Challenges of Virtual education During the Pandemic of COVID-19: A Qualitative Research

Coronavirus epidemic, along with other countries around the world, in Iran, also raised the need for social distancing and home quarantine. As a result, the continuation of face-to-face education was disrupted and virtual education was chosen as a strategy for not stopping education in schools and universities. Alternatively, virtual education was adopted in order not to stop education, thereby causing new challenges for students and universities. This qualitative study aimed at investigating the experiences of university professors of the problems of virtual education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This qualitative study was conducted using conventional content analysis. The aim of this study was to answer the question “What is the experience of university teachers about the challenges of virtual education during covid-19 pandemic?”. Participants were 24 university teachers in different fields whom were selected with purposeful sampling. Teachers of different disciplines at the university with a master’s degree or higher who also had at least three years of teaching experience were included in the study. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were used to collect data. Analyzing data was done through conventional content analysis with Lundman and Graneheim methods with Maxqda.

The descriptive results of the study revealed that the age range of the participants was from 30 to 50 years old. 62.5 percent of the teachers were female. Their teaching experience varied from 3 to 26 years. In terms of academic degree, 58 percent were assistant professor, 20 percent were instructor, 16 percent were associate professor, and 6 percent were full professor. Additionally, 66 percent of them were teaching at state universities. The results obtained from the qualitative part of the study included Technology-related problems with 3 subcategory, Problems with the teaching process with 5 subcategory and Poor interaction with 3 subcategory.

Due to the long closure of universities and the long-term use of e-learning Managers and policymakers in the education system need to design programs to address these issues.