Exploring university teachers' online education during COVID-19: Tensions between enthusiasm and stress

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities across the world radically shifted to emergency remote teaching. Since then, many universities have moved forward considerably and many lessons were learned in the area of online education. The aim of this qualitative study is to investigate how university teachers in a Belgian university experienced online education since the start of the pandemic and what exactly influences their experiences with online education. Six online focus groups (with thirty-two lecturers) revealed both enthusiasm and stress, and six tension fields that influenced their experiences with online education during COVID-19: (1) connection with students, (2) connection with colleagues, (3) digital opportunities and threats for students' learning processes (online student feedback, online interaction, structured learning materials, flexibility in time and space), (4) changing teacher roles, (5) tension due to time pressure and (6) support issues. Every tension field contains both opportunities and threats for online education, which can inform practitioners of online education in the future of university education.