Zalety i wady nauczania zdalnego w czasie pandemii COVID-19 w opinii nauczycieli szkół w województwie wielkopolskim

Abstract

Distance learning in all types of schools from March 2020 to the beginning of June 2021 (with a short break in September 2020) was forced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, in Poland, this form of teaching was used sporadically, basically only for extra-curricular activities. The vast majority of teachers did not have any experience in this field. The large-scale introduction of new forms of distance learning and knowledge transfer and enforcement methods created a number of challenges and opened up new opportunities. The presented study attempts to identify the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in the opinion of primary and secondary school teachers in the Wielkopolska region. The analysis was carried out based on empirical material obtained from questionnaires addressed to all teachers from the Wielkopolska region (703 questionnaires were received). The survey results allowed the diagnosis of positive and negative aspects of distance learning. Among advantages, teachers pointed to growing computer competencies and time and money savings due to no need to travel to work. In turn, as disadvantages were demonstrated, the lowering of teaching quality because of the lack of direct contact with pupils and health problems resulting from decreased physical activity and long-term staying at the computer desk. The teachers’ experience in identifying the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning is undoubtedly an excellent and reliable source of information that can be used in the future to improve the distance learning process. The applied approach allowed to obtain representative results, which may transpose into generalizations on the scale of the entire country.