Being an Academic during COVID-19: Perceptions and Realities

Abstract

After the first case was seen in Wuhan, China, the Covid-19 has begun to spread worldwide at an enormous speed. Education started to migrate to digital technology tools, and the problem of starting online education gave birth to many problems in all countries, including Turkey. There are almost 25 million students affected by the Covid-19 at all levels in Turkey. This study aims to profile academics’ experiences during the adaptation process of the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, semi-structured interviews are conducted with eight academics from İstanbul to get in-depth information about the issue. As a result of the data analysis, four themes emerged as competencies, transition, interaction, and influencing factors. Theme named competencies has two codes: technological competencies and academic competencies, theme named interaction has two codes: personal issues and professional issues. A theme called influencing factors has two codes as personal factors and professional factors. Keywords: Distance learning; Pandemic; Covid-19; Academic; Qualitative research.