Open access peer-reviewed chapter
Abstract
Andragogy is beset by socioeconomic challenges that stifle performance of the learner. Barriers to optimal performance should be unveiled, explicated, and exterminated by mitigating options like online courses. The barriers are heterogeneous since they are influenced by the thrust of the particular national curricula. The socioeconomic status of a nation state has some influence on the adherence to traditional andragogy, which cherishes the status quo. The face-to-face tuition dominated by the lecturer is generally considered to be virtuous in traditional andragogy. During times of no turbulence in education, online courses are the penultimate option. Providential education turbulence caused by contagious pandemics like COVID-19 has precipitated the need for online courses. The online courses should not be reactively considered but should be embraced as the contemporary ‘normal’ in andragogy.
Keywords
- online courses
- andragogy
- traditional practices
- national curricula
- COVID-19 era
1. Introduction
In the contemporary technological era, didactics in andragogy should be devoid of stasis but responsive to global trends. Andragogy is the education of adult learners [1]. In this chapter, the focus of andragogy is on the modus operandi of adult education. Failure to move on with other nations in embracing contemporary didactical strategies is a recipe for curriculum redundancy. Thus, the national curriculum of any nation state should be adaptive to the changes that are providential and also influenced by technological development. The national curriculum is the set of all educational pursuits that a nation state engages in for the promotion of national development [2]. Thus, the national curriculum is conglomeration of all educational activities that a nation state partakes in for the holistic development of the learner. Some challenges in the development of higher education national curricula should be turned into opportunities. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a transient collapse of the traditional education modus operandi characterized by the face-to-face tuition. There was a dire need to refocus on other modes of offering tuition. In andragogic situations, there has been a ready intervention strategy, which is distance education. The turbulent situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic could not have been felt as severely as it was experienced in andragogy since there has been the age-old option, distance education, which needed very little transformations. The outcry caused by the pandemic is an indicator that something is not going on well in the andragogic situations. The stakeholders in andragogic situations should have readily fitted in the ‘new normal’ with the help of modern technology, but the situation was contradistinctive.
2. Background to the chapter
During times of no turbulence in education, online courses are the penultimate option. They have come to the fore only when providential education turbulence caused by contagious pandemics like COVID-19 has disrupted the tradition. The online courses should not be reactively considered but should be embraced as the contemporary ‘normal’ in andragogy. The efficacy of online courses has been acknowledged by some progressive stakeholders [3]. Thus, online courses should be the contemporary modus operandi in the provision of tertiary education when developments in technology are effectively capitalized. There should be efforts by all andragogic stakeholders to embrace online courses so as to move along with other domains of life in terms of exploitation of technology for development. The exploitation of technology in andragogic situations is merely reactive to turbulent situations rather than being proactive focusing on improvement. During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought face-to-face tuition to a halt, online courses were taken as the only option for andragogy. Even though online courses served a hypercritical situation in the education domain, some sectors of the traditional stakeholders continued to vilify them. Thus, the acceptance of the online course becomes problematic [4].
3. Motivation of the chapter
There is a dearth of researches that have been carried out that point to the inefficacy of online courses. The denigration of online courses is seemingly speculative since it is rationalized on the traditional judgments of quality education in andragogy. Tradition is cultural and is hinged on what a people have and practice and how they think. Traditional andragogy has invested in infrastructure such as lecture halls and practices face-to-face tuition, which is thought to produce quality education. A breakaway from the traditions is atrocious to cultural vanguards, and a concerted effort is taken to extricate online courses.
The sociopolitical and economic statuses of a nation state have some influence on the national ethos. The national ethos
A plethora of recent researches have been carried out about the barriers to online learning that are technological [7], material [8], didactical [9], psychosocial [10], and infrastructural [11]. There is a dearth of literature about traditional practices and convictions as barriers to online courses. Literature about the sociocultural impediments of online courses needs to be accumulated. The traditions of a people could be very insidious to any changes that seem to challenge the status quo. Some insights about the extent to which traditions stifle the provision of online courses can be used in generating mitigating actions. The stakeholders in andragogy who are for the online course should conscientized on that there could be a sheer waste of resources if a mind-set for online courses is not developed in the traditionalists. Effecting change to any social phenomenon requires that the interested parties consider ways of maneuvering around the obstructing traditions.
4. Developments leading to online courses
The employment of online learning and pursuit of online courses were expected to create a smooth continuation of learning in andragogic situations. Online courses should have been considered as a modification of distance education courses, which are not novel in andragogy. Distance education was first adopted as a correspondence program in the United States at the University of Chicago toward the end of the 19th century. It was reactive to the bottleneck education system of the in-person classes in preindustrial Europe. By then, andragogy was a preserve of males in the elite class. Correspondence study was a menace to the maintenance of the privileged status of the elite and was maliciously despised. Thus, correspondence courses were unfairly considered as inferior to education provided in face-to-face interactions of the educator and the learner [12]. Despite the chastisement of correspondence education by the elite, it continued to grow and became more organized. Following the developments, the International Council for Correspondence Education was established [13].
In 1982, the developments in offering correspondence education necessitated the change of name to International Council for Distance Education. One of the factors that influenced the change of name was the development of new technologies. Satellite broadcasts were a technological evolution that enabled some universities in the United States to offer a variety of distance-education courses. Distance education can be considered as the instruction through print and electronic communications media to learners, which involves well-structured learning done in spatial and temporal situations that are different from those of the educators [14]. In 1969, the British Open University in the United Kingdom spearheaded the use of technology to augment print materials in distance education [15]. The British model has been adopted globally by both developed and developing countries. Though distance education is offered contextually in different countries according to the availability of resources, the
The study materials for different courses offered in different countries can be accessed with ease via electronic media and other means. However the contextualization of the materials to suit specific national needs is a problem. In most developing nation states, there is a dearth of human resource for the production of materials. As such, the facilitators superficially adjust the course materials in an endeavor to make them relevant to their national goals, and they seemingly appear to have the capacity of developing materials. Thus, when it comes to the provision of distance education, some educators showcase fictitious competency, while in reality, they do not have the intellectual and technical proficiencies. The pseudo capabilities of the educators in some countries in the provision of distance education have gone unchecked for many years and have fostered an assumption that all is going on smoothly. Thus, anchoring online education on shaky distance education structures begets a plethora of challenges in the provision of online courses in some countries.
The personal computer and the internet were significant inventions that contributed immensely to the revolutionization of distance education into online education. The first cases of online education started 1960 at the University of Illinois in USA. The students were learning from computer terminals that were interlinked and formed some sort of a network. The wholly online course was offered by the University of Toronto in 1984. Then, in 1989, the University of Phoenix launched the first wholly online scholastic institution that offered first and second academic degrees [17]. The Open University in the United Kingdom took online education further and became the first university worldwide to offer online distance education in the 1990s. The development of online courses has a very long history, and some of the challenges met with have been mitigated.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was supposed to not have caused any turbulence in andragogic situations. The educators in developing countries should have taken recourse to the transactions of the online courses by higher education institutions in developed countries. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, provision of online education was optional in some developing countries and was like a form of edutainment. The lack of solemnity in provision of online education by such countries could have created complacency in capacitation of educators to become effective facilitators.
The provision of online courses is causing a revolution in the education sphere. It is breaking the age-old tradition of in-person classes. The paradigm shift is not readily welcome by some traditionalist stakeholders who allege that it is riddled with hosts of challenges that adversely affect the quality of graduates produced. The challenges are national, technological, and socioeconomic and are precipitated by intransigent traditions.
5. Online courses as mandatory during COVID-19 era
The COVID-19 pandemic came as a formidable force that disrupted the traditional
Various governments worldwide were convinced that the COVID-19 pandemic had adversely affected their education systems. The governments were forced to make all education institutions cease face-to-face instructions in order to strictly observe physical distancing. The governments then launched education-crisis mitigating measures, which, among others, were curricula redesigning, revision of policies on instructional strategies, and the shifts of academic calendar [20]. Most the governments had oversights about the human capital capacitation. It appeared like the provision of online education was more focused on creating an impression about moving along with others in this global trend.
6. Methodology
The learners’ and lecturers’ experiences and perceptions on online courses during the COVID-19 era were empirically explored. Data were generated through focus group discussions and interviews with learners and lecturers, respectively. Thus, the qualitative methodology was employed in the empirical investigation. Verbal data were generated through interactive methods, which are hinged on the efficacy of the researcher who is the major instrument [21]. The interactive nature of the qualitative research methods begets the use of the term ‘data generation’ in qualitative research rather than the term ‘data collection’. Some critics with the quantitative research orientation posit that data generated in qualitative research are not valid and reliable since they could be riddled with researcher biases and cannot be replicated. Some issues in the critiques are valid but should not be taken to extremes. They should be considered as control measures that make qualitative researchers vigilant. The terms ‘validity’ and ‘reliability’ are not germane to the qualitative methodology, but the term ‘trustworthiness’ is, which is the degree of confidence in data, interpretation, and methods used to ensure the quality of a study [22]. The trustworthiness of data is influenced by the context of the research, which considers the proficiency of the researcher in interacting with the informants in particular situations. Thus, for enhancement of trustworthiness, there were triangulation of methods and triangulation of data sources. The data were generated from both lecturers and the tertiary education learners using interviews and focus-group discussions.
Informants in both categories were selected using the maximum variation sampling technique and subsequently the network reference sampling technique. Maximum variation sampling technique is also known as the maximum heterogeneity sampling. The technique is judgmental and identifies informants with extremely diverse traits [23, 24]. The express aim of maximum variation sampling is to gain comprehensive insights from various angles about the topic being investigated.
The network reference sampling technique is the second technique that was employed subsequently. It is also known as the snowball sampling technique or chain-referral sampling. The network referencing technique is a sampling technique in which the identified information-rich participant provides referrals to other informants with traits that are important for the research.
For the selection of the learners, two information-rich participants were initially identified; one had shown exceptional enthusiasm in online courses, and the other one had shown extreme acrimony of online courses. Each of the information-rich participants mentioned a participant with similar traits. The snowballing continued until four participants for each group were identified. The focus group discussions were carried out in two sessions of four students in each session.
The samples for the interviewees were also selected by employing firstly the maximum variation technique followed by the network referencing technique. Two lecturers with extreme heterogeneous traits about online courses were identified. Each of the two lecturers made referrals to participants who had similar traits. The referrals continued until each group had four information-rich participants. The interviews were carried out with eight lecturers, four for each extremely polarized perception on online courses. The data generated focused on the descriptions of the participants’ experiences and perceptions on online courses. The paradigm that guided the empirical part of the chapter is phenomenological pragmatism. The essence of phenomenological pragmatism is to describe the efficacy of the realities of life being interacted with. The descriptions of experiences and perceptions on the realities are presented in the informants’ own words. The participants are coded as: student for online courses (SFOC), student against online courses (SAOC), lecturer for online courses (LFOC), and lecturer against online courses (LAOC). Each participant had a pseudonym, which was a digital subscript.
The focus group discussions and the interviews carried out were audio-taped in order to safeguard that there would not be any data lost. After the transcript of the data, the thematic approach was employed to analyze the data. Thus, themes were generated from the verbatim responses of the participants [25, 26, 27].
7. Tradition as an asphyxiant of online courses
Distance education courses have met with stiff resistance due to the disruption of the status quo. Breaking away from the tradition always causes some discomforts if the stakeholders are not well prepared for the transformation. There is a lot of skepticism about the relative worthiness of the online courses. The very key stakeholders do not want to break away from the traditional didactics.
8. National policy impediments
The policies on higher education credentials of some countries had not been supportive of online courses. The credibility of online credentials has been considered dubious by many developing countries. LAOC1 postulated,
Some governments, especially of the developing countries, could be showing laissez-fare attitudes to online courses due to limited resources [6]. The governments lack both human and material resources for the online courses, but they have the resources for traditional education courses. Similar sentiments were posited by LAOC2,
The policy issues concerning the online courses are a major determinant of the credibility of online courses in a nation state [28]. Some policy issues that are imbedded in tradition are not readily adaptable to changes that are brought about by technology.
Further corroborative remarks were echoed by LAOC3, who explained,
The ‘new normal’ came abruptly and was not rehearsed [29]. The lecturers were forced to adapt to the provision of online courses without the indispensable guidance. Most of them were resistant to adopt it. Reversion to the traditional andragogic didactics was the comfortable option.
Informant LAOC4 further confirmed the national barrier to online courses:
According to the informants, there should be some andragogic adaptive strategies that should be put in place to capacitate all the active stakeholders to be engaged in online courses. The traditional andragogic practices could be miseducative in the current practices of online courses. Thus, the migration to online courses needs a breakaway from the traditional andragogic practices [30].
In the focus group discussions, informant SAOC1 discoursed,
There is a lot of skepticism about the credibility of online courses. The argument of the informant seems valid, but even for courses offered in the face-to-face interactions with the lecturers, the unscrupulous students can also hire some people to write assignments for them. The vilification of online courses is predominantly influenced by the traditional practices.
In corroboration, informant SAOC2 explained,
The sentiments of the learners are in line with the findings of some researches that were carried out. About half of the students who were studied alleged that the traditional andragogic practices were far more effective than the online learning platforms [14].
In substantiation of the government’s lack of commitment to online courses, informant SFOC1 remarked,
In the provision of higher education during the turbulent times, some governments, especially in developing countries, are conservative in the
The learners who are engaged in online courses in the andragogic situations need the psychosocial support [10]. The learners and the educators are moved to new practices in andragogy, which could be stressful without the requisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These stakeholders could be haunted by traditional practices, which are not readily transferable to contemporary didactic practices that are technological. There is need for the psychosocial and technological support during the initial stages of the transition [11].
9. Traditional didactics’ influences on online courses
The traditional education, which is characterized by the teacher-centered, monological didactics, has critical influences on online courses. Informant LAOC2 postulated,
The lecturer has traditional methodological concerns. The concerns are in line with the findings of a study that was carried out among the Ghananian students who were found to have maligned online courses due to lack of physical-social interaction among the students [9]. Online courses can have the learners interacting with their course-mates in the Google class, but relatively, for a traditionalist, the interactions cannot be matched with the physical interactions.
Corroborative remarks were given by informant LAOC3, who explained,
The physical absence of the lecturer and the course-mates obviates the sense of seriousness of the online courses. The physical absence of the lecturer, according to some adherents of traditional andragogy, is tantamount to lack of monitoring of progress in learning and could be a recipe for procrastination of indispensable tasks and gross cheating [10, 31].
On the contrary, the physical absence of the lecturer could produce more trustworthy results. It was found that the physically attractive female university students received lower marks when lecturers moved online during the pandemic [32].
The physical-social presence of the lecturer could breed double cheating. Both the lecturer and the student could be vulnerable to cheating. Thus, the allegation that students pursuing online courses produce more counterfeit work than those engaged in the traditional in-person classes is not valid.
Informant LAOC4 expounded,
According to the informant, the traditional andragogical space is immutably the lecture hall and not any other spaces. The traditional space for andragogy renders credibility to the courses being undertaken. The change of the education space to a home begets dubiousness to the courses. The learning environment is one of the major challenges of online courses in the developing countries [4]. The home environment could be overcrowded, and hence, there could be some distractions such as noise [33]. Thus, the lecturers who have the experiences of distractions that could be found in the home are for the traditional learning space, which is the lecture hall.
In backing, informant LAOC3 enlightened,
The informant’s line of thinking is confirmatory to that the participants of online courses require gadgets with strong internet connectivity [15]. Without that, all efforts will never come to fruition. The lecturers with such sentiments could be making references to their experiences. Their evaluations of the lecturing done using internet connectivity would make them go for the traditional mode of lecturing. Internet connectivity could be a formidable challenge to some developing countries that experience erratic supplies of electricity. The internet connectivity was a challenge in the pursuit of online courses among medical school students in Saudi Arabia [28]. The situation could be the same as the one in some developing countries.
Informant LFOC1 explained how lecturers stifle online courses:
In further explanation, informant LFOC2 postulated,
The lecturers who experience technophobia are adherents of a postfigurative culture in education. They think that the way they were taught was the best and should be maintained. Thus, reference to traditional education is an obstacle to online courses.
Students who are for online courses also perceive some lecturers as obstacles to online courses. Informant SFOC2 posited,
In support, informant SFOC3 advanced,
Informant SFOC4 postulated,
The traditional lecturer is no longer valuable in the contemporary technological era. Such a lecturer no longer has the respect from the learners. According to the informants, the traditional lecturer is the major obstacle to the online courses. The acquisition and use of education technological skills is no longer optional. The skills are indispensable to all lecturers in the contemporary education era.
10. Technophobia as an adversity to online courses
Online courses are closely intertwined with technological development. Technophobia is one of the adversities of online courses, especially when it has gripped some lecturers. The lectures who are technophobic are adherents of traditionalism. They do not want changes to their traditional beliefs and practices. According to them, stasis guaranties stability in education. Informant LAOC3 emphasized,
Supporting remarks were given by informant LOAC2:
Informant LFOC2 posited,
Supportive remarks were given by LFOC1:
Informant LFOC4 further illuminated,
The technophobic lecturers are insidious to the pursuit of online courses. With such a caliber of lecturers, the online course will continue to be denigrated. There is a risk that the very valuable engagements of students in online courses will be under threat.
11. Conclusions
Online courses are a developed mode of distance education. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, their worth was blurred. The stakeholders were obsessed with the traditional in-person classes, which are characterized by the physical-social interactions of the lecturers and the learners. During the COVID-19 era, online courses became mandatory but were offered ritualistically by some traditionalistic stakeholders. Traditionalism is the major barrier to online courses. The finer nuances of the obstacles, which are national, socioeconomic, and technological, are all hinged on maintenance of the status quo. The major players in the education, the lecturers and the students, have diverse evaluations of the credibility of online course. The players who are against online courses are traditionalistic and are resistant to learn about technologies that are requisites for online courses. In the technological era, the technophobic lectures have lost the respect that they should be accorded by the learners. Some governments of developing countries are mum about the credibility of online course. The main reason is that they are still obsessed with tradition.
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