Work-In-Progress: Liberian Undergraduate Engineering Students' Perceptions of the Impact of COVID-19 on their Learning Experience

ABSTRACT

The massive disruption to the global education system caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has garnered educational research communities' attention by illuminating the need to investigate the pandemic's immediate and long-term effect on education. However, less is known about its impact on engineering education in developing countries such as Liberia. Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis and Bagozzi, 1989), our research is the first step in understanding Liberian engineering students' perception of the impact of COVID-19 on their learning experiences. This work-in-progress paper presents preliminary results from 3 of the 18 participants of this study. This study focuses on the impact of the abrupt transition from face-to-face to online learning due to COVID-19 and particularly on undergraduate engineering students' learning experiences at a public university in Liberia. The research design employed to achieve this goal is a qualitative phenomenological research approach using semi-structured interview methods. Findings from our study reveal a potential two-fold challenge that needs to be addressed Psychosocial challenges and technical challenges. Our future work will unpack these and other challenges across the other 15 participants in the study. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.