tables  3 and 4 ).

Students were given eleven options as to why they would not enroll in DE courses, which are displayed in Tables  5 and 6 . Two reasons that were chosen most often were difficulty staying motivated and preferring face-to-face classes. A small number of Ukraine students reported this as a reason to not enroll in DE courses. Difficulty getting immediate feedback was also a concern for UAE students. Close to one third in the three groups indicated that difficulty contacting the instructor and interacting with peers as well as missing campus life are reasons for not enrolling. About one tenth of Portuguese, one fifth of Ukraine and one fifth of the UAE students reported difficulty getting accreditation as a reason for not enrolling. Not knowing enough about DE was indicated by one tenth of Portuguese, one fifth of Ukraine and one fifth of the UAE students. Only a small number of all the students indicated three categories that are frequently cited in the literature as preventing students from enrolling, these include access to technology, feeling of isolation and too great an expense.

Tables  7 and 8 show student responses to a question regarding the preparation they think they would need before enrolling in a DE course. A little over one tenth of the Portuguese students indicated that they needed better computer equipment, writing skills and a dedicated study space. About one quarter of these students reported they need better skills in the following areas: time management, computer and English language skills, as well as needing to have learning goals and objectives. Having a better Internet connection and the need to develop a study plan was shared by approximately one third of these students. Finally, the highest rated prerequisite for these Portuguese students was to be more motivated.

Few of the Ukraine students felt that they needed better computer equipment or skills, a dedicated study space or a better Internet connection at home. Their concerns focused on their behaviors as students since half or a little more than half felt they needed to be more motivated, have learning objectives and goals, a study plan and better management skills. About one third of these students also reported that they needed better English language skills.

The UAE students were less confident than the Ukraine students about computer skills and needing better equipment and a better Internet connection at home. Almost half of these UAE students reported their need for a study plan and motivation as their most pressing needs. Better management and English language skills were recorded by about one third of the students. One quarter of the UAE students felt they needed better writing skills and a dedicated study space.

Table 9 shows students’ interest in enrolling in DE courses. Almost one quarter of the Ukraine students are Extremely interested in taking DE courses and almost half are Somewhat interested. This contrasts with the students from Portugal who indicated that only 5% are Extremely interested and almost a quarter Somewhat interested. The UAE students’ interest in enrolling fell in between the students from the two other countries. One fifth to almost one third of all three groups were Neutral/Unable to judge. About one tenth of students from Ukraine reported Not being very interested or Not at all interested which contrasts with the Portuguese and UAE students whose numbers were about one half and one quarter respectively.

Tables  10 and 11 show the types of DE that the students were interested in trying. Portuguese students favored Open schedule courses, followed by Blended learning and Synchronous. Few of these students were interested in MOOCs and Asynchronous. More than half of the students from Ukraine were interested in MOOCs and Blended learning followed by Open schedule. About one third of these students were interested in Synchronous and Asynchronous. UAE students most popular formats were Open schedule and Blended learning followed by Synchronous and Asynchronous. There was little interest in MOOCs by the UAE students. Few Portuguese and Ukraine students indicated that they would not take a DE course, however, almost a quarter of the UAE students indicated this.

Data indicates close to a 100% of the UAE residents use the Internet at home or on their mobile devices (Knoema, 2018 ). By contrast a smaller percentage of individuals use the Internet in Portugal and the Ukraine (Infographics, 2019 ). Internet use in each country does not seem to greatly impact UAE students’ opinions regarding DE.

Students’ perceptions of DE vary across the participants from the three countries. Portuguese and Ukrainian students rated DE more favorably than UAE students. Half of the Ukrainian students have experience with DE which might account for their favorable attitude. In contrast, in Portugal only a very small percentage of the students had experience. However, this does not seem to have negatively influenced their attitude towards DE. The interest level and engagement with new technologies by Portuguese students may help explain the favorable perception the participants had toward DE. A study by Costa, Faria, and Neto ( 2018 ) found that 90% of Portuguese students use new technologies and 69% of them use new technologies more than an hour and a half a day. Based on three European studies, Diário de Noticias ( 2011 ) stated that Portuguese students “appear at the forefront of those who best master information and communication technologies (ICT).” (para.1) Another factor influencing respondents might be that currently, and for the first time, the Portuguese government has passed a law that will regulate DE in the country. This new law will open the possibility for other IHEs to provide DE courses that lead to a degree.

Ukrainian students reported a high level of confidence in operating technological devices. The reason for this may be, in part, because of state educational requirements. Since the end of the 1990s, all Ukrainian students in secondary schools have at least one computer course as a mandatory element of their curriculum. This course covers a wide range of issues, which vary from information society theory to applied aspects of computer usage. Among the seven learning goals of this course three address digital literacy (Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2017 ). Ukrainian students who responded to the survey have taken computer courses for at least 5 years.

In the UAE, most DE courses and programs are not accredited by the Ministry of Education (United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education, 2016 ), which may account for UAE students lack of experience and their inability to judge this type of instruction.

It is worth analyzing the reasons why students enrolled or would enroll in DE courses. The reasons for taking DE courses, such as time management issues, are supported by studies concerning self-regulation and higher retention rates (Bradley, Browne, & Kelley, 2017 ; Peck, Stefaniak, & Shah, 2018 ). Students’ interest in having more control of their study time is also mentioned as one of the primary benefits of DE (Alahmari, 2017 ; Lei & Gupta, 2010 ). Regarding the reasons for not enrolling in DE courses, participants from the three countries mentioned difficulty contacting instructors and peers. Also, more than half of the students in Portugal and the UAE indicated they preferred face-to-face classes. Most students have spent their entire academic lives in traditional classes where interaction and immediate feedback from instructors and peers are more common. These concerns may be why students perceive they would lose a familiar type of interaction and have to engage with classroom participants in a new and different way (Carver & Kosloski Jr., 2015 ; Morris & Clark, 2018 ; Robinson & Hullinger, 2008 ; Summers, Waigandt, & Whittaker, 2005 ). It should be noted that the Portuguese and UAE students were enrolled in teacher education programs and are training to be face-to-face teachers. They may not understand the potential of DE format and are not preparing or expecting to use DE in their professional careers.

Difficulty being motivated was another reason chosen by the participants of the three countries to not enroll in DE courses. The lack of experience in this type of educational format may help explain student lack of confidence with their ability to study and stay on task. This response contrasts with the reasons reported for enrolling in DE courses such as controlling their study time. On one hand, participants like the prospect of having the ability to manage their own time. On the other hand, they are concerned they may lack the discipline they need to be successful.

Although the literature indicates that access to technology, isolation and expense are reasons frequently cited as preventing students from enrolling in DE courses (Lei & Gupta, 2010 ; Venter, 2003 ; Zuhairi et al., 2006 ), these reasons were selected by a very small percentage of the participants of this study. Access and affordability of technology has rapidly increased over the last decade which may help explain this inconsistency. Students may understand that DE courses are now less expensive than traditional university courses (Piletic, 2018 ) and they do not cite this as a reason for not enrolling. Relatively few students indicated they would feel isolated. Since this generation is in constant communication using technology (Diário de Notícias, 2011 ) they may not associate DE learning with isolation. However, it is interesting to note that there was a greater concern for interacting with instructors and peers than isolation.

The Ukrainian students are the most receptive to enrolling in DE courses. This is consistent with their positive perception of this type of learning. In addition, the previous experience of half of the participants may influence their interest as well as encourage their peers’ receptivity. UAE students do not have much experience and fewer than half are open to enrolling in DE courses. This may be due to their lack of experience and other concerns previously mentioned. Only one third of the Portuguese participants indicated their interest in enrolling in DE courses. This is in contrast with almost two thirds saying they had a favorable or very favorable attitude. The reasons for this inconsistency are not evident.

In terms of preparation needed to take DE courses, technical concerns were less of an issue for the participants of all three countries than skills and behaviors. Most participants’ answers focused on student skills including computer, English language and time management. Behaviors such as developing a study plan, having learning goals and objectives and being more motivated were also mentioned. The perceived need for better English language skills was expressed by about one third of the participants, none of whom have English as their native language. English speaking countries have been dominant in DE making English the most commonly used language in online learning (Sadykova & Dautermann, 2009 ). Regarding time management, half of the Ukrainian students expressed their need for improvement in contrast to approximately one third of the participants from the other countries. The difference among responses may be because the Ukrainian students are more self-reflective, or the others are more disciplined. Although both DE and face-to-face courses have deadlines for tasks and assessments, in the face-to-face courses, students meet in person with their instructors who may support and press them to do their work. Lack of in person contact may account for the participants feeling they need to improve these skills when taking DE courses (De Paepe et al., 2018 ). Students expressed concerns about lacking certain skills and having certain behaviors that would lead them to be reluctant to enroll in DE courses. The need for help and preparation are some of the concerns that participants reported. Perceived needs may account for the students’ apprehensions regarding taking DE courses. To promote this type of instruction, IHEs could address students’ concerns (Mahlangu, 2018 ).

Open schedule and blended learning courses were the two preferred formats stated by the participants. The reason that Open schedule is the most popular may be that it provides more freedom than other types of courses. Blended learning offers the familiar face-to-face instruction and some of the conveniences of DE which may be why participants are interested in this model.

Studies regarding the use of MOOCs in all three countries have been conducted indicating that researchers in these locations are aware that this course format is of potential interest to local students (Eppard & Reddy, 2017 ; Gallacher, 2014 ; Gonçalves, Chumbo, Torres, & Gonçalves, 2016 ; Sharov, Liapunova, & Sharova, 2019 ; Strutynska & Umryk, 2016 ). Ukrainian students selected MOOCs much more than students in the other countries. The reason for this may be that these students are more knowledgeable about MOOCs, because this type of course is usually at no cost and/or offered by prestigious IHEs (Cormier et al., 2010 ). However, this study did not ask why students were interested in MOOCs or other types of DE courses.

Limitations and future research

While this study offers useful information regarding undergraduate students’ perception and receptivity in taking DE courses, it has limited generalizability because of the size of the sample and the type of statistical analysis performed. Participants from two of the countries were enrolled in teacher education programs and were primarily female, thus future studies would benefit from including more students in diverse programs and a more equitable gender distribution.

Since many IHEs also offer programs for graduate students it would be useful to survey these students about their opinion and availability to enroll in DE courses. This would provide additional information for IHEs that are interested in developing DE programs.

There were some inconsistencies in the students’ responses such as Portuguese students’ interest in enrolling in DE courses not matching their favorable/ very favorable attitude towards DE. It would be helpful to conduct future research regarding this and other inconsistencies.

A study is currently being planned to collect data that will provide a larger and more diverse sample and include additional IHEs. This future research will potentially increase the available knowledge on how to provide DE for a greater number of students.

Conclusion and recommendations

Further development of DE courses and programs at IHEs in countries such as Portugal, UAE and Ukraine have good prospects. The students’ primary concerns regarding taking DE courses were similar among the three countries. These concerns included time management, motivation, and English language skills. However, this did not totally diminish participants interest in taking online courses especially for the Ukrainian students.

Based on this research, there are some obstacles that can be addressed to support the expansion of DE in the three countries that were studied and in other countries. The following recommendations may assist IHEs in promoting DE.

Recommendations for preparation within IHEs

IHEs can take proactive steps to prepare DE offerings, however, a one-size fit all model may not be appropriate for all countries and IHEs. Each institution needs to develop their own plan that meets the needs of their students and faculty. Data from this pilot study and the literature (Elbaum, McIntyre, & Smith, 2002 ; Hashim & Tasir, 2014 ; Hux et al., 2018 ) suggest that following steps might be taken:

Assess readiness to take DE courses through a survey and have students speak with counselors.

Provide pre-DE courses to build skills and behaviors based on students’ concerns.

Train instructors to develop and deliver DE courses that help to overcome obstacles such as motivation and time management.

Offer courses in a blended learning format to familiarize students with online learning which may provide a transitional model.

Recommendations for IHE outreach

This study shows that there is some student interest in enrolling in online courses. It is not sufficient for IHEs to make changes internally within their own institution. IHEs need to develop external strategies and actions that help advance the development of DE:

Promote DE in social media to target potential students and encourage them to take courses.

Urge government agencies to accredit DE courses and programs.

This pilot study provides some background information that may help IHEs to offer DE courses. Additional research about students’ preferences and needs regarding DE should be conducted. The sample size, IHEs included and participating countries could be expanded in order to gain a greater understanding.

Different cultural characteristics need to be taken into account in the development of online courses and programs. DE is being increasingly included by IHEs all around the world. To stay current, universities will need to find ways to offer DE to their current and prospective students.

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Patricia Fidalgo

Educational Technology Division, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Joan Thormann

Philosophy Department, Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Dnipropetrovs’ka oblast, Ukraine

Oleksandr Kulyk

Department of Curricular Studies and Educational Technology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

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Patricia Fidalgo: design of the work, data collection, analysis, interpretation of data, and draft of the work. Joan Thormann: design of the work, analysis, interpretation of data, and draft of the work. Oleksandr Kulyk: data collection, interpretation of data, and draft of the work. José Alberto Lencastre: data collection. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

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Online Survey Questions

1. If the students have taken any distance education courses previously and if yes, how many;

2. What are the students’ perceptions of distance education;

3. What are the reasons students would enroll in distance education courses;

4. What are the reasons students would not enroll in a distance education course;

5. What preparation do students feel they need before taking distance education courses;

6. What is the level of students’ interest towards enrolling in distance education courses;

7. What types of distance education would students be interested in trying;

8. What is the students’ age;

9. What is the students’ gender;

10. How confident do students feel using a computer and the Internet.

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Fidalgo, P., Thormann, J., Kulyk, O. et al. Students’ perceptions on distance education: A multinational study. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 17 , 18 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00194-2

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• Distance education
• Multinational study
• Perceptions of distance education
• Undergraduate students

What did distance learning accomplish?

Millions of U.S. school children ended their academic year via remote learning. How did this unplanned experiment measure up?

Vol. 51, No. 6 Print version: page 54

• Schools and Classrooms
• Technology and Design

More than 56 million students attend public and private elementary, middle and high schools in the United States. Last March, the vast majority of them took part in an impromptu experiment when most schools locked their doors to protect against the novel coronavirus. Overnight, teachers were forced to figure out how to translate face-to-face lessons into remote-learning lesson plans.

As schools kick off the 2020–21 school year, there are many unknowns. Some form of distance learning remains likely—either entirely remote, in combination with scaled-back in-person instruction or as a future possibility if new waves of COVID-19 outbreaks emerge.

As educators and administrators plan for that uncertain future, they must also assess how students fared. The pandemic has presented many new challenges in addition to school closures, including the death of loved ones and economic hardship. “Students have been exposed to a tremendous range of experiences, ranging from traumatic to enriched,” says educational psychologist Sara Rimm-Kaufman, PhD, a professor of education at the University of Virginia.

While some students have thrived and learned during the pandemic, others are likely to have fallen behind. Regardless of ZIP code or family background, schools are, in theory, places where all students can receive education and support. But the coronavirus shutdown has emphasized (and widened) existing disparities in education.

“When kids come to a classroom, it’s easy to imagine they’re all the same. But we can’t expect the same outcomes from a kid learning on his own computer at his family’s vacation home and a child who doesn’t even have a table to sit at,” says Avi Kaplan, PhD, a professor of educational psychology at Temple University.

But the experience may yet have a silver lining, he adds. “We have a tendency to go back to what we thought was normal. But there’s an opportunity here to unlearn things that people knew were not working.”

The digital divide

When schools closed abruptly, teachers were forced to design remote-learning plans quickly. The plans they created were all over the map, says Helenrose Fives, PhD, a professor of educational foundations at Montclair State University and president of APA’s Div. 15 (Educational Psychology). In late March, Fives and colleagues began surveying teachers about their experiences with distance learning in New Jersey—a state with a staggering 584 school districts.

“It seems like every district is doing something different. The variability in how districts are approaching this is shocking,” she says.

Even within a single district, student experiences are wide-ranging. Teachers and parents have reported that some kids are thriving with fewer social distractions, or have been energized by their newfound independence. Yet many other children lack devices or reliable access to the internet. And while some families have parents who can oversee their children’s remote learning, many youths are caring for younger siblings while their parents work in essential jobs or living with the chaos of unemployment or homelessness.

“It’s a question of privilege,” says Michele Gregoire Gill, PhD, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Central Florida. “Some families are just in survival mode.”

The inequities are hard to overstate, Gill and other experts say. A survey of 1,500 U.S. families by advocacy group ParentsTogether released in late May found 83% of children in families in the highest income quartile were logging in to distance learning every day. Just 3.7% of those families reported their children were participating in distance learning once a week or less, compared with 38% of students from families in the lowest income quartile.

That missed instructional time is likely to be a serious setback for low-income students. Previous research has found that chronic absenteeism—usually defined as missing at least 10% of school days—affects reading levels, grade retention, graduation rates and dropout rates (Allison, M.A., et al., Pediatrics , Vol. 143, No. 2, 2019). Chronic absenteeism disproportionately affects kids living in poverty in the best of times, as Children’s National Hospital pediatrician Danielle Dooley, MD, and colleagues describe in an opinion piece on the effects of COVID-19 on low-income children ( JAMA Pediatrics , published online, 2020). Remote learning during COVID-19 is likely to widen that disparity, they say.

Students from low-income homes aren’t the only ones at risk of slipping through the cracks. Families who speak other languages, undocumented immigrants and students with special needs are also at risk of missing out on the services to which they’re entitled. Children with disabilities or special needs are legally entitled to special education services, including speech-language therapy, autism interventions, occupational therapy and psychological services. But many of those don’t translate easily to the remote platforms available. The ParentsTogether survey painted a grim picture for special education students, with 40% of parents reporting they weren’t receiving any support, and just 20% reporting their children were receiving all of the special education services they typically received in school.

Does remote learning work?

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special needs may face the biggest educational challenges. But some research indicates that all students could start the year far behind. Megan Kuhfeld, PhD, and Beth Tarasawa, PhD, of the Collaborative for Student Growth at the educational nonprofit organization NWEA, published a white paper analyzing past research on learning loss over summer break. They predict that overall, students in grades three through eight will return to school with roughly 70% of the learning gains in reading and less than 50% of the learning gains in math compared with a typical year ( The COVID-19 Slide: What Summer Learning Loss Can Tell Us About the Potential Impact of School Closures on Student Academic Achievement , Collaborative for Student Growth, 2020).

That’s not to say online learning itself isn’t effective. “Research generally shows that online learning can be as effective as in-person instruction, if you have a good setup,” Gill says. But what most schools were doing in the spring wasn’t true online learning, she adds. “Teachers didn’t have prepared online content, so they were trying to convert what they normally do to an online platform. It was emergency triage.”

“Remote learning is not the same as online learning,” agrees Aroutis Foster, PhD, a professor of learning technologies at Drexel University. True online learning happens on digital platforms designed for that purpose, often with personalized content for each student and options to use their choice of digital tools. “Online learning facilitates different types of learning preferences, provides learner flexibility and uses online quality metrics,” Foster says. But for many students, distance learning during COVID-19 included none of those features, and instead involved tuning in at a set time to listen to teachers lecture on Zoom or Google Meet.

What’s more, online learning programs that were working before coronavirus might not be as effective without teacher support and the structure of in-person learning. In a data tool called the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker , economists at Brown University and Harvard University looked at how U.S. students were performing in an online math program before and after the coronavirus shutdown. As of May 31, total student progress in online math coursework decreased by 64.2% compared with January. In low-income ZIP codes, math progress fell 74.8%, compared with 36.1% in high-income ZIP codes.

Connecting lessons to children’s interests is especially important in remote settings where students don’t have the classroom structure to guide them.

Successful learning environments

With continued remote learning a distinct possibility, educators will be considering what went well during the spring of 2020, and what they can improve on. Educational psychology offers clues about what factors are important to creating successful learning environments. To stay motivated when learning at home, students need to feel competence, relatedness (a sense of belonging and connection with others) and autonomy, says Kaplan. According to self-determination theory (Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L., American Psychologist , Vol. 55, No. 1, 2000), those needs are vital for self-motivation and well-being in many domains, including education. In a practice brief for parents who are homeschooling during quarantine ( Homeschooling Under Quarantine , APA Div. 15, 2020), Kaplan and Debra A. Bell, PhD, describe how parents can support a child’s competence (emphasize improvement with realistic expectations), relatedness (consider a child’s needs, listen empathetically and provide emotional support) and autonomy (provide meaningful choices and allow a child to incorporate personal interests).

Tying lessons into children’s own interests may be especially important in remote settings, Foster says, when students don’t have the classroom structure and classmates’ behaviors to guide them. “Online settings require a lot of self-regulation, and we know novice learners don’t have a lot of that,” he says. “Peer influence is a huge deal in terms of learning, and there’s a lot of socially shared regulation happening in classrooms.”

The lack of social connections during the pandemic is significant, says Rimm-Kaufman. “One of the things that this shift has underscored is how much personal relationships matter for kids, including relationships with other students and with teachers.”

Feeling connected to a teacher can make a big difference in educational outcomes. The quality of teacher-student relationships has a significant effect on student engagement and, to a slightly lesser degree, on student achievement, according to a meta-analysis of 99 studies (Roorda, D.L., et al., Review of Educational Research , Vol. 81, No. 4, 2011). The influence of those relationships was particularly important for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with learning difficulties.

But meaningful teacher relationships may be harder to develop over the internet, says Fives. “So much of the motivation in a classroom comes from those quick interactions students have with teachers in the moment,” she says. “In a remote-learning setting, kids often have to wait for that feedback.”

What’s more, digital interactions can be highly taxing, Kaplan says. In person, teachers and students learn a lot from the mood of the classroom and subtle body language. In a video, it’s harder to discern those details. “Online, much of that information is missing, so our brains try to fill in the gaps. And that takes working memory,” Kaplan says. “At the same time, students might see their own image, which can raise their self-consciousness and is an added burden while trying to focus on learning.”

Learning new technology has also presented a challenge, Fives adds. “It’s not just writing an essay. It’s figuring out how to post it to the platform, how to log in to get the feedback from the teacher,” she says. Older students might have to learn different platforms for different classes, she adds. “Every teacher might be using different tools, and that puts a heavy cognitive load on students.”

Learning losses and teacher burnout

Given so many hurdles—known and unknown—educators will have to be flexible as the new academic year begins, Foster says. “It will be an atypical year, and there will absolutely be a lot of catching up.”

An important next step will be to figure out how best to assess students’ knowledge as they start the new year, Rimm-Kaufman says. “Some kids will come in having lost months of instruction, so educators will have to make broader assessments than they usually would, and find ways to adjust their instruction accordingly.”

That is a daunting task, though not an insurmountable one, says Francesca López, PhD, an educational psychologist and the Waterbury Chair of Secondary Education at Penn State University’s College of Education. “Teachers do remarkable work, and I don’t believe for a second this generation of students won’t catch up,” she says. “But we can’t allow everything to rest on teachers. Policies must change to ensure equity.”

In the short term, López adds, educators will have to attend to students’ emotional well-being to help them learn. Millions of families have experienced unemployment and financial hardship, and many children have lost loved ones to COVID-19. “This is a traumatic event, and we need to prioritize mental health,” López says. “We can’t focus on academics without considering the whole child.” (See companion article, “ Safeguarding Student Mental Health ”.)

Teacher mental health, too, is a top priority, experts say. At the end of March, Marc Brackett, PhD, founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence at Yale University, and colleagues surveyed more than 5,000 U.S. teachers, asking them to list the most frequent emotions they felt each day. The top three: anxiety, fear and worry. “We found [educators] are more anxious than ever before, and they’re struggling to manage their anxiety,” Brackett says. “The uncertainty and unpredictability about what the future of school will be is taking a toll on their wellness.”

Teachers aren’t just learning new platforms. They’re also worrying about student well-being more than ever before and having to figure out how to reach out to them from their own homes. Plus, says Rimm-Kaufman, “many schools emphasize teacher collaboration, and those efforts are strained when teachers aren’t in the same building with one another.” It’s unsurprising that many teachers experienced stress, burnout and self-doubt as they taught in such unprecedented circumstances in the spring, Fives adds. “Many really good teachers don’t feel like good teachers anymore. Their identity as a teacher is affected, and their self-efficacy is crashing.”

Investing and innovating

Administrators face an uphill battle as they find ways to support teachers and get students back on track. School budgets are vulnerable to shrinking state revenues due to the pandemic, and some school districts have already laid off employees. In May, school superintendents from 62 cities sent a letter to Congress asking for new federal education assistance. “Significant revenue shortfalls are looming for local school districts that will exacerbate the disruption students have already faced,” the letter warned.

Still, some experts are hopeful that this experience could be the shake-up that schools needed to improve education for all children. Educational disparities will be hard to ignore in the wake of the pandemic, Kaplan says. “Crises often sharpen our gaze and reveal aspects of our lives that were masked or ignored. This highlights the need for prioritizing equity at the policy level.”

“We’re shifting into the unknown,” López says. “Educational psychology has a robust history of learning theories. As this unfolds, we need to look to the research to see what we can learn, and how we can incorporate it into high-quality education.”

Further reading

Improving School Improvement Adelman, H., & Taylor, L., Center for Mental Health in Schools & Student/Learning Supports at UCLA

Low-Income Children and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the U.S. Dooley, D.G., et al., JAMA Pediatrics , 2020

School Reopening—The Pandemic Issue That Is Not Getting Its Due Christakis, D.A., JAMA Pediatrics , 2020

Impact of Online Learning in K–12: Effectiveness, Challenges, and Limitations for Online Instruction Ward-Jackson, J., & Yu, C., In Handbook of Research on Blended Learning Pedagogies and Professional Development in Higher Education , IGI Global, 2019

Recommended Reading

Online inequities

How many children weren’t engaging with remote learning (logging in once a week or less)?

• 3.7% of children in families making more than $100,000 per year
• 38% of children in families making less than $25,000 per year

Source: ParentsTogether

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Distance education research: a review of the literature

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The COVID-19 pandemic containment measures such as school closures remarkably disrupt the educational system, from in-person learning to remote or distance education with different interventions. This study aimed to identify the characteristics of interventions in remote or distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluate the outcomes of each intervention. A systematic review was conducted between October 2021 and May 2022 using four databases. Finally, 22 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included for data analysis. Most of the interventions were synchronous student-centered approaches followed by asynchronous student-centered approaches and mixed-learning through online channels such as desktop- and web-based modality. Remote or distance education is effective in academic development in any learning approach while having mixed effects in student attitudes and perceptions. Academic-related behaviors were most engaged by students in synchronous student-centered approaches. Finally, difficulties or burdens, and mental health or social interaction were similar for all learning approaches in technological problems and support systems from families and teachers. Synchronous student-centered approaches should be the main method of education, but other approaches can be used to complement based on the students’ needs. Finally, educational infrastructure and support from teachers and parents are also necessary in remote or distance education. Further studies are needed to focus on primary school students, especially in low-income regions, and apply a randomized study design.

Citation: Kosiyaporn H, Phaiyarom M, Uansri S, Kunpeuk W, Julchoo S, Sinam P, et al. (2023) Characteristics of distance education interventions and related outcomes in primary school children during COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review. PLoS ONE 18(10): e0286674. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286674

Editor: Anastassia Zabrodskaja, Tallinn University: Tallinna Ulikool, ESTONIA

Received: August 29, 2022; Accepted: May 19, 2023; Published: October 13, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Kosiyaporn et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: Health System Research Institute, who is the the funder of this study, had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The novel coronavirus [COVID-19] was recognized as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization [WHO] and governments in each country including Thailand have implemented several measures to prevent transmission such as travel restrictions and closure of public spaces including school closure [ 1 , 2 ]. Despite being an effective preventive measure, school closures did not only impact students’ health, but they also affected children’s learning for both short and long term [ 3 ]. School closure policies have been partially and fully implemented by many countries for more than 40 weeks since February 2020 [ 3 ]. It was found that about 90 percent of 188 countries had adopted online and/or broadcast remote learning policies [ 4 ] called ‘Emergency Remote Education’, which is an unplanned transition from traditional learning and teaching methods to remote ones in a state of emergency [ 5 ]. It can be adapted in online and offline platforms, with different pedological approaches and communication synchronicity [ 6 ].

Evidence has shown that COVID-19 and its policy responses have significant impacts on global education due to school closures and teaching transformations for long periods of time during the pandemic [ 4 ]. A systematic review of online learning during COVID-19 between 2019 and 2020 by Mohtar and Yunus [2022] addressed that only half of the findings [40 studies] revealed that students has engaged with online learning [ 7 ]. Accordingly, the academic performance of children has been negatively affected due to lack of contact hours and consultations with teachers when facing difficulties in learning/understanding [ 8 ]. Furthermore, children in poorer households that lack internet access, personal computers, television, or radio at home face learning inequalities [ 9 ]. For mental health, it was found that there was an increase of anxiety and loneliness in young children alongside child stress, sadness, frustration, indiscipline, and hyperactivity [ 10 ]. Overall, school closure policies with remote or distance education have different outcomes on learning engagement, academic achievement, access to educational resources, and mental well-being.

Although there are several advantages to remote or distance education, such as time and money savings and flexibility in learning methods, there are some challenges, such as a lack of communication and social interaction and complicated educational technology [ 11 ]. Accordingly, it emphasizes the urgency of remote or distance education’s impact evaluation during the COVID-19 pandemic, which tends to be unprepared. Moreover, remote or distance education is more likely to be an option integrating with in person learning even the COVID-19 pandemic disappears. Compared to other levels of education, the implementation of emergency remote or distance education is more challenging for primary school students, aged 6–12 years old. This is because they are still developing their self-regulation and attention control skills and are relatively technologically incompetent compared to students in secondary and tertiary education [ 11 ]. Previous systematic review studies by Bond [2021] and Crompton et al. [2021] about remote or distance education during COVID-19 specifically focused on secondary school students as the target population and mostly conducted in high-income countries [ 6 , 12 ]. It also aimed to describe the technology used during the COVID-19 pandemic which was internet-based [ 6 ] and the tool typology were synchronous collaboration tools, knowledge organization and sharing tools, text-based tools, multimodal production tools, and social networking tools [ 6 , 12 ]. Although the educational outcomes were systematically reviewed covering effects on academic performance, student engagement and educational inequality [ 13 ], the information of different distance educational interventions and its outcomes was sparse. Therefore, this study aims to identify the characteristics of interventions in remote or distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluate the outcomes of each intervention on socioemotional and behavioral changes, attitudes or perceptions, difficulties or burdens, and academic achievement among primary school children.

This systematic review was conducted between October 2021 and May 2022 using the following protocol: setting operational definitions, a search strategy, and eligibility criteria, selecting studies, assessing quality and extracting data. The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses [PRISMA] [ 14 ], see S1 File .

Operational definitions

The pedagogical approach includes teaching methods consisting of teacher- and student-centered approaches [ 15 ]. The teacher-centered approach involves the teacher playing the role of a master of a subject with little or no involvement from learners while the student-centered approach was the method that instructors play role as both teachers and learners [ 15 ]. Communication synchronicity is determined by the time of learning between teachers and learners; the synchronous approach occurs when teachers and learners are engaging at the same time whereas the asynchronous approach occurs at different times [ 16 ]. These definitions were applied to thematize data in different types of educational intervention linking with its outcomes in the data analysis part.

Search strategy

The search terms were developed in three domains: a] COVID-19; b] primary education; and c] remote or distance education with exclusion of higher education, adult learning, health professional education, special education for children with disability, and physical health [see the details of each search term in Table 1 ]. These were applied in four databases: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and EBSCOHOST due to the database’s coverage in public health and education. The limitation of English literature, journal article and timeline from 2020 to 2021 will be used.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286674.t001

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to ensure article relevance to the study objectives by using the PICO strategy as shown in Table 2 . The inclusion criteria comprised of studies that involved children aged 6 to 12 years or are in primary schools, remote or distance education during a public health emergency, and intervention outcomes such as socioemotional and behavioral changes. The documents included in this study were peer-reviewed literature from primary research, published in English language between 2020 and 2021 [COVID-19 pandemic period], and with retrievable full-text articles. The studies related to higher education, adult learning, health professional education, special education for children with disability, and physical health outcomes were excluded as same as grey literature and articles in other languages. Empirical studies were included covering quantitative and qualitative studies which would be reflecting the objective and subjective educational outcomes.

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Study selection

Six researchers [HK, MP, SU, WK, SJ, PS] were responsible for title, abstract and full-text screening, and quality assessment. Groups of two or three researchers independently screened titles and abstracts first; if there was a disagreement among them, they would discuss to reach a consensus. The same process was conducted for the quality assessment and full paper review.

Data analysis

Data analysis had two parts: quality assessment and data extraction. Independent data analysis was individually undertaken by researchers. If there was a disagreement or unclear information, a consensus would be reached among researchers to ensure data accuracy.

Quality assessment.

The Joanna Briggs Institute [JBI] critical appraisal tools were used to assess quality of each full-text article [ 17 ]. This appraisal covered the ethical consideration and possibility of bias in data collection such as inclusion and exclusion criteria and loss to follow up, data measurement and data analysis [ 17 ]. According to different study designs, such as quasi-experimental study and cross-sectional study, the quality of each study type was separately assessed following the JBI critical appraisal tools. Although the JBI tool was developed to assess study in qualitative aspects, the quality score in percentage was also applied to evaluate overall quality and the cut-off point of acceptable quality was set at more than 50% [ 18 ].

Data extraction.

Data related with these three themes was analyzed including: a] characteristics of studies —author, title, year of publication, objective of study, country, study design, target groups, settings, sample size, data collection, data measurement, and data analysis; b] intervention characteristics –intervention description, timeline, pedagogical approach [teacher-centered approach/student-centered approach] [ 15 ], communication synchronicity [synchronous/asynchronous] [ 16 ], and intervention delivery modes [desktop-based/web-based/TV-based/radio-based/paper-based modality] [ 19 ]; and c] intervention outcomes —socioemotional and behavioral changes such as mental health, social interaction, or academic-related behaviors, attitudes or perceptions, difficulties or burdens, and academic achievement. Data were tabulated to compare between each intervention characteristics such as teacher-centered and student-centered approach with and without synchronicity. All variables were analyzed in frequency and outcomes would be evaluated into positive, negative and mixed effects [qualitative approach] if there was a mix of statistical analyses used in each outcome. The missing results were not evaluated due to qualitative analysis of this review.

Ethical considerations

The study was approved by the Institute for the Development of Human Research Protections, Thailand [IHRP 175/2564].

There was a total of 4,092 articles obtained from the four selected databases from which 1,418 duplications were removed, see Fig 1 . During the screening process, 2,352 records were removed due to irrelevance and 14 records could not be retrieved in full text. Three hundred and eight full-text records were reviewed for eligibility, and some were excluded owing to the different or unidentifiable target groups and having no intervention details and outcomes in total of 285 articles. Finally, 22 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included for data analysis.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286674.g001

Study characteristics

The characteristics of study covered study setting, type of study, target population, data collection and data analysis.

The majority of included studies [n = 11] were from Europe followed by Asian countries [n = 8], see Table 3 . The remaining studies were scattered across different countries in American and Middle-Eastern regions. About two-thirds of the articles were interventional studies [n = 15] and all of them were quasi-experimental studies. Seven studies were non-interventional or observational studies consisting of observation analytic study [cross-sectional study] [n = 5] and descriptive study [qualitative] [n = 2]. The target groups of 11 studies were specifically primary school children in grade 4 to 6 or children aged around 10 to 12 years old, while participants in other included studies were mixed across early and late elementary school levels [n = 8] and only three studies related specifically to children in grades 1 to 3.

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All the studies included applied non-randomization sampling, for example, convenience or purposive sampling for quasi-experimental and descriptive studies. For the cross-sectional studies, a mix of sampling techniques were used. Data measurement depended on study outcomes of interest, but most of the quantitative studies employed survey questionnaires as measurement tools, and the qualitative studies generally used semi-structured interviews. Data analysis methods depended on the objectives of each study; for example, the studies that aimed to identify association between variables applied Pearson’s and Spearman’s correlation analysis or t-test and ANOVA test of pre- and post-test analysis with and without control group for causal relationship evaluation.

Intervention characteristics

A wide range of intervention periods was observed among the nine interventional studies, ranging from five days to five months [see Table 4 ]. Fifteen studies focused only on student-centered learning, five studies contained a combination of student-centered and teacher-centered approaches, and two studies utilized the teacher-centered method only. Communication between the teacher and pupils was grouped into three categories: synchronous [n = 9], asynchronous [n = 7], and a combination between the two [n = 6]. Desktop-based [n = 9] and web-based modalities [n = 7] were the most popular interventions, followed by a mixed modality [n = 5] and radio or paper-based modalities [n = 1].

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In summary, the characteristics of remote or distance education were classified into a synchronously student-centered approach [n = 9], an asynchronously student-centered approach [n = 6], mixed approaches between student-centered and teacher-centered approaches regardless of synchronicity [n = 7], and a synchronously or asynchronously teacher-centered approach [n = 1], respectively. Examples of the synchronously student-centered approach consisted of exercises or discussions where students received real-time feedback through Snappet and Google classroom [ 30 , 41 ]. The asynchronously student-centered approach was presented via gamification or exercises where students were given flexible learning times such as the Science Level Up program [ 32 ]. On the other hand, examples of synchronously and asynchronously teacher-centered approaches comprised lessons that were taught via live video, recorded video, or radio broadcasting [ 23 , 38 ].

Intervention outcomes

Several outcomes of interventions supporting remote or distance education among primary school children during the COVID-19 pandemic were assessed in terms of attitudes/perceptions [n = 13], academic performance [n = 12], academic-related behaviors [n = 11], difficulties/burdens [n = 6], and mental health/social interaction [n = 5]. Each study has one or more than one of these respective assessments.

Positive effects on academic performance were found in any educational type of intervention compared to those who did not receive interventions or before exposure to interventions. Academic-related behavior outcomes such as engagement or motivation had positive effects in synchronously student-centered interventions [ 20 , 25 , 30 , 41 ], while other interventions produced a mix of positive and negative results. Difficulties with remote or distance education in all studies were mostly associated with technical issues such as screens freezing or the inability of the school’s infrastructure to support the platform’s operations [ 22 , 23 , 26 , 27 ]. On the other hand, different attitudes or perceptions toward remote or distance education was seen across all intervention types depending on the individual student; for example, some students felt bored and concerned while others perceived enjoyment [ 29 , 36 ]. A similar situation was found for mental health or social interaction where students appreciated the opportunity to interact families, friends, and teachers but also required a support system from parents and teachers to do so [ 23 , 24 , 37 , 38 ].

Quality assessment

The JBI critical appraisal tools for analytical quasi-experimental studies [n = 15], cross-sectional studies [n = 5], and qualitative studies [n = 2] were applied to all included articles. Results are shown in a S1 File .

Most of the studies had an overall quality assessment score of higher than 50% [n = 19]; only three studies had a score of lower than 50% and all of them were cross-sectional studies. Among the cross-sectional studies [n = 5], most did not address confounding bias or apply strategies to deal with confounders [ 33 , 36 – 39 ]. In addition, some studies did not clearly define inclusion and exclusion criteria and settings as well as valid and reliable measurements of exposure; however, these defined valid and reliable measurements of outcomes and appropriate analytical methods [ 36 , 38 , 40 ]. Among fifteen quasi-experimental studies, almost all studies clearly mentioned cause-and-effect variables, similarity between comparisons, exposure of similar treatment between comparisons, outcomes of comparisons measured in the same way, and appropriate data analysis methods. Nevertheless, various limitations among some studies were seen such as comparisons with the control group, evaluation of pre- and post-exposure, complete follow-up, and reliable outcome measurements.

Discussions

The discussion of this study aligned with the results, which were classified into four parts: study characteristics, intervention characteristics, intervention outcomes, and study limitations and recommendations.

This review shows that the included studies were conducted in diverse regions and countries including both high- and middle-income countries. A previous systematic review of emergency remote education for K-12 by Crompton et al. [2021] noted that the COVID-19 pandemic was different from other emergency situations because it had a global reach and significantly impacted low-income countries [ 6 ]. Accordingly, further research in other low-income regions such as the Middle East, South Asia, South-East Asia and African is needed.

We find that the target group of most remote or distance education studies is less likely to be elementary school students. In this study, the majority of participants included were late primary school students. Therefore, the findings highlight gaps in which further research is needed especially among young children during early primary school year. This will help determine how significant the impact of remote or distance education is on the development of learning and skills as younger students require in-person learning the most [ 42 ].

There are various pedagogical approaches to remote or distance intervention in the included literature. The most popular method is synchronous learning, followed by blended synchronicity. A study by Meeter [2021] and Yen and Mohamad [2021] showed that the synchronous student-centered interventions were mostly in the form of exercises or discussions where students received real-time feedback [ 30 , 41 ]. According to Media Naturalness Theory, the level of synchronicity and social communication cues such as facial expression or body language determine the naturalness of media [ 43 ]. Therefore, the more synchronous and natural the learning methods, the more preferable they are. It is similar to the result of a study by Seraj et al. [2022], which found that although teachers are in favor of synchronous methods [ 44 ], a combination of synchronous and asynchronous methods is also addressed as an optimal approach for teachers’ and students’ flexibility [ 45 ]. Both methods have their own benefits and challenges, so they can be selected based on the different contexts and preferences of teachers and learners.

Online and multimodal learning strategies are preferable by many countries for national distance education policies. According to a study conducted by the Global Education and Technology Team, Education Global Practice, World Bank Group, the policy of remote learning preferred multimodal delivery systems over unimodal delivery systems [ 46 ]. They suggested that it is effective to increase coverage, but a clear communication strategy is needed to respond to the local needs and contexts [ 46 ]. Accordingly, the multimodal delivery system should be supported to ensure accessibility based on technology capacity and learning preferences.

For the outcomes of distance education interventions, academic performance was not affected by remote or distance education in any educational approaches, which means that remote or distance education is just as effective in terms of academic development as in-person learning. A study by Meeter [2021] among 53,656 students in 2 nd to 6 th grade from Netherlands showed that the average of learning achievement was stronger during the lockdown year compared to the year before, and it remained even the lockdown ended [ 30 ].

This idea is supported by a systematic review about the effectiveness of distance learning before the COVID-19 pandemic, which showed that distance education is as effective as face-to-face learning in terms of student learning outcomes [74% of literature in the systematic review] [ 47 ]. Although a meta-analysis study by Ulum [2022] revealed that online education during the COVID-19 pandemic had moderate effects on academic performance compared to traditional learning, it has not been influenced by different online education approaches [ 48 ]. Therefore, in terms of academic outcomes, any pedagogical approaches and synchronicity in remote or distance education can be applied during public a health emergency.

Academic-related behavior outcomes, attitudes, and perceptions are determined by various learning approaches. The synchronously student-centered interventions are more engaging compared to other types. A study by Yen and Mohamad [2021] addressed that the use of Google Classroom revealed an increase in motivation among users in mastering spelling from the perspective of active participation and teamwork [ 41 ]. Compared to a study by Christopoulos and Sprangers [2021] about asynchronously student-centered approach that some students appreciated the intervention and wanted to keep practicing, whereas others felt frustration and dissatisfaction [ 22 ]. According to a study by Aguilar et al. [2022], there is a substantial association between live instruction and student engagement in online learning among primary school pupils in California [ 49 ], making synchronized student-centered interventions more engaging than other types. There was a 26% increase in the likelihood that students will finish all of their assignments for every additional hour of live instruction per week [ 49 ]. Student engagement can be explained by self-determination theory consisting of autonomy [feel in control of our own behaviors and goal], competence [feel competent and effective], and relatedness [experience interaction and feel connected] [ 50 ]. A synchronously student-centered approach can easily achieve these factors, especially for relatedness and competence, while an asynchronous approach encourages autonomy. Therefore, different learning approaches may not fully determine academic-related behavior outcomes but addressing each student’s self-determination and personal preferences are more important.

Remote and distance education intervention success depends on organizational factors such as technology infrastructure readiness, personal factors such as familiarity with technology and family support, and pedagogical factors such as course design and course delivery [ 51 ]. All these factors are addressed by the included studies in this review and there are similar views towards difficulties and burdens, and mental health or social interaction. Students mostly complained about technological problems and requested for support from families and teachers. It is similar to qualitative studies from parents and educators about the impact of remote learning on primary students’ well-being in that it has both positive and negative effects determined by supports from teachers, parents, and schools [ 52 ]. This emphasizes the importance of technology infrastructure preparation and a solid support system for learners.

Most of the study are quasi-experimental study and there are various limitations in comparisons with the control group, evaluation of pre- and post-exposure, complete follow-up, and reliable outcome measurements. A study by Huertas-Abril [2021] showed limitations in comparisons with the control group or pre- and post-exposure evaluation, and incomplete follow-up [ 26 ]. Quasi-experimental study is a manipulation of intervention to study group with non-equivalent control and quasi-independent variables [ 53 ]. Quasi-experimental study needs control or comparison group which can be one group design of pretest and posttest or non-equivalent control design [ 53 ]. According to experimental design, the follow up data is necessary to interpret the results, so it is necessary to have strategy dealing with incomplete follow-up or selection bias such as describing characteristics of loss follow-up group [ 54 ]. Thus, future research should reduce these biases to improve research quality in this field.

This review is a novel study that aims to systematically evaluate the outcomes of specific types of distance education interventions in primary school students who are significantly affected by education disruption compared to students at the secondary and tertiary levels. Nevertheless, this study also has several limitations. Firstly, there were multiple quasi-experimental studies in this review. Although this type of study can evaluate the causal relationship between intervention causes and effects, the issue of selection bias remains compared to randomized controlled trial studies [ 55 , 56 ]. Furthermore, future quasi-experimental studies should concentrate on control group comparison and loss follow-up strategies. Secondly, as all studies were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it seemed difficult to collect the data for pre-tests, or to find appropriate control groups in the quasi-experimental studies. Therefore, continuous data monitoring on repeated measurements or a time series analysis will be of great value to better understand changes for the further program’s implementation. Lastly, the databases used may not have covered databases specific to the educational field since this might lead to selection bias. Future research should focus more on randomized study designs or should implement control groups for evaluation study and expanding database coverage for systematic review.

This study recommends that remote or distance education can be an alternative in primary school education to maintain academic performance during the crisis situation. Synchronously student-centered interventions are supposed to be promoted due to academic engagement. However, the technology infrastructure and support system from teachers and families should be considered by school administrators and policy makers to ensure effective remote or distance education.

School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the educational system and required the transition from in-person learning to remote or distance education. Consequently, different educational interventions were applied in various settings. In this study, the outcomes of each intervention were explored in primary school students. Most of the interventions were synchronously student-centered approaches utilizing online channels. In evaluating academic performance, remote or distance education was found to be effective in terms of academic development by using any learning approach, but the findings on attitudes and perceptions were mixed between positive and negative views. Positive academic-related behaviors were also seen when using a synchronously student-centered approach [e.g., positive outcomes in engagement]. Finally, difficulties or burdens, and mental health or social interaction reported similar results for all learning approaches. These included technological problems and support systems from families and teachers. While a synchronously student-centered method is recommended as the main intervention due to its excellent outcomes for academic achievement and engagement in academic behavior, other approaches can also be used in conjunction if it addresses students’ needs. Finally, the educational technology infrastructure and support system from teachers and parents are also necessary in remote or distance education. Future studies should further explore intervention outcomes on primary school students, especially in low-income regions, with a randomized study design.

Supporting information

S1 file. the jbi appraisal checklist of quasi-experimental, cross-sectional, cohort and qualitative studies..

The protocol, template data collection forms, and data extracted from included studies were not publicly available and had not been registered.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286674.s001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286674.s002

Acknowledgments

This publication is supported by The Capacity Building on Health Policy and Systems Research program (HPSR Fellowship) under cooperation between Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives (BAAC), National Health Security Office (NHSO) and International Health Policy Program Foundation (IHPF).

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A worldwide journey through distance education—from the post office to virtual, augmented and mixed realities, and education during the covid-19 pandemic.

1. Distance Education—A Short Introduction

2. materials and methods, 3. the beginning, 3.1. precursors, 3.2. america, 3.3. europe, 3.4. australia, 3.5. africa, 4.1. america, 4.2. europe, 4.3. australia, 4.4. africa, 5. television, audio, and videotape cassettes, 5.1. america, 5.2. europe, 5.3. australia, 5.4. africa, 6. floppy disks and cd-roms, 7. internet, 7.1. america, 7.2. europe, 7.3. australia, 7.4. africa, 8. virtual, augmented, and mixed realities, 8.1. virtual reality, 8.2. augmented reality, 8.3. mixed reality, 9. covid-19 pandemic and distance teaching reality, 10. discussion, 11. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Pregowska, A.; Masztalerz, K.; Garlińska, M.; Osial, M. A Worldwide Journey through Distance Education—From the Post Office to Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realities, and Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Educ. Sci. 2021 , 11 , 118. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11030118

Pregowska A, Masztalerz K, Garlińska M, Osial M. A Worldwide Journey through Distance Education—From the Post Office to Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realities, and Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Education Sciences . 2021; 11(3):118. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11030118

Pregowska, Agnieszka, Karol Masztalerz, Magdalena Garlińska, and Magdalena Osial. 2021. "A Worldwide Journey through Distance Education—From the Post Office to Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realities, and Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic" Education Sciences 11, no. 3: 118. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11030118

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• Published: 09 January 2024

Online vs in-person learning in higher education: effects on student achievement and recommendations for leadership

• Bandar N. Alarifi 1 &
• Steve Song 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  86 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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This study is a comparative analysis of online distance learning and traditional in-person education at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, with a focus on understanding how different educational modalities affect student achievement. The justification for this study lies in the rapid shift towards online learning, especially highlighted by the educational changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. By analyzing the final test scores of freshman students in five core courses over the 2020 (in-person) and 2021 (online) academic years, the research provides empirical insights into the efficacy of online versus traditional education. Initial observations suggested that students in online settings scored lower in most courses. However, after adjusting for variables like gender, class size, and admission scores using multiple linear regression, a more nuanced picture emerged. Three courses showed better performance in the 2021 online cohort, one favored the 2020 in-person group, and one was unaffected by the teaching format. The study emphasizes the crucial need for a nuanced, data-driven strategy in integrating online learning within higher education systems. It brings to light the fact that the success of educational methodologies is highly contingent on specific contextual factors. This finding advocates for educational administrators and policymakers to exercise careful and informed judgment when adopting online learning modalities. It encourages them to thoroughly evaluate how different subjects and instructional approaches might interact with online formats, considering the variable effects these might have on learning outcomes. This approach ensures that decisions about implementing online education are made with a comprehensive understanding of its diverse and context-specific impacts, aiming to optimize educational effectiveness and student success.

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Introduction.

The year 2020 marked an extraordinary period, characterized by the global disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments and institutions worldwide had to adapt to unforeseen challenges across various domains, including health, economy, and education. In response, many educational institutions quickly transitioned to distance teaching (also known as e-learning, online learning, or virtual classrooms) to ensure continued access to education for their students. However, despite this rapid and widespread shift to online learning, a comprehensive examination of its effects on student achievement in comparison to traditional in-person instruction remains largely unexplored.

In research examining student outcomes in the context of online learning, the prevailing trend is the consistent observation that online learners often achieve less favorable results when compared to their peers in traditional classroom settings (e.g., Fischer et al., 2020 ; Bettinger et al., 2017 ; Edvardsson and Oskarsson, 2008 ). However, it is important to note that a significant portion of research on online learning has primarily focused on its potential impact (Kuhfeld et al., 2020 ; Azevedo et al., 2020 ; Di Pietro et al., 2020 ) or explored various perspectives (Aucejo et al., 2020 ; Radha et al., 2020 ) concerning distance education. These studies have often omitted a comprehensive and nuanced examination of its concrete academic consequences, particularly in terms of test scores and grades.

Given the dearth of research on the academic impact of online learning, especially in light of Covid-19 in the educational arena, the present study aims to address that gap by assessing the effectiveness of distance learning compared to in-person teaching in five required freshmen-level courses at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. To accomplish this objective, the current study compared the final exam results of 8297 freshman students who were enrolled in the five courses in person in 2020 to their 8425 first-year counterparts who has taken the same courses at the same institution in 2021 but in an online format.

The final test results of the five courses (i.e., University Skills 101, Entrepreneurship 101, Computer Skills 101, Computer Skills 101, and Fitness and Health Culture 101) were examined, accounting for potential confounding factors such as gender, class size and admission scores, which have been cited in past research to be correlated with student achievement (e.g., Meinck and Brese, 2019 ; Jepsen, 2015 ) Additionally, as the preparatory year at King Saud University is divided into five tracks—health, nursing, science, business, and humanity, the study classified students based on their respective disciplines.

Motivation for the study

The rapid expansion of distance learning in higher education, particularly highlighted during the recent COVID-19 pandemic (Volk et al., 2020 ; Bettinger et al., 2017 ), underscores the need for alternative educational approaches during crises. Such disruptions can catalyze innovation and the adoption of distance learning as a contingency plan (Christensen et al., 2015 ). King Saud University, like many institutions worldwide, faced the challenge of transitioning abruptly to online learning in response to the pandemic.

E-learning has gained prominence in higher education due to technological advancements, offering institutions a competitive edge (Valverde-Berrocoso et al., 2020 ). Especially during conditions like the COVID-19 pandemic, electronic communication was utilized across the globe as a feasible means to overcome barriers and enhance interactions (Bozkurt, 2019 ).

Distance learning, characterized by flexibility, became crucial when traditional in-person classes are hindered by unforeseen circumstance such as the ones posed by COVID-19 (Arkorful and Abaidoo, 2015 ). Scholars argue that it allows students to learn at their own pace, often referred to as self-directed learning (Hiemstra, 1994 ) or self-education (Gadamer, 2001 ). Additional advantages include accessibility, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility (Sadeghi, 2019 ).

However, distance learning is not immune to its own set of challenges. Technical impediments, encompassing network issues, device limitations, and communication hiccups, represent formidable hurdles (Sadeghi, 2019 ). Furthermore, concerns about potential distractions in the online learning environment, fueled by the ubiquity of the internet and social media, have surfaced (Hall et al., 2020 ; Ravizza et al., 2017 ). The absence of traditional face-to-face interactions among students and between students and instructors is also viewed as a potential drawback (Sadeghi, 2019 ).

Given the evolving understanding of the pros and cons of distance learning, this study aims to contribute to the existing literature by assessing the effectiveness of distance learning, specifically in terms of student achievement, as compared to in-person classroom learning at King Saud University, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest higher education institutions.

Academic achievement: in-person vs online learning

The primary driving force behind the rapid integration of technology in education has been its emphasis on student performance (Lai and Bower, 2019 ). Over the past decade, numerous studies have undertaken comparisons of student academic achievement in online and in-person settings (e.g., Bettinger et al., 2017 ; Fischer et al., 2020 ; Iglesias-Pradas et al., 2021 ). This section offers a concise review of the disparities in academic achievement between college students engaged in in-person and online learning, as identified in existing research.

A number of studies point to the superiority of traditional in-person education over online learning in terms of academic outcomes. For example, Fischer et al. ( 2020 ) conducted a comprehensive study involving 72,000 university students across 433 subjects, revealing that online students tend to achieve slightly lower academic results than their in-class counterparts. Similarly, Bettinger et al. ( 2017 ) found that students at for-profit online universities generally underperformed when compared to their in-person peers. Supporting this trend, Figlio et al. ( 2013 ) indicated that in-person instruction consistently produced better results, particularly among specific subgroups like males, lower-performing students, and Hispanic learners. Additionally, Kaupp’s ( 2012 ) research in California community colleges demonstrated that online students faced lower completion and success rates compared to their traditional in-person counterparts (Fig. 1 ).

The figure compared student achievement in the final tests in the five courses by year, using independent-samples t-tests; the results show a statistically-significant drop in test scores from 2020 (in person) to 2021 (online) for all courses except CT_101.

In contrast, other studies present evidence of online students outperforming their in-person peers. For example, Iglesias-Pradas et al. ( 2021 ) conducted a comparative analysis of 43 bachelor courses at Telecommunication Engineering College in Malaysia, revealing that online students achieved higher academic outcomes than their in-person counterparts. Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gonzalez et al. ( 2020 ) found that students engaged in online learning performed better than those who had previously taken the same subjects in traditional in-class settings.

Expanding on this topic, several studies have reported mixed results when comparing the academic performance of online and in-person students, with various student and instructor factors emerging as influential variables. Chesser et al. ( 2020 ) noted that student traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion play a substantial role in academic achievement, regardless of the learning environment—be it traditional in-person classrooms or online settings. Furthermore, Cacault et al. ( 2021 ) discovered that online students with higher academic proficiency tend to outperform those with lower academic capabilities, suggesting that differences in students’ academic abilities may impact their performance. In contrast, Bergstrand and Savage ( 2013 ) found that online classes received lower overall ratings and exhibited a less respectful learning environment when compared to in-person instruction. Nevertheless, they also observed that the teaching efficiency of both in-class and online courses varied significantly depending on the instructors’ backgrounds and approaches. These findings underscore the multifaceted nature of the online vs. in-person learning debate, highlighting the need for a nuanced understanding of the factors at play.

Theoretical framework

Constructivism is a well-established learning theory that places learners at the forefront of their educational experience, emphasizing their active role in constructing knowledge through interactions with their environment (Duffy and Jonassen, 2009 ). According to constructivist principles, learners build their understanding by assimilating new information into their existing cognitive frameworks (Vygotsky, 1978 ). This theory highlights the importance of context, active engagement, and the social nature of learning (Dewey, 1938 ). Constructivist approaches often involve hands-on activities, problem-solving tasks, and opportunities for collaborative exploration (Brooks and Brooks, 1999 ).

In the realm of education, subject-specific pedagogy emerges as a vital perspective that acknowledges the distinctive nature of different academic disciplines (Shulman, 1986 ). It suggests that teaching methods should be tailored to the specific characteristics of each subject, recognizing that subjects like mathematics, literature, or science require different approaches to facilitate effective learning (Shulman, 1987 ). Subject-specific pedagogy emphasizes that the methods of instruction should mirror the ways experts in a particular field think, reason, and engage with their subject matter (Cochran-Smith and Zeichner, 2005 ).

When applying these principles to the design of instruction for online and in-person learning environments, the significance of adapting methods becomes even more pronounced. Online learning often requires unique approaches due to its reliance on technology, asynchronous interactions, and potential for reduced social presence (Anderson, 2003 ). In-person learning, on the other hand, benefits from face-to-face interactions and immediate feedback (Allen and Seaman, 2016 ). Here, the interplay of constructivism and subject-specific pedagogy becomes evident.

Online learning. In an online environment, constructivist principles can be upheld by creating interactive online activities that promote exploration, reflection, and collaborative learning (Salmon, 2000 ). Discussion forums, virtual labs, and multimedia presentations can provide opportunities for students to actively engage with the subject matter (Harasim, 2017 ). By integrating subject-specific pedagogy, educators can design online content that mirrors the discipline’s methodologies while leveraging technology for authentic experiences (Koehler and Mishra, 2009 ). For instance, an online history course might incorporate virtual museum tours, primary source analysis, and collaborative timeline projects.

In-person learning. In a traditional brick-and-mortar classroom setting, constructivist methods can be implemented through group activities, problem-solving tasks, and in-depth discussions that encourage active participation (Jonassen et al., 2003 ). Subject-specific pedagogy complements this by shaping instructional methods to align with the inherent characteristics of the subject (Hattie, 2009). For instance, in a physics class, hands-on experiments and real-world applications can bring theoretical concepts to life (Hake, 1998 ).

In sum, the fusion of constructivism and subject-specific pedagogy offers a versatile approach to instructional design that adapts to different learning environments (Garrison, 2011 ). By incorporating the principles of both theories, educators can tailor their methods to suit the unique demands of online and in-person learning, ultimately providing students with engaging and effective learning experiences that align with the nature of the subject matter and the mode of instruction.

Course description

The Self-Development Skills Department at King Saud University (KSU) offers five mandatory freshman-level courses. These courses aim to foster advanced thinking skills and cultivate scientific research abilities in students. They do so by imparting essential skills, identifying higher-level thinking patterns, and facilitating hands-on experience in scientific research. The design of these classes is centered around aiding students’ smooth transition into university life. Brief descriptions of these courses are as follows:

University Skills 101 (CI 101) is a three-hour credit course designed to nurture essential academic, communication, and personal skills among all preparatory year students at King Saud University. The primary goal of this course is to equip students with the practical abilities they need to excel in their academic pursuits and navigate their university lives effectively. CI 101 comprises 12 sessions and is an integral part of the curriculum for all incoming freshmen, ensuring a standardized foundation for skill development.

Fitness and Health 101 (FAJB 101) is a one-hour credit course. FAJB 101 focuses on the aspects of self-development skills in terms of health and physical, and the skills related to personal health, nutrition, sports, preventive, psychological, reproductive, and first aid. This course aims to motivate students’ learning process through entertainment, sports activities, and physical exercises to maintain their health. This course is required for all incoming freshmen students at King Saud University.

Entrepreneurship 101 (ENT 101) is a one-hour- credit course. ENT 101 aims to develop students’ skills related to entrepreneurship. The course provides students with knowledge and skills to generate and transform ideas and innovations into practical commercial projects in business settings. The entrepreneurship course consists of 14 sessions and is taught only to students in the business track.

Computer Skills 101 (CT 101) is a three-hour credit course. This provides students with the basic computer skills, e.g., components, operating systems, applications, and communication backup. The course explores data visualization, introductory level of modern programming with algorithms and information security. CT 101 course is taught for all tracks except those in the human track.

Computer Skills 102 (CT 102) is a three-hour credit course. It provides IT skills to the students to utilize computers with high efficiency, develop students’ research and scientific skills, and increase capability to design basic educational software. CT 102 course focuses on operating systems such as Microsoft Office. This course is only taught for students in the human track.

Structure and activities

These courses ranged from one to three hours. A one-hour credit means that students must take an hour of the class each week during the academic semester. The same arrangement would apply to two and three credit-hour courses. The types of activities in each course are shown in Table 1 .

At King Saud University, each semester spans 15 weeks in duration. The total number of semester hours allocated to each course serves as an indicator of its significance within the broader context of the academic program, including the diverse tracks available to students. Throughout the two years under study (i.e., 2020 and 2021), course placements (fall or spring), course content, and the organizational structure remained consistent and uniform.

Participants

The study’s data comes from test scores of a cohort of 16,722 first-year college students enrolled at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia over the span of two academic years: 2020 and 2021. Among these students, 8297 were engaged in traditional, in-person learning in 2020, while 8425 had transitioned to online instruction for the same courses in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, the student population consisted of 51.5% females and 48.5% males. However, in 2021, there was a reversal in these proportions, with female students accounting for 48.5% and male students comprising 51.5% of the total participants.

Regarding student enrollment in the five courses, Table 2 provides a detailed breakdown by average class size, admission scores, and the number of students enrolled in the courses during the two years covered by this study. While the total number of students in each course remained relatively consistent across the two years, there were noticeable fluctuations in average class sizes. Specifically, four out of the five courses experienced substantial increases in class size, with some nearly doubling in size (e.g., ENT_101 and CT_102), while one course (CT_101) showed a reduction in its average class size.

In this study, it must be noted that while some students enrolled in up to three different courses within the same academic year, none repeated the same exam in both years. Specifically, students who failed to pass their courses in 2020 were required to complete them in summer sessions and were consequently not included in this study’s dataset. To ensure clarity and precision in our analysis, the research focused exclusively on student test scores to evaluate and compare the academic effectiveness of online and traditional in-person learning methods. This approach was chosen to provide a clear, direct comparison of the educational impacts associated with each teaching format.

Descriptive analysis of the final exam scores for the two years (2020 and 2021) were conducted. Additionally, comparison of student outcomes in in-person classes in 2020 to their online platform peers in 2021 were conducted using an independent-samples t -test. Subsequently, in order to address potential disparities between the two groups arising from variables such as gender, class size, and admission scores (which serve as an indicator of students’ academic aptitude and pre-enrollment knowledge), multiple regression analyses were conducted. In these multivariate analyses, outcomes of both in-person and online cohorts were assessed within their respective tracks. By carefully considering essential aforementioned variables linked to student performance, the study aimed to ensure a comprehensive and equitable evaluation.

Study instrument

The study obtained students’ final exam scores for the years 2020 (in-person) and 2021 (online) from the school’s records office through their examination management system. In the preparatory year at King Saud University, final exams for all courses are developed by committees composed of faculty members from each department. To ensure valid comparisons, the final exam questions, crafted by departmental committees of professors, remained consistent and uniform for the two years under examination.

Table 3 provides a comprehensive assessment of the reliability of all five tests included in our analysis. These tests exhibit a strong degree of internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients spanning a range from 0.77 to 0.86. This robust and consistent internal consistency measurement underscores the dependable nature of these tests, affirming their reliability and suitability for the study’s objectives.

In terms of assessing test validity, content validity was ensured through a thorough review by university subject matter experts, resulting in test items that align well with the content domain and learning objectives. Additionally, criterion-related validity was established by correlating students’ admissions test scores with their final required freshman test scores in the five subject areas, showing a moderate and acceptable relationship (0.37 to 0.56) between the test scores and the external admissions test. Finally, construct validity was confirmed through reviews by experienced subject instructors, leading to improvements in test content. With guidance from university subject experts, construct validity was established, affirming the effectiveness of the final tests in assessing students’ subject knowledge at the end of their coursework.

Collectively, these validity and reliability measures affirm the soundness and integrity of the final subject tests, establishing their suitability as effective assessment tools for evaluating students’ knowledge in their five mandatory freshman courses at King Saud University.

After obtaining research approval from the Research Committee at King Saud University, the coordinators of the five courses (CI_101, ENT_101, CT_101, CT_102, and FAJB_101) supplied the researchers with the final exam scores of all first-year preparatory year students at King Saud University for the initial semester of the academic years 2020 and 2021. The sample encompassed all students who had completed these five courses during both years, resulting in a total of 16,722 students forming the final group of participants.

Limitations

Several limitations warrant acknowledgment in this study. First, the research was conducted within a well-resourced major public university. As such, the experiences with online classes at other types of institutions (e.g., community colleges, private institutions) may vary significantly. Additionally, the limited data pertaining to in-class teaching practices and the diversity of learning activities across different courses represents a gap that could have provided valuable insights for a more thorough interpretation and explanation of the study’s findings.

To compare student achievement in the final tests in the five courses by year, independent-samples t -tests were conducted. Table 4 shows a statistically-significant drop in test scores from 2020 (in person) to 2021 (online) for all courses except CT_101. The biggest decline was with CT_102 with 3.58 points, and the smallest decline was with CI_101 with 0.18 points.

However, such simple comparison of means between the two years (via t -tests) by subjects does not account for the differences in gender composition, class size, and admission scores between the two academic years, all of which have been associated with student outcomes (e.g., Ho and Kelman, 2014 ; De Paola et al., 2013 ). To account for such potential confounding variables, multiple regressions were conducted to compare the 2 years’ results while controlling for these three factors associated with student achievement.

Table 5 presents the regression results, illustrating the variation in final exam scores between 2020 and 2021, while controlling for gender, class size, and admission scores. Importantly, these results diverge significantly from the outcomes obtained through independent-sample t -test analyses.

Taking into consideration the variables mentioned earlier, students in the 2021 online cohort demonstrated superior performance compared to their 2020 in-person counterparts in CI_101, FAJB_101, and CT_101, with score advantages of 0.89, 0.56, and 5.28 points, respectively. Conversely, in the case of ENT_101, online students in 2021 scored 0.69 points lower than their 2020 in-person counterparts. With CT_102, there were no statistically significant differences in final exam scores between the two cohorts of students.

The study sought to assess the effectiveness of distance learning compared to in-person learning in the higher education setting in Saudi Arabia. We analyzed the final exam scores of 16,722 first-year college students in King Saud University in five required subjects (i.e., CI_101, ENT_101, CT_101, CT_102, and FAJB_101). The study initially performed a simple comparison of mean scores by tracks by year (via t -tests) and then a number of multiple regression analyses which controlled for class size, gender composition, and admission scores.

Overall, the study’s more in-depth findings using multiple regression painted a wholly different picture than the results obtained using t -tests. After controlling for class size, gender composition, and admissions scores, online students in 2021 performed better than their in-person instruction peers in 2020 in University Skills (CI_101), Fitness and Health (FAJB_101), and Computer Skills (CT_101), whereas in-person students outperformed their online peers in Entrepreneurship (ENT_101). There was no meaningful difference in outcomes for students in the Computer Skills (CT_102) course for the two years.

In light of these findings, it raises the question: why do we observe minimal differences (less than a one-point gain or loss) in student outcomes in courses like University Skills, Fitness and Health, Entrepreneurship, and Advanced Computer Skills based on the mode of instruction? Is it possible that when subjects are primarily at a basic or introductory level, as is the case with these courses, the mode of instruction may have a limited impact as long as the concepts are effectively communicated in a manner familiar and accessible to students?

In today’s digital age, one could argue that students in more developed countries, such as Saudi Arabia, generally possess the skills and capabilities to effectively engage with materials presented in both in-person and online formats. However, there is a notable exception in the Basic Computer Skills course, where the online cohort outperformed their in-person counterparts by more than 5 points. Insights from interviews with the instructors of this course suggest that this result may be attributed to the course’s basic and conceptual nature, coupled with the availability of instructional videos that students could revisit at their own pace.

Given that students enter this course with varying levels of computer skills, self-paced learning may have allowed them to cover course materials at their preferred speed, concentrating on less familiar topics while swiftly progressing through concepts they already understood. The advantages of such self-paced learning have been documented by scholars like Tullis and Benjamin ( 2011 ), who found that self-paced learners often outperform those who spend the same amount of time studying identical materials. This approach allows learners to allocate their time more effectively according to their individual learning pace, providing greater ownership and control over their learning experience. As such, in courses like introductory computer skills, it can be argued that becoming familiar with fundamental and conceptual topics may not require extensive in-class collaboration. Instead, it may be more about exposure to and digestion of materials in a format and at a pace tailored to students with diverse backgrounds, knowledge levels, and skill sets.

Further investigation is needed to more fully understand why some classes benefitted from online instruction while others did not, and vice versa. Perhaps, it could be posited that some content areas are more conducive to in-person (or online) format while others are not. Or it could be that the different results of the two modes of learning were driven by students of varying academic abilities and engagement, with low-achieving students being more vulnerable to the limitations of online learning (e.g., Kofoed et al., 2021 ). Whatever the reasons, the results of the current study can be enlightened by a more in-depth analysis of the various factors associated with such different forms of learning. Moreover, although not clear cut, what the current study does provide is additional evidence against any dire consequences to student learning (at least in the higher ed setting) as a result of sudden increase in online learning with possible benefits of its wider use being showcased.

Based on the findings of this study, we recommend that educational leaders adopt a measured approach to online learning—a stance that neither fully embraces nor outright denounces it. The impact on students’ experiences and engagement appears to vary depending on the subjects and methods of instruction, sometimes hindering, other times promoting effective learning, while some classes remain relatively unaffected.

Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, educational leaders should be open to exploring the nuances behind these outcomes. This involves examining why certain courses thrived with online delivery, while others either experienced a decline in student achievement or remained largely unaffected. By exploring these differentiated outcomes associated with diverse instructional formats, leaders in higher education institutions and beyond can make informed decisions about resource allocation. For instance, resources could be channeled towards in-person learning for courses that benefit from it, while simultaneously expanding online access for courses that have demonstrated improved outcomes through its virtual format. This strategic approach not only optimizes resource allocation but could also open up additional revenue streams for the institution.

Considering the enduring presence of online learning, both before the pandemic and its accelerated adoption due to Covid-19, there is an increasing need for institutions of learning and scholars in higher education, as well as other fields, to prioritize the study of its effects and optimal utilization. This study, which compares student outcomes between two cohorts exposed to in-person and online instruction (before and during Covid-19) at the largest university in Saudi Arabia, represents a meaningful step in this direction.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Bandar N. Alarifi

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Dr. Bandar Alarifi collected and organized data for the five courses and wrote the manuscript. Dr. Steve Song analyzed and interpreted the data regarding student achievement and revised the manuscript. These authors jointly supervised this work and approved the final manuscript.

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Alarifi, B.N., Song, S. Online vs in-person learning in higher education: effects on student achievement and recommendations for leadership. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 86 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02590-1

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Biden-Harris Administration Releases Proposed Regulations to Increase College Access and Quality, and Strengthen Oversight of Distance Education

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) today released proposed regulations that would increase college access for high school students, provide better public data on student outcomes, including to increase oversight over distance education programs, and ensure the student aid programs work in the best interests of students. The regulations propose changes to three distinct areas, including the federal TRIO programs, Distance Education, and Return to Title IV (R2T4). Today’s proposed regulations build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to increase college access and affordability and improve the quality and value of postsecondary education.

“Under President Biden’s leadership, we continue our relentless push to make higher education more affordable and accessible to all Americans. The regulations proposed today, if enacted, would help expand both access and affordability to our most disadvantaged students: those from low-income backgrounds, students without immigration status, and students with disabilities,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “By broadening eligibility for federal programs and placing guardrails that help protect against situations that leave students with debt but no degree, we can open more doors to the life-changing potential of higher education.”

The proposed regulations will be formally published in the coming days, and the public will be invited to comment on the proposed regulations for a period of 30 days. The rules propose needed and critical improvements to:

• Increase Dreamers’ access to higher education through the federal TRIO programs. The TRIO programs are federal outreach and student services programs designed to identify and provide services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, including low-income, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities. The proposed changes would expand eligibility to include students without immigration status who are enrolled in or seek to enroll in a high school in the United States, territories, or Freely Associated States. The expansion in eligibility would apply to the Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Educational Opportunity Center programs which serve students at the elementary and high school levels. These changes would increase high school completion, college access, enrollment, completion, and overall earnings of students without status.

• Account for student outcomes in evaluating student success and increase oversight over programs offered through distance education. Online learning, which has substantially increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, has the potential to provide some flexibility to college students. However, the Department currently has very limited data on students enrolled in and programs offered through distance education which limits the Department’s ability to answer important questions about student outcomes and conduct adequate oversight over distance education. Proposed changes include requiring additional reporting for programs offered entirely through distance education and students’ distance education status which would allow the Department to share and evaluate data and protect students through offering closed school discharges when an institution ends a program offered in-person or online. The regulations also propose protections to make sure online students in career-focused programs get direct instructor interaction by prohibiting the use of asynchronous instruction.

• Help students who withdraw from paying any outstanding balances and increase accuracy and simplicity of calculations for institutions under R2T4. R2T4 regulations govern the process institutions must conduct when an HEA Title IV recipient ceases attendance during a payment period. An R2T4 calculation determines whether funds must be returned by the school and/or student. The issue is one of the top compliance findings for institutions and raises complex and challenging questions. Proposed changes would help students who withdraw better pay down their balances so they may more easily return to their education and would streamline and simplify the calculation for institutions.

The proposed regulations released today are the latest action in the Department’s ongoing work to better ensure students and taxpayers receive value from postsecondary education. The Department launched negotiations on Program Integrity and Institutional Quality with a series of public hearings in April 2023. The negotiating committee and TRIO subcommittee, which were formed to develop and inform proposed language, met over the course of January through March 2024, and reached consensus on the issue of TRIO expansion. In addition to the issues included in the notice of proposed rulemaking, the Department considered regulations on Accreditation, State Authorization, and Cash Management. As further detailed in a blog post today on the timing of forthcoming regulations, the remainder of those issues will be released in proposed rules in 2025.

View an unofficial copy of the proposed regulations here .