Teachers' challenges for virtual education during the corona pandemic: a phenomenological study

The spread of the corona virus has caused the closure of face-to-face education and the forced transition of the country's education system to virtual education. After two years, when virtual education has gradually ended and face-to-face education has been established, it is necessary to study the challenges and problems of virtual education from the perspective of teachers as the main pillar of education. This research has been done with the aim of studying the challenges of virtual education and evaluating teachers of this style of education. This study was conducted in the framework of a qualitative approach and with the phenomenological method, in which data was collected using a semi-structured interview. The interviewees were 12 elementary school teachers in Tehran who were selected through purposive sampling and the interviews were continued until theoretical saturation was reached. The findings of the research showed that teachers' perception of the challenges of virtual education includes 4 main themes and 19 sub-themes, which main themes include material and technological challenges, challenges of education governance, challenges of the hidden elements of education, and challenges of the teacher training system.