Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific Region

Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) can be defined as a shift of instructional delivery to a substitute delivery approach during a crisis. Such a shift poses several challenges for students at Higher Education Institutes. This paper presents a taxonomy of such challenges faced by first-year mathematics...

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Main Authors: Sione Paea, Bibhya Sharma, Gabiriele Bulivou, Christos Katsanos
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2024-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10382484/
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author Sione Paea
Bibhya Sharma
Gabiriele Bulivou
Christos Katsanos
author_facet Sione Paea
Bibhya Sharma
Gabiriele Bulivou
Christos Katsanos
author_sort Sione Paea
collection DOAJ
description Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) can be defined as a shift of instructional delivery to a substitute delivery approach during a crisis. Such a shift poses several challenges for students at Higher Education Institutes. This paper presents a taxonomy of such challenges faced by first-year mathematics students in the Pacific region during the ERT dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic. First, a list of 44 challenges was assembled based on a university’s in-house monitoring report, literature review and the authors’ experiences of challenges faced by students. Next, the open card sorting technique involving 32 participants was used to classify these challenges. Open card sorting is a well-established method for discovering how people understand and categorize information. This paper employed a recently proposed algorithm to quantitatively analyze open card sorting data using the Best Merge Method, Category Validity Technique and Multidimensional Scaling. Analysis of the collected card sort data produced the initial taxonomy of challenges. Finally, the participants were asked to answer a questionnaire so that we could validate and further refine the taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy includes seven challenges: i) lack of online learning support; ii) problem with online course delivery; iii) time and workload management; iv) learning management system issues; v) lack of face-to-face interaction; vi) financial hardship; vii) internet challenge. Such a taxonomy might be particularly useful in designing and evaluating an ERT approach.
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spelling doaj.art-4048832b01ac4f2682fb9654e447e9312024-01-13T00:02:21ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362024-01-01126339635510.1109/ACCESS.2024.335109810382484Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific RegionSione Paea0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3038-4984Bibhya Sharma1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7519-7712Gabiriele Bulivou2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8984-6306Christos Katsanos3https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9031-3083School of Information Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, FijiSchool of Information Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, FijiSchool of Information Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, FijiDepartment of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, GreeceEmergency Remote Teaching (ERT) can be defined as a shift of instructional delivery to a substitute delivery approach during a crisis. Such a shift poses several challenges for students at Higher Education Institutes. This paper presents a taxonomy of such challenges faced by first-year mathematics students in the Pacific region during the ERT dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic. First, a list of 44 challenges was assembled based on a university’s in-house monitoring report, literature review and the authors’ experiences of challenges faced by students. Next, the open card sorting technique involving 32 participants was used to classify these challenges. Open card sorting is a well-established method for discovering how people understand and categorize information. This paper employed a recently proposed algorithm to quantitatively analyze open card sorting data using the Best Merge Method, Category Validity Technique and Multidimensional Scaling. Analysis of the collected card sort data produced the initial taxonomy of challenges. Finally, the participants were asked to answer a questionnaire so that we could validate and further refine the taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy includes seven challenges: i) lack of online learning support; ii) problem with online course delivery; iii) time and workload management; iv) learning management system issues; v) lack of face-to-face interaction; vi) financial hardship; vii) internet challenge. Such a taxonomy might be particularly useful in designing and evaluating an ERT approach.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10382484/Best merge method (BMM)card sortingcategory validity technique (CVT)COVID-19 pandemicemergency remote teaching (ERT)mathematics
spellingShingle Sione Paea
Bibhya Sharma
Gabiriele Bulivou
Christos Katsanos
Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific Region
IEEE Access
Best merge method (BMM)
card sorting
category validity technique (CVT)
COVID-19 pandemic
emergency remote teaching (ERT)
mathematics
title Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific Region
title_full Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific Region
title_fullStr Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific Region
title_full_unstemmed Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific Region
title_short Emergency Remote Teaching in Higher Education Institutes: A Taxonomy of Challenges Faced by First-Year Mathematics Students in the Pacific Region
title_sort emergency remote teaching in higher education institutes a taxonomy of challenges faced by first year mathematics students in the pacific region
topic Best merge method (BMM)
card sorting
category validity technique (CVT)
COVID-19 pandemic
emergency remote teaching (ERT)
mathematics
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10382484/
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