IT HAS POTENTIAL BUT…’ – EXPLORING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF BREAKOUT ROOMS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

COVID-19 has created a dramatic and rapid transition to emergency remote teaching in higher education (HE) creating both new opportunities and challenges for lecturers and their students. As HE adapts to these new circumstances, there is a need for instructors to design and teach classes that support collaborative learning and increase opportunities for student interactivity. This article reports on an ongoing study exploring university students’ experiences and perceptions of using breakout rooms (BRs), a technical feature of many synchronous online platforms, as part of their online classes. Using a mixed methods research approach, 127 students, who were registered on English language courses at a university in Cyprus during Spring 2021, participated in the study. Findings indicate that students’ experiences and perceptions of breakout rooms during this period were impacted in five key areas: (1) emotional/affective, (2) moral/ethical, (3) social, (4) pedagogical and (5) technological. These findings suggest that students’ personal feelings, attitudes to online learning, sense of connectedness to their peers, expectations of the role and presence of the lecturer and issues relating to the technology, are all considered to be significant factors in their use of BRs. This study offers initial insights for educators who wish to use, modify and/or adapt synchronous online teaching to incorporate collaborative learning opportunities through breakout rooms. Keywords: higher education; synchronous online teaching; breakout rooms; collaborative learning; student experiences; COVID-19