Perceptions of new online education models in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. A case study of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies

ABSTRACT

The traditional educational models have been challenged by the appearance of the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, which made online education an imperative almost everywhere in order to ensure a minimized health risk for population through social distancing while continuing the educational and administrative activities of educational facilities. As a measure of protection for their students and personnel educational facilities in the European Union decided to close and continue the activities online starting with March 2020. By using the Delphi method with two rounds of questionnaires the present paper intended to inquire the experience of students from the German department of the Faculty of Business Administration of the Bucharest University of Economics Studies in Romania in the early stage of complete online teaching due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The results of the inquiry indicated the majority of students evaluated positively the easiness and accessibility of information and tasks during the online courses, tended to feel still as a community and not as isolated individuals and preferred to continue with both online and face-to-face classes in the upcoming period, thus, overall rating positively the online teaching of the second semester between March 2020 and May 2020. The study offers a basis of inquiry for future research papers in the sense of analyzing the public perceptions of a sample of students from the included faculty in order to determine improving directions for the future of online learning.