How have Covid-19-related changes to tuition modes impacted face-to-face initial teacher education students?

ABSTRACT

In Semester 1 of the 2020 academic year, face-to-face higher education students in many institutions were instructed to not attend classes or lectures on campus soon after the semester commenced, due to precautions put in place to limit the spread of Covid-19 in institutions across Australia. To sustain education and course progression, students were rapidly transitioned to learning-platforms, and synchronous or asynchronous online instruction. Although this action was needed to help ensure undisrupted learning, little consideration was given to the impact this would have on the students who had chosen to study in the face-to-face mode. The instrumental case study reported in this paper sought to capture the lived experiences of students enrolled in initial teacher education (ITE) programs in mathematics, science, and technology (STEM) units in on-campus, face-to-face mode as they moved to emergency fully online instruction. An initial online survey, constructed in Qualtrics and using a 4-point Likert scale, was sent to these students in Semester 2, and this was followed by semi-structured interviews with those who indicated their willingness to participate. Thirty-two students participated in the survey and 11 in the interviews, and these data were examined through the lens of self-determination theory. The majority of participants preferred the face-to-face mode, yet some were surprised about the affordances of fully online. Although the respondent group was small, the insights gained are of interest to educators in higher education and have the potential to inform new ways of designing and delivering authentic and engaging online and blended learning in these programs.