Prolonged Emergency Remote Teaching: Sustainable E-Learning or Human Capital Stuck in Online Limbo?

Abstract

We introduce the term “prolonged emergency remote teaching” to accentuate the temporal aspect of the current educational crisis. In-depth lived experiences of students and teaching staff in one engineering education institution were examined, in order to depict what being involved in an exclusively online communication feels like from the personal perspective, thus examining e-learning sustainability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews with samples of students and teaching staff were conducted, and then psychological phenomenology was employed to produce rich descriptions of their personal experiences and impressions. Both the students and the faculty employees observed e-learning during the Fall semester of 2020 as challenging and artificial. Although trying to function as everything is in order, as the semester unfolded, motivation deteriorated, communication turned more and more superficial, and limitations became more prominent. For both sides, although there were some conveniences, the educational process yielded sub-optimal results and was hard to sustain; intellectual and social capital of both sides appeared to be underutilized. We present conclusions and recommendations, suggesting that modern technologies should help both sides to adapt to the new reality, instead of feeling stuck in an online “limbo”.

1. Introduction

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education is unprecedented and multifold [1]. In the spring of 2020, while classrooms were emptied and lockdowns were imposed, it was expected from universities, professors, and students to adapt to new circumstances and to continue achieving educational goals [2]. Educational systems around the world swiftly shifted to “emergency remote teaching” (ERT) [3], meaning that the institution and its users communicated at a distance during the crisis. Then, the autumn of 2020 witnessed a more organized approach as everybody had more time to prepare both technically and mentally for another semester that was to be realized remotely. However, we observe that in the autumn semester of 2020, the principles on which ERT usually resides on are not applicable anymore, as the shift is no longer “temporary” and both the service providers (teaching staff) and service consumers (students) require not only a temporary fix, but substantial support for distance learning for a longer period of time. Thus, in this study, we propose the phrase “prolonged emergency remote teaching” (PERT) to accentuate the temporal spanning of this crisis, the fact that it is not apparent when it will end, and the need to assess the sustainability of engaging human capital in these circumstances.

Questions related to the sustainability of e-learning that were already raised before the pandemic—what are the factors that influence sustainable e-learning [4] and what are the challenges to sustainability of e-learning initiatives [5]—are currently even more exacerbated. There is no compelling evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic may completely end soon, or that it will stop influencing education [6]; thus, it was our intention to investigate distance learning as a “new normal” phenomenon, while emphasizing the paradox between the words “new” and “normal”, which translates into the feeling of being stuck in a state of limbo [7]. In this context, the state of limbo means that all sides are expected to act normally, but the reality is that nothing is “normal”, as both the students and the teaching staff do not essentially have any options to choose from—only a year ago, hardly any of them intended to engage in distance learning for a prolonged period of time. It is not uncommon to hear students complaining how they “tasted freedom” and now they are “stuck” in their childhood bedrooms with their parents [8], and it is not uncommon to hear professors admitting to how working from home was appealing when it was optional but is quite challenging if it is the only option [9].

A significant body of knowledge is already present regarding higher education in the COVID-19 era [10], and the usage and adaptation of ICT and mobile technologies to enhance distance learning [11,12]. However, there is still not much information about students’ and professors’ personal impressions and emotions in this context, especially in the engineering field of studies, as most research focuses on either sides’ perceptions and evaluations of educational content, process, or outcome. We witnessed that although students and professors may find their learning/teaching environment, internet quality, and physical surroundings adequate in this era, many of them still feel lost and hopeless [13], and find this experience can be overwhelming [14].

Recent publications dominantly employ some sort of a quantitative approach; even the ones that observe qualitative data tend to report their findings in the forms of classifications or quantities of dominant emotions, answering to the question of “how much”, rather than to the questions of “what” and “how”. This research intends to fill this gap by describing in-depth “lived experiences” [15] (p. 57) of both the students and the teaching staff in one engineering higher education institution during the PERT process. A qualitative psychological phenomenology approach was used to process interview transcriptions in order to understand and describe the phenomenon of “experiencing PERT” from both sides. Here, we define this phenomenon as “participating in an educational process where the subject’s initial intention was to attend/teach classes in person, but due to external circumstances was at one point forced to shift to distance learning/teaching due to an unforeseen emergency that lasts for unspecified and relatively long period of time”. Separate research goals were defined for both cohorts, resulting in two studies being conducted in parallel:

• Describe engineering students’ personal impressions and the feelings that they experience while attending PERT courses—study 1.
• Describe engineering teachers’ personal impressions and the feelings that they experience while conducting PERT courses—study 2.

This research aims to explore the aforementioned issues in light of the significant effect that the COVID-19 pandemic has on human capital around the world [16,17], as recent global projections on the impact of school closures linked to this pandemic suggest that almost 0.6 years of schooling (adjusted for quality) will be lost due to education establishment closures [18]. This research contributes to the current literature in a number of ways. First, it introduces the term PERT in order to describe an ERT process that is indefinitely prolonged. Second, it provides deep insights into personal experiences and impressions of students and teaching staff in a completely new context that is globally relevant, but still not fully described in the literature. Third, as individual and social requirements are highly relevant for the sustainability of e-learning systems [19], this research helps in understanding the process and limitations of engineering education during PERT from personal viewpoints of the main actors by employing the phenomenological approach. Additionally, we provide specific suggestions for improving prolonged emergency remote teaching for engineering students.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a brief literature review related to distance learning in higher engineering education in general and in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Section 3 describes the research setting for both studies. Section 4 provides details about the research methods. Section 5 provides detailed descriptions of themes identified in both studies and the resulting textural–structural descriptions of the phenomenon. Section 6 discusses the findings, concludes the research, and offers suggestions for researchers and practitioners.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Sustainable E-Learning and E-Learning in Higher Engineering Education

Over the past two decades, e-learning has found its way to most higher education institutions around the world, making information and communication technologies (ICTs) an important constitutional element of educational infrastructure. The new generations frequently prefer mobile applications and video content over the traditional forms of learning, since they find the new technologies to be more convenient and interesting [20]. E-learning efficiency has been interpreted in light of a theoretical approach that emphasizes the connection of ICTs with the modern constructivist paradigm in education—online instruction can be designed to foster students‘ active construction of knowledge instead of the passive adoption of ready-made information, which characterizes the classic “instructivist” pedagogy [21], mostly because of its versatility, interactivity and adaptivity to individual student’s needs. Modern forms of education, such as E-learning, are much closer to young peoples’ everyday habits related to use of technology, than a traditional classroom setting. Furthermore, as ICTs have become an integral part of the human living space with the Internet being a natural element of life for new generations, e-learning needs to evolve into smart education, at least in the field of engineering education [22]. Hence, it may be concluded that e-learning is already a part of the “new normal” in course delivery both in terms of the technological modernization of the learning process, as well as in terms of compliance with modern pedagogical paradigms [23].

However, e-learning adoption and continuation are not to be mistaken or taken for granted. Gunn [5] states that in order for e-learning to be considered as sustainable, the following conditions should be met:

• A learning design has been developed and implemented within the course of study, and judged to be beneficial to teaching and learning (i.e., for both sides of the process).
• E-learning resources, design, and concept have the potential to be adapted and adopted for use beyond the original environment in which they were developed.
• Further use and further development of the e-learning resources, design, and concept should not remain dependent on the individuals who created them.

The same author concludes that not all e-learning initiatives are sustainable, as the successful proof-of-concept stage does not guarantee that, in the longer time span, these processes will lead to desired outcomes. Trentin [4] proposed the eight-dimensional model for e-learning sustainability, comprising these dimensions: pedagogical, professional, socio-cultural, informal, technological, economical, organizational and content; all dimensions should be properly saturated if organization desires the educational process to sustain beyond initial enthusiasm. Alharthi et al. performed a systematic literature review observing sustainability from similar perspectives as Trentin: human, social, technical, environmental, and economic dimensions; they offer a comprehensive list of studies related to topic of sustainable e-learning systems and conclude their analysis by identifying 18 high-level sustainability meta-requirements for e-learning within software required for e-learning [19]: personalization, learner-centered features, collaboration, leadership development, privacy and security, analysis of the learning materials, reuse of the learning materials, integration with social networks, standardization of the LORs, support for LORs, support of shared services, software quality requirements, portability, modularity, cloud computing, green and sustainable SE, reducing the cost, and ensuring the growth.

Despite theoretical and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of e-learning in the context of higher education, there is a discrepancy between the growing online learning practice in “narrative” disciplines (such as management or economy), and insufficient incorporation of ICTs within learning strategies in the field of technical sciences [24]. Explanations for such an unequal representation of online learning across different scientific fields are multi-fold. First, technical fields, such as electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, involve practical work in special laboratories in which students conduct physical experiments with real equipment; in such conditions full online learning is possible only if there are “virtual laboratories” [24]. Second, the traditional engineering curriculum is also designed to require competent mastery of mathematics and theoretical physics before enrolling in engineering courses, which is difficult to perform in the total absence of the face-to-face sessions [23]. Third, applying e-learning systems for engineering education comes with a significant set of challenges and obstacles for all the parties included in the process [25]. Finally, while many authors provide descriptions and suggestions that engagement is crucial to learning, there is no widespread, standard definition for engagement to guide engineering educators, as engineering students and faculty members do not have the same perception of engagement. While students view engagement in terms of teaching and faculty enthusiasm for the subject, faculty members believe that engagement rests with the students [26].

Especially in the COVID-19 era, there is evidence that many higher education institutions are not well prepared for an emergency crisis such as this one, lacking a permanent or dedicated emergency management office, and lacking a general business continuity plan for an emergency [27]. Both the management of education institutions and the education policies should be more alert and responsive to such dramatic events [28], but they are usually highly dependent on a number of complex factors such as management’s leadership skills [29], which explains why institutions around the world have significantly different reactions and results during the current pandemic.

Still, advances in technology over the years have permitted the representation of complex structures and objects by computers. Thus, e-learning resources of diverse types became available to engineering students to a greater extent. There are at least three kinds of such e-learning resources: (1) digital or digitized content available for downloading or studying online; (2) learning objects; (3) multi-user, dynamic and interactive learning environments [23]. Some research studies aimed to determine the effect of such environments on different aspects of the learning process: the results obtained show that while effective learning decreased for students in the online course format relative to the traditional course format, cognitive learning was comparable [30]. When it comes to special laboratories, many institutions have created their own virtual and remote laboratories that enable autonomous students’ learning activities in various disciplines [23,31], and even virtual laboratory systems [32], that were also proven to be effective during the current pandemic [33,34].

Relevant literature offers insights into research that compares virtual with physical laboratories in the domain of students’ perception of key cognitive processes and specific content afforded by different mediums of the laboratories [35]. The obtained results suggest that many students were able to suspend disbelief in virtual laboratories and demonstrated psychological presence, which creates a potential for a rich learning experience. When it comes to potential difficulties in online learning, which could be caused by differences in students’ and educators’ perception of engagement, it is good to know that online courses designed to support feedback and formative assessment during the learning process have a positive effect on learning outcomes and future attitudes toward the course content for both engineering teachers and their students [36].

2.2. COVID-19 Pandemic and Higher Education

During the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education systems around the world were faced with requirements of an ad hoc revision of learning and teaching methods in the context of lockdowns, social distancing, and travel bans. Although a few countries experienced similar challenges during the SARS outbreak in 2003, where e-learning showed potential for substituting some of the traditional course elements [37], the scale and length of the new pandemic were unprecedented in the recent history of education. The only possible solution for further continuation of the educational process was the complete transition to remote teaching and online learning. It was quickly observed, however, that this emergency response was not to be confused with classic online learning or remote teaching programs [38]. ERT is a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to accidental crisis circumstances, which is reflected in the realization of all forms of educational activities within the online-only course format—within ERT, the emphasis is not on recreating a robust educational ecosystem, but on providing temporary access to instruction and instructional support in a manner that is quick to set up and is reliably available during the extraordinary circumstances with the sign of emergency or crisis [3]. This means that ERT has different dynamics, expectations and evaluation criteria than standard online, blended and face-to-face instructional activities. Therefore, it can be said that classical e-learning was recently forced to make another turn—from a “new normal” paradigm toward the “online-only” learning situation that may represent another “new normal” that will need to continue for some time.

Although less than two years have passed between the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the moment in which this research was written, there are already hundreds of journal and conference papers that deal with the topic of education during the current crisis. Mostly, these papers cover initial reaction of educational institutions or governments, generating important, but often inconsistent conclusions. When it comes to assessing student performance within the new learning format, it is still difficult to generate unambiguous conclusions. For example, research studies of this type show that students prefer face-to-face over online learning, while their motivation, self-efficacy, and cognitive engagement decreased after the transition to online-only learning [39], as well as that deficient computer skills and the perception of a higher workload prevent students from perceiving their own improved performance in the new teaching environment [40]. Conversely, other findings suggest that students improved their performance in the context of emergency remote teaching, when compared with a cohort from the previous year [41].

Usage of ICT and distance/mobile learning is already addressed by many papers; Saikat et al. [11] provide a systematic review of the current literature and conclude that: the majority of academic institutions were hesitant to employ these methods for education; due to a lack of time, they were compelled to use third-party platforms instead of developing their own; both teachers and students significantly benefit from guidelines and instructions on how to use these platforms, if provided. Althunibat et al. [42] propose and confirm a robust model that includes a dozen of factors that affect mobile learning system usage, spanning from technological issues, through organizational aspects, all the way to user satisfaction.

When it comes to engineering education during the COVID-19 pandemic, relevant literature shows that researchers in this field have been particularly interested in aspects of adaptation to ERT. For example, researchers investigated factors that influence engineering students’ willingness to adapt to the emergency online learning environment, emphasizing the importance of several factors such as: initial preparedness and motivation for online learning, self-efficacy beliefs about online learning, self-directed learning online, and institutional support [43]. Another study reveals that students are prone to using self-discipline strategies to overcome adaptation challenges, while, conversely, support of the faculty through a compassionate and flexible pedagogy is important in the process of transition to the new learning format [44]. A recent study documented that this is sometimes not enough—more than half of the observed engineering students from California indicated lack of engagement in class, significant difficulty in maintaining their focus, and “Zoom fatigue” after attending multiple online sessions [45]. In addition, research findings show that learning during the pandemic has raised many concerns for future adaptations of online learning among engineering students: students are generally disappointed by their experiences of online learning effectiveness during the pandemic, due to the absence of adequate interactions amongst students, caused by the reduction in informal student engagement opportunities [46]; engineering students also experience systemic challenges and have a limited scope of learning through a “virtual only” context [47]. Methods such as “flipped classroom” may significantly help when combined with adaptive learning, thus reducing load, burden, and stressors in the online environment of engineering education [48], while recent research hints that in the near future, and in the current post-COVID-19 educational scenario, virtual labs and real laboratories will coexist within the new hybrid models that combine face-to-face and online teaching and learning [49].

A few studies observe the teaching staff’s opinions about transitioning to ERT during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, El Said [50] documented that university professors in Egypt reacted positively to this shift, but that they perceived lecture recordings as being the cause of poor class attendance and class participation. Hjelsvold et al. [51] report that Norwegian university professors also have mostly positive experience as a first reaction to transforming to online teaching during lockdown; however, they perceived a significant lack of students’ interaction. By interviewing professors from Central and Eastern Europe, Popa et al. [52] show that teaching staff lists platform-related problems, digital skills, and interactivity as main challenges in the first semester of 2020. Durak and Çankaya [53], as well as Mohmmed et al. [54], recorded that university professors in the Middle East are satisfied with using Microsoft Teams platform for communicating with students remotely. Finally, a few studies describe processes of rapid transition to distance learning in engineering courses [55], and migration of active learning classroom online [56], also providing insights and recommendations for other engineering education institutions.

3. Research Setting: Timeframe, Study Site, Pre-Pandemic Classroom Scenario, and Remote Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Since this research aimed to explore experiences of both sides of the education process, two studies have been conducted in parallel: study 1 was focused on a sample of engineering students, while study 2 observed the teaching staff in the field of engineering studies. In both studies, the sampling techniques and sample sizes, the general instructions to the participants, and the specific questions were chosen to achieve a full range of variation in the set of possible cases, since the goal was to generate a fund of possible elements that can be used in “determining the essential structure of the phenomena” [57] p. 48.

Data for both studies were collected in January 2021, a week after the end of the winter semester. This semester was chosen as the most suitable one to observe the phenomenon of being engaged in PERT—students and teachers were informed from the start that the remote teaching, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, will be prolonged indefinitely and that there was little chance of going back to university classrooms any time soon.

For both studies, samples were drawn from the same institution, Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia (FTS). Different universities around the world have utilized quite different methods and tools to facilitate remote teaching during the ongoing pandemic [2], and in different settings regulated by the national governments and other bodies; thus, it was decided to gather data only from one institution, in order to control as much variables as possible. FTS was chosen for this study, as one of the largest publicly owned technical faculties in the south-eastern part of Europe. It has more than 12,000 active students, and 850 active teaching staff; it offers 28 undergraduate, 34 masters, and 17 PhD study programs, most of which resulting in an engineering degree.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, students and the faculty staff were almost completely engaged in face-to-face classes in this institution, attending or teaching classes in situ, utilizing faculty’s numerous laboratories and engineering workshops daily, and communicating in person with their peers and professors at the faculty premises. Groups for practical work mostly comprised 12 to 16 students, and the faculty staff was frequently present for individual consultations in their offices. Although FTS already had experience with some learning management systems, these systems were not used to a large extent by most of the staff; mostly, they were used for sharing supplementary educational files, or for keeping the student records. Distance communication between students and the staff were less frequent, and it was almost always realized via emails. Apart from a handful of cases, there were no video links to attend classes from a distance, or any recorded lessons for students to watch at their own pace.

At the start of the winter semester of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was showing no evidence of slowing down. With more than 95% of classes needing to be held remotely, FTS precisely defined communication channels and education tools for its staff to use: all synchronous communication between students and teachers (classes and individual consultations) was to be held via the Microsoft (MS) Teams platform: online classes were scheduled weekly following the regular timetable. Besides a standard video conferencing feature that was needed for the teaching and interaction with students, the MS Teams platform offered usage of different apps such as digital whiteboards, online polls, quizzes, and similar. In addition, FTS decided to also use the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS), thus allowing for more effective asynchronous communication between students and the teaching staff, especially for the purposes of distribution of different teaching materials and for collecting and grading students’ assignments. Constant technical support was provided for both MS Teams and Canvas LMS; students and the teaching staff were able to seamlessly start utilizing these tools, as most of the initial settings and accounts for all users were pre-set, with numerous usage tutorials available. Despite its size, FTS did not have many solutions available that could be categorized as “virtual labs”. Only a handful of courses were held in the faculty labs, workshops, or on terrain, yet the number of these field classes and their dynamics were significantly reduced in comparison to the regular plans from previous years (for example, two field classes being held during the semester, instead of eight that were held the previous year).

4. Methods

Qualitative research methods are usually most suitable when one has an interest in knowing more about other people’s practice and personal experiences [58]. Open-ended questions and interviews are then frequently used to collect data, which are evident in numerous recent studies related to the COVID-19 pandemic influence on education processes [43,44,52,59,60]. However, the classic content analysis, most frequently used to process qualitative data, usually ends up in quantification of the observed responses, providing frequencies of certain topics, which limits the understanding of the underlying phenomenon—this is because the main question being answered is usually “how much?” instead of “what it is?”. When an “essence” of respondents’ experiences is sought after, researchers turn to psychological phenomenological analysis as it aims to capture the basic structure of a phenomenon, to identify what was similar to experiences of multiple individuals [58]. Psychological phenomenology is a method that is often most suitable when researchers want to ferret out the essence of a phenomenon—to understand what is mutual in the perception of multiple individuals who have experienced the same complex situation, focusing on the personal impressions and then describing what all participants have in common as they experience the phenomenon [15].

In this method, impressions of individuals’ “lived experiences” are recorded, and then they are systematically coded into meaningful units in order to find underlying thematic structure and mutual topics [58]. This research method was already successfully used in various studies related to higher education [61,62], in studies related to engineering students [63], in studies related to distance learning [64], as well as in a few recent ones related to higher education in the COVID-19 era [65,66,67], albeit thus far not in the field of engineering education, and not in the context of prolonged ERT. Phenomenological analysis removes any political, historical, or other external influences that may interfere with individuals’ experiences [68]. Its goal is to develop “comprehensive descriptions of the shared structures underlying a set of individuals” experiences within the context of a particular situation, rather than explanations or interpretations [63], which makes it most suitable to describe experiences of both engineering students and their teachers in the context of prolonged forced remote education context.

4.1. Data Collection and Participants

A phenomenological interview is usually the most appropriate method of data collection during a phenomenological analysis, since interviewing allows for direct insights into individual’s subjective perception of how it felt to experience something of interest [15,58]. In this kind of interview, usually only a few open-ended questions about the phenomenon are asked, where the dialogue takes the form of semi-structured interview (SSI).

As a part of their course-related research project, nine master’s-level students were grouped into three junior research teams in order to conduct the interviews and transcribe the data for both studies, thus helping the three principal researchers to obtain data. They were informed about the interview procedure in detail: how to conduct the interviews, how to stimulate participants to share their experiences, how to record the sessions, and how to transcribe them; they were especially advised on how to avoid suggesting their own opinions or ideas to the participants. The three teams used both convenience and snowball sampling to engage potential participants—this meant that they approached their peers and friends who were enrolled at the same institution and asked them to provide additional contacts and thus recruit potential new participants. Although these sampling techniques may be problematic in quantitative studies in terms of representativeness and generalization, in phenomenological research, they are acceptable since the aim of a phenomenological study is to identify what is mutual and in common for all study participants, without a need to obtain a sample with certain properties. Current COVID-19 pandemic-related safety regulations did not allow physical interviews to be held; thus, all interviews were held online via MS Teams or Zoom video conferencing tools. The data collection process strictly followed “ethical guidelines” proposed by the British Education Research Association [69].

4.1.1. Study 1

The 43 participants of the first study were students who were enrolled in either bachelor, master or PhD studies at FTS: 46.5% were female; 60.5% were at the bachelor studies level. They were recruited from different study programs in order to take into account distinct properties that different study programs might possess [46]: most students were attending study programs such as “Information Systems Engineering”, “Computing and Control Engineering”, and “Electronics, Energetics and Telecommunications”. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 32, with an average of 21.5 (more detailed analysis of sample from study 1 can be found in

Table 1. Distributions of general information about participants from study 1—students.

Sample Property		% of the Sample *	n
Gender	Male	53.5%	23
	Female	46.5%	20
Employed	Yes	32.6%	14
	No	67.4%	29
Year of study	1st	11.6%	5
	2nd	11.6%	5
	3rd	16.3%	7
	4th	20.9%	9
	1st Master’s	37.2%	16
	1st PhD	2.3%	1
study Programs	Information Systems Engineering	44.2%	19
	Computing and Control Engineering	18.6%	8
	Electronics, Energetics and Telecommunications	14.0%	6
	Applied Software Engineering	4.7%	2
	Industrial Engineering	2.3%	1
	Biomedical Engineering	2.3%	1
	Engineering Management	2.3%	1
	Information Systems Engineering	2.3%	1
	Geodesy and Geomatics	2.3%	1
	Mechatronics	2.3%	1
	Software Engineering and IT	2.3%	1
	Architecture and Urbanism	2.3%	1

* Note: percentages are rounded to the first decimal, and the number of respondents is given in parentheses.

).

After a short introduction and briefing, participants were asked about some general information about themselves, and the context of their studies (as an ice-breaker activity). Then, two general questions were presented: “What have you experienced in terms of studying online during the last semester?” and “What contexts or situations have typically influenced or affected your experiences of studying online during the last semester?”. After the participants had responded, they were asked additional questions to explain their experiences further or in more detail, as the interviewers deemed appropriate.

There were 43 successful interview sessions, spanning from 12 m 56 s to 36 m 21 s, with a median of 25 m 1 s. Out of 43 interviewed students, 38 reported that all classes they attended were held remotely via the MS Teams platform, while only 5 reported that they had 10% of the classes (or labs) held in-person, at the faculty premises. Students stated that they dominantly used desktop computers or laptops to attend the classes, but almost all of them explained that in various situations they also used their mobile devices.

4.1.2. Study 2

Participants of the second study were professors and teaching assistants employed at FTS. The first attempts to schedule and conduct SSIs with them were not successful and were troublesome, as the semester was coming to an end and the exam period was in full swing, which resulted in poor availability of the staff. Therefore, a decision was made to use an online questionnaire with a few open-ended questions instead, in order to produce written reflections [43,53]. Most professors stated that they preferred this method, since they could write about their experiences at their own convenience. Similar to study 1, both convenience and snowball sampling methods were used to engage potential participants—this meant sending invitation emails to three random members from every department, asking some colleagues via personal connection, and asking the willing participants to nominate other contacts who might also join the study. Again, the sampling methods were found to be acceptable since a phenomenological study does not ask for a sample that would serve the need for representativeness and generalization of quantitative results. Similar to the first study, our goal was to capture as diverse a sample as possible in terms of academic roles and positions, gender and courses taught in distinct study programs (it should be noted that one teacher or teaching assistant may teach courses in multiple study programs), thus utilizing convenience sampling. Google Forms was used to collect the data online and anonymously.

At the beginning of the questionnaire, general information about the purpose of the research was stated, followed by information on how anonymity was being ensured and how the answers would be processed. Special care was taken to ensure the respondents understood that questions referred only to the last semester (Autumn 2020).

The participants were then presented with two broad open questions, similar to the ones in study 1, but from the perspective of the faculty staff: “What have you experienced in terms of teaching online during the last semester?” and “What contexts or situations have typically influenced or affected your experiences of teaching online during the last semester?”. Together with these, additional questions were added as a footnote, to act as an inspiration for thinking: “Please explain how you felt while teaching a class online?”, “How much stress did you experience while teaching online classes?”, “How would you describe and assess your motivation to teach online in this semester?”, and “Try to describe how you felt while conveying knowledge to your students and engaging them in the class?”. Although this method of data collection appears to be a survey on first sight, it did not significantly differ from the interviews used in study 1—the two presented questions were quite broad and open, while the additional questions had the function of stimulation for thinking and were not posted independently, nor were they expected to yield separate answers. After two weeks, 25 useful reports were received, with word counts spanning from 424 to 870, with a median of 614. The age of the participants in this study ranged from 23 to 68, with an average of 40.5 (additional properties of the sample analyzed within the second study are given in

Table 2. Distributions of general information about participants from study 2—teachers.

Sample Property		% of the Sample *	n
Gender	Male	56.0%	14
	Female	40.0%	10
	Undisclosed	4.0%	1
Position	Full Professor	16.0%	4
	Associate Professor	36.0%	9
	Assistant Professor	12.0%	3
	Teaching Assistant	32.0%	8
	Undisclosed	4.0%	1
Study programs taught in (any teacher may teach in more than one study program)	Industrial Engineering	17.0%	9
	Mechatronics	15.1%	8
	Engineering Management	13.2%	7
	Mechanical Engineering	11.3%	6
	Information Systems Engineering	7.5%	4
	Information Engineering	5.7%	3
	Software Engineering and IT	5.7%	3
	Computing and Control Engineering	5.7%	3
	Traffic and Transport Engineering	3.8%	2
	Applied Software Engineering	3.8%	2
	Biomedical Engineering	1.9%	1
	Clean Energy Technologies	1.9%	1
	Architecture	1.9%	1
	Applied Computer Sciences	1.9%	1
	Geodesy and Geomatics	1.9%	1
	Undisclosed	1.9%	1

* Note: percentages are rounded to the first decimal, and the number of respondents is given in parentheses.

).

4.2. Data Analysis

4.2.1. Psychological Phenomenological Analysis

Next, Creswell’s simplified version [15,63] of Moustakas’s modification of the “Stevick–Colaizzi–Keen” method of psychological phenomenological analysis [68] was utilized in both studies, separately, with the following steps in the analysis (depicted in Figure 1):

• All three principal researchers PR1, PR2, and PR3 (being university professors themselves) filtered out their own experiences of the observed phenomenon, in order to reduce potential bias during the interpretation stage, a process called “bracketing” [58,68]. Here, these principal researchers individually reflected on their own experiences, and wrote short essays about their personal impressions on teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus aiming to set aside their experiences, as much as possible, and to take fresh perspective toward the phenomenon under examination [15].
• Researchers PR1 and PR2 independently read interview transcripts multiple times. During the reading, relevant content units were identified, marked, and extracted by both of them separately. All of these “significant statements” were observed as having an equal value, without any judgement or value attribution, being perceived as parts of the same “horizon” of the phenomenon, which is a process named “horizontalization” [68], crucial for phenomenological analysis. Similar “significant statements” have been identified as repeating ideas [70], and they were written in the third person (for example, three similar statements: “at the start of the semester I felt enthusiastic, but a few months later I felt drained”, “as the semester unfolded I had less and less motivation to work”, “the initial optimism soon gave way to some form of apathy” have been identified as the following idea: “Teachers’ levels of motivation decrease during the semester”). This step resulted in lists of relevant, non-repetitive, and non-overlapping ideas of all participants from the same study.
• The identified ideas were then grouped into larger meaningful units called “themes” by employing axial coding, where each axis gathers around itself ideas of similar meaning [71] (for clarification, in other types of qualitative analysis these meaningful units are also named “codes”, “categories” or “indices” [72]). This was achieved by writing all of the identified ideas on “sticky notes”, and then by arranging them on different axis based on their thematic similarities, thus forming “clusters of meaning” [15] p. 61 (for example, three similar ideas: “Teachers’ levels of work engagement decrease as the semester unfolds”, “Lack of feedback and students’ engagement is detrimental for teachers’ work morale”, and “Teachers have a lot of enthusiasm at the start of the semester” have been clustered on the theme “Motivation decreases the semester unfolds”). Researchers PR1 and PR2 conducted this step independently from each other.
• Researcher PR3, the one that did not participate in the previous two steps, had then compared, combined, and unified reports on themes from the first two researchers, reconciling the differences and finding mutual patterns. Then, PR1 and PR2 together commented on the PR3′s work, which resulted in the final list of themes that were identified from the interviews, together with the associated ideas.
• Using segments of identified themes that talk about participants’ thoughts, feelings, impressions, and ideas that “portray what comprises an experience” [68] (p. 44), a description of “what” the participants in the study experienced with the phenomenon was written within every theme, explaining what happened to the participants and how they felt about it—producing what is in phenomenology known as “textural description”.
• Using segments of identified themes that allow for insights into the dynamics, surroundings, conditions, place, and various external factors, a description of “how” the experience happened within the phenomenon was written related to every theme, describing the setting and context in which the phenomenon was experienced, which resulted in what is in phenomenology known as “structural description”.
• A “composite description” of the phenomenon was written by incorporating both the textural and structural descriptions, producing the description of the “essence” of the experience.

4.2.2. Validation of Studies’ Results

Qualitative studies, albeit being superior in providing deeper insights into participants’ personal content, still have some challenges regarding their validity. The validity of data and validity of data analysis in our two studies have been secured in multiple ways: first, by employing adequate engagement in data collection (collecting data and emerging findings until reaching the point of saturation, where similar phrases are being heard “over and over again, and no new information surfaces” [58] (p. 248); second, by employing investigator triangulation [73], where two researchers have independently processed the same datasets, and then the third one had compared their findings; third, by using respondent validation [74], as feedback on preliminary findings was solicited from three participants from each study. Additionally, the research procedures in all steps were checked against Polkinghorne’s “validity-related doubts” [57] (p. 57), and Creswell’s “standards for assessing the quality of a phenomenology” [15] (p. 215).

5. Results

Following steps 1–4 of the analysis presented above, 31 ideas have been identified in study 1, and seven themes related to students’ experiences have been compiled from these ideas; 38 ideas have been identified in study 2, and eight themes related to teachers’ experiences have been generated from them (detailed lists of ideas clustered around their themes are available from authors upon request). For each study, these themes are presented through their textural descriptions—what did the study participants experience regarding that theme (verbatim examples are provided in Appendix A and Appendix B), and structural descriptions—how the experience related to that theme happened. This is followed, again separately for each study, by describing the essence of the phenomenon, i.e., by presenting the composite textural-structural description of the phenomenon. In the last part of this section, the study results have been compared to previously established dimensions of sustainable e-learning systems, revealing positive and negative aspects of PERT from the perspectives of teachers and engineering students. Additionally, a comparative analysis of frequent ideas found in both studies was conducted, with results provided in Appendix C 

Table A1. Similar thematic units found in both studies, presented side by side.

Students	Teachers
Technical aspects (internet, devices used)	Technical aspects (internet, devices used)
Physical location	Physical location
Positive aspects of learning online	Positive aspects of teaching online
How the teachers explain	How the teaching process develops
What makes them engaged	Issues regarding students’ engagement
Self-discipline	Motivation and organization of work
Absorbed knowledge	Teaching outcomes
Stress	Stress
Communication problems	Communication problems
Feeling of nostalgia	Feeling of nostalgia
Thematic units that did not match in both studies
Peer communication	—
Teachers’ support	—
—	New challenges on how to teach
—	Technical support from the institution

.

5.1. Study 1—Engineering Students

5.1.1. Identified Themes—What Did the Students Experience and How Did These Experiences Happen

• Theme 1: Self-discipline, motivation, and workflow

Textural description: Most students reported that at the start of the semester they needed significant effort and time to organize everything and create a routine; for most, that was challenging at first, as students hoped that the pandemic would end before the semester had started. After the first few weeks of online classes, concerns about issues with their devices and internet connectivity were mostly alleviated, but students reported having challenges with planning their activities and establishing a routine. Some students were successful at keeping up with the work related to their studies, while others had problems in maintaining their discipline. However, as the semester moved on, students started experiencing more and more stress from assignments and obligations that started piling up. At the end of the semester, most of the students reported frustration and feeling of being overwhelmed with tasks that were, in their perception, too demanding for them, especially since they had to “juggle” between different subjects.

Structural description: Most students attended online classes from their own homes, usually from their own rooms (less frequently from dormitory rooms); however, it was not unusual for them to also join in while commuting, driving their car, or from an office if they were employed. Most of the students needed to make some sort of arrangement with other household members in order not to be interrupted, and to eliminate distractions as much as possible. Some students even reported that other family members were sometimes also listening to an online lecture, out of pure curiosity. They reported that they had significantly more time during the day since they did not have to prepare for going to the facility or to commute. Most of the time, the study routine was without problems, although students sometimes experienced minor technical issues.

• Theme 2: Learning experience and outcomes

Textural description: Most students reported that they had a feeling that they learned significantly less than what would usually be possible, if they had subjects that required tangible experience of the subject matter. Even more, if students were to attend auditory practice classes, they felt that they were only passively receiving information. Students expressed doubts that what they heard was practical enough, explaining that they mostly do not hold the professors responsible for that perception; rather, they believed that remote teaching was simply limited in its nature if the activities were limited to talks and discussions. Conversely, if the course subject was related to any kind of software or programming language, students mostly felt more convenient attending the class remotely.

Structural description: Lack of practical and lab experience was reported by one part of the interviewed students, the part that expected this kind of experience during their studies. Conversely, students who had practical work related to software design pointed out that this way of learning was more effective for them, as they had better insights into what TAs were doing via screen sharing, and were able to better follow teacher’s instructions. Different tools for online teaching such as whiteboards, drawing boards, annotations, and visualization methods were good for conveying knowledge. All materials for the classes were available online, but students felt frustrated because they were sometimes scattered across different parts of the MS Teams and Canvas platforms. Recorded teaching sessions were seen as convenient, as students were able to review the recordings later. Many students pointed out that in the courses where they had periodic knowledge checks during the semester (quizzes, polls, and short tasks), they were able to learn more and better.

• Theme 3: Affective reactions

Textural description: At the start of most interviews, most students stated that they did not experience significant stress, and that they even felt more relaxed because they were at their own homes and nobody was monitoring them. However, they admitted that they were feeling uncomfortable to some extent, because they did not have the experience of actually being part of an educational process—they stated that they felt weird, as if being included in something artificial, virtual, or not immersive enough.

Structural description: Students experienced stress, but only sporadically and in specific situations: mostly, if they had to turn on their cameras and speak in front of the entire class, as most of them preferred not to turn on their cameras when answering questions; at the start of the semester when they did not know what to expect or if they would have technical difficulties; if there was a test approaching.

• Theme 4: Peer communication and lack of social interaction

Textural description: To a large extent, students admitted that they missed being in classrooms and university hallways together with other students. They longed for direct contact with their peers, communicating during class breaks, or after classes. Not seeing other students’ faces during the online classes was demotivating and disappointing for some, as few of them kept their cameras on. For the freshmen, it was disappointing that they did not have a chance to meet new peers and establish new friendships, which was especially mentioned by the students who are not living in the city where the faculty is situated, and who intended to move at the start of the semester. In most cases, students felt good and inspired to communicate if they were part of a discussion during a class, but still they found this way of communication to be limited and troublesome, since it was not easy to jump into a discussion, and usual nonverbal cues were missing.

Structural description: Students communicated remotely to a large extent between themselves during the semester: to strengthen individual contacts, to collaborate on course projects, or to share course materials or information. They mostly communicated via popular social networks or messaging apps, often in virtual groups that they created themselves. Students mostly ignored and avoided informal peer communication on the MS Teams platform that the faculty had set up for them, usually finding alternative places to chat. Students from senior years, who knew their peers from the pre-pandemic era, used every opportunity to meet in person—when they had a test or any other activity at the faculty premises, they would frequently grab a drink together afterward.

• Theme 5: Support by the teaching staff

Textural description: In most cases, students felt left out when it came to their individual needs and questions—simply because there were no predetermined office hours or the opportunity to approach the professor after the class had ended. Thus, in most cases there was not much time for clarifications. In addition, students felt that their progress was not individually tracked or looked after by majority of the professors, that there was less interaction, and that the overall sense of connection between the two sides was weaker. They also felt frustrated because they had to “figure a lot of things on their own”, including understanding some topics or installing software and development environments, as there was no possibility to easily ask for help. Students frequently stated that they believed professors were “doing their best”, “going out of their way”, “very supportive and forthcoming”, but added that these good intensions had a limited effect.

Structural description: Students stressed that they understood the circumstances and limitations of distance learning. It was highly appreciated if a professor would leave extra time when the class was officially over to address individual issues. Many students noted that they had quite different experiences from one teacher to another—while they felt supported from some teachers, they felt left behind by some others. Compared to regular studies, students now reported less support from the teachers and their peers.

• Theme 6: Attention and active engagement during a class

Textural description: Level of engagement during online classes was a frequent topic during the interviews within the students. In some classes, students felt inspired to actively participate in a class; in other cases, students felt disengaged, aloof, and passive, with their minds wandering off. Students felt highly dependent on different external factors (the topic, professor’s style of teaching, reactions of other students, and structured assignments) that influenced their levels of engagement. In most cases, students did not experience significant external distractions, as most of them had organized their living space for this purpose. Some of them experienced periodical distractions due to different factors such as: other people who share the same household, ambient or street noise, noise from other video-call participants who did not mute their microphones, or notifications on their devices. As an internal factor, students mentioned their own discipline as being crucial for staying focused, but also added that their current mood was a significant factor. Students reported that it was harder for them to concentrate on the class than in regular classroom settings, while they happened to wander off more often. They were usually reluctant to speak out during online classes, unless during an interesting discussion, and reported that it did not feel as pleasant as it was in a classroom.

Structural description: One of the most frequent factors that contributed to students’ feeling and acting engaged during online classes was the specific topic that was being presented—if a topic was personally interesting, students were more likely to contribute to a discussion. The professor’s behavior also contributed significantly to students being more active during the class—his or her enthusiasm, asking questions about the subject being taught, but also about students’ opinions, sparking a discussion and contrasting opinions, teaching with a camera turned on, and asking students to turn on their cameras. Attention was higher if real-life examples, case studies, or dilemmas were presented, while talking only about theory resulted in students losing focus. However, it was recognized that the professor’s personality and approach were important factors in this, too—some professors (although a small portion of them) were not seen as engaged in their own lecture, they seemed too passive, “going through the slides”, or simply did not show that they care for their students. Interactions between students and usage of online polls were making them more active and engaged. In many cases, students were much more active in classes in which their knowledge and activities were being monitored and tracked or assessed via flash quizzes and short tests, when their progress was being measured during the semester, and when their attendance was recorded. Having specific assignments, activities and responsibilities during the class was also beneficial. Reactions from other students and interaction with them during the class was also identified as a significant factor—students were motivated to engage in a class when they witnessed others doing the same thing. Some students reported that they are simply passive by nature, and that they preferred to stay that way. Private chores and responsibilities were a negative factor when focusing attention was in question, as were particular times of the day when classes were held: having classes earlier in the morning or late in the evening resulted in less attention reported, as happened with the situations where they had to attend online classes after work. Many students outlined that having multiple classes in a row, with longer screen times, resulted in fatigue and lack of focus. Frequently, students reported that they logged onto the online learning platform but did not pay attention to the class at all, either because they were not interested in the topic, or because they decided to do something else in parallel.

• Theme 7: Hoping to return to classrooms soon

Textural description: Usually at the end of the interviews, students concluded their thoughts by expressing hope that the things will soon return to how they were before the current pandemic. Many students stated that they want to believe that the current semester is the last one to be held remotely, but without any specific rationale or argument for that wish.

Structural description: Students observed their current situation as a “status quo”, perceiving themselves as being stuck in a process that they did not plan or wish to experience. Being physically distant from the faculty, teachers, and their peers, students had frequent thoughts about the near future, wandering if they will soon start attending the classes in person.

5.1.2. Composite Description—The Essence of Being Involved in PERT as an Engineering Student

Attending PERT courses is a complex experience that forces students to take control of their actions. They have to organize both their surroundings (their home premises and other people living with them), and their own mind to prepare for online classes, which asks for self-discipline and a sense of personal responsibility. Stress is situation specific: it can be related to the start of the semester when students have doubts of whether they will be able to attend the classes due to technical uncertainties and other responsibilities; during the semester it is sometimes associated with connectivity issues and the way they organized their day; at the end of the semester, stress is present when students feel overwhelmed with assignments, as their motivation declines. Students look for the support, understanding and openness of the teaching staff in order to feel secure. They are aware that the teaching staff is doing their best, but understand that in given circumstances, there are limitations of what can be achieved. They feel left on their own: when the online class ends, there is usually no way to approach the professor informally and momentarily; also, they feel that their individual progress is not being tracked to a high extent. While most of them start with determination and discipline, their stamina wears off as the semester unfolds, and they receive few incentives, still feeling stuck, and hoping (at the back of their minds) that they will soon return to regular classes.

Attending PERT courses is an experience that brings with itself feelings of the whole process being artificial, weird, and forced. Even when being highly disciplined, students still feel that a lot is missing and that this experience is far from what is desired. Although they compensate isolation with the increased usage of social networks and online communication tools, they still long for socializing with their colleagues in the flesh. Therefore, they enjoy being part of a debate or being asked for their opinion, as this makes them feel at least to some degree a part of a group. However, when the class starts, students feel reluctant to show their faces, and prefer to stay silent unless an interesting discussion develops. Even when they are motivated to join a discussion, they hesitate to do so because it is not easy to get the attention of others due to multiple people talking at the same time. Being called out by professors is seen as a good thing here, as students gain a perception that time and attention are allocated especially for them.

Students’ focus and engagement during the classes vary significantly depending on the topic of the class and the way the teaching is organized: they prefer topics that are appealing to them personally, specific examples, and case studies. Although they experience some stage-fright, they like to be asked for their personal opinion. They strongly resonate, with both attention and activity, to the rest of their peer group. They feel stimulated if they are exposed to individual activities and assignments and feel motivated to work if their attendance and activities are being recorded. Their focus of attention is also affected by the time of day or number of classes they have to attend, and they feel exhausted when they spend too much time in front of the screen.

5.2. Study 2—The Teachers

5.2.1. Identified Themes—What Did the Teachers Experience and How Did These Experiences Happen

• Theme 1: Motivation decreases the semester unfolds

Textural description: The teaching staff reported that their levels of motivation and their methods of teaching changed for the worse as the semester unfolded. For many, deteriorating motivation was a common issue, especially as the workload increased in the middle of semester, combined with screen-fatigue and partial lockdown. At the start of the semester, many felt enthusiastic, but that dwindled as the semester was progressing. At the end of the semester, they felt like they had given up, and became indifferent.

Structural description: The complex situation in which the PERT process was unfolding was in most cases, teachers’ levels of motivation dropped because they lacked significant feedback from students during the classes, and because students were mostly passive participants of a class. Many teachers report that they had problems maintaining their motivation without any feedback, as they had no clue on who was listening and if their words had any effect on the listeners. Conversely, motivation would rise if some students or groups of students were dynamic and discussed the topic. Another reason for motivation levels to drop was the fact that professors and assistants spent many hours sitting in front of their computers, instead of being in classrooms or in their offices.

• Theme 2: Having to adapt and overcome, accepting the inevitable

Textural description: The teaching staff felt pressure to adapt their means of teaching and their teaching material to the new circumstances. This frequently meant that significant efforts had to be invested in before every class, which was stressful for the ones who got into a routine in the previous years or even decades. However, if the topic was the professor’s favorite, he or she then observed modifying slides and other materials as an interesting challenge and a chance to think creatively. A few teachers reported that they felt the need to motivate themselves and make their jobs more interesting in-home setting, due to the lack of any other motivating factor. Nevertheless, the majority of the participants identified the second half of the semester as the period in which they had to accept the fact that there will be no return to classrooms any time soon, and that they had to find their peace with the status quo.

Structural description: Many teachers reported that this need to adapt and modify was constant during the semester, as every teaching unit and activity had to obtain a remote-friendly alternative, or a proper substitution. In some cases, the teaching staff accepted the challenges and tried to think of how to engage students in the class, by calling them out, by asking questions pointed to a specific student, or giving them frequent pop quizzes.

• Theme 3: Feeling uncomfortable due to the lack of any visual feedback while talking

Textural description: This was, by far, the most recurring and most emotional idea for both professors and assistants. They felt challenged by the situation in which they lacked students’ feedback on the topic that was being presented. Not being able to witness the immediate impact of their teaching made the teachers feel stressed, helpless and frustrated, and clueless about whether the students were really listening and understanding the lecture (only a handful of participants stated that this was not an issue for them, explaining that they concentrated on their own talk and preferred having a monologue). The teaching staff also frequently reported that they felt absurd or weird, mostly because there was no good interaction with the students, describing their impressions as “feeling stupid”, “like talking into empty space/wall/screen”, “quite different and not natural”.

Structural description: Not having any visual feedback from students most of the time during the remote classes was quite frustrating for many teachers. Although the online platform allowed video streaming in two ways, students rarely showed their faces while a teacher was talking. Some of the students had their cameras on at the start of the semester or at the start of an individual class, but soon even they turned their cameras off. Most of the students were even reluctant to turn their cameras on while talking, preferring to broadcast only their voice to the rest of the class. Having been displaced from their usual offices and classrooms made the teachers experience unpleasant feelings even stronger. Additionally, a number of respondents indicated that they were feeling uncomfortable because they were sharing their own private computer desktops or being seen in their private homes by the students, which was observed by some as an intrusion into their privacy.

• Theme 4: Students’ active participation as the most important motivation and work satisfaction factor

Textural description: Most frequently, teachers stated that students’ active participation during the class—answering questions, asking questions, engaging in a discussion with other students—was the strongest motivational factor for them during an online class. Teachers often felt inspired and purposeful about what they do, and they even felt proud when witnessing a debate during their lecture, as this proved that the students were paying attention to what was being said and that they were influenced by teacher’s work. In numerous cases, teachers stated that students’ engagement during a class was the most important factor for them to feel as if they achieved something.

Structural description: In the absence of a visual feedback, teachers were relying heavily on students’ verbal participation in order to find a purpose in what they were doing during a class. Some teachers opted to make smaller breaks during their lectures to allow students to engage in the topic, which the staff used not only for the students’ benefit, but also to motivate themselves. Although the platform used for remote teaching allowed seamless synchronous communication, teachers still observed students’ engagement as something of extraordinary value and importance.

• Theme 5: Work pressure was significantly experienced due to various challenges

Textural description: Professors and assistants experienced significant stress, and they felt challenged due to perceived workload increase during the semester, related to different aspects of remote teaching. They sometimes felt worried because of possible hardware or software failure, or potential internet connectivity issues, which was exacerbated by the fact that students’ feedback was limited or completely missing, as there was no one to alarm the teachers that something was not working properly. Preparing for the class in many cases took significantly more time than in regular settings, making teachers feel challenged and overworked. They frequently felt “drained”, as a result of combination of increased workload, lack of feedback, and overall pandemic context, feeling additionally overwhelmed with numerous students’ emails that popped up after the class has ended. In addition, many teachers felt pessimistic because they saw no significant positive aspects in the remote teaching process, and no potential for anything to change soon.

Structural description: Challenges of conducting remote teaching during the whole semester were numerous and various. Teachers were, in almost all cases, holding classes from their own homes. Although they state that they mostly had support and understanding from other family members, it was not always easy to use the same space for working and private life; as the semester progressed, some teachers made different household arrangements to have a space dedicated for holding online classes. Only a handful of teachers held classes from their offices, usually because they had specific hardware to show, or because they wanted to write on a physical whiteboard. Most students preferred to send emails with questions after the class, rather than asking questions during the class, which took significantly more time for teachers to address; this was especially problematic as the semester was coming close to an end, with students increasingly asking for support and clarification regarding their assignments. As the working day progressed, especially if the teacher had more classes that day, things became more troublesome. It became evident that the teachers who had topics with practical aspects, or complex processes to show during their lectures had to invest more time in preparing for the classes, compared to teachers who had more abstract or general topics in their subject’s curriculum.

• Theme 6: Remote teaching has some benefits

Textural description: Most participants did not report any significant benefits from having to teach remotely, stating that they find little value in that method regarding educational outcomes. However, they frequently felt relieved because they did not have to commute, and they had more freedom in organizing their other work and personal activities. Communicating with students via MS Teams platform was convenient, as they were able to respond to individual queries quicker, and felt that the communication was more informal, compared to regular classes and office hours. They were even happy to have any contact with the students in the chat section, in contrast to the online lectures where they felt isolated from the students. Especially for the teaching staff that teaches IT related courses such as software development or usage of software tools, this way proved beneficial as they believed that students had better insight when screen sharing, as compared to using video beams in a classroom. For some teachers, remote work allowed them to feel more focused on what they were talking during the class.

Structural description: Absence of noise, interruptions, and distractions during the class was most frequently reported as the good side of teaching remotely—some teachers found that silence is good for their focus and performance. Especially when having their own cameras turned off, teachers enjoyed comfort and privacy that was otherwise not possible. Although they had to stick to a strict timetable regarding the classes, teachers enjoyed the flexibility they had in spending the rest of their time.

• Theme 7: Communication with the students during the class

Textural description: Teachers frequently commented that communication with students felt artificial and sub-optimal. They observed communication with students mostly as poor, stripped-down and one-directional. They did not enjoy having to explicitly ask students for any comment or thoughts. Lack of proper two-way communication made many teachers uncomfortable, as they lacked even tiny feedback that could have propelled their further monologue. In addition, teachers frequently lacked any insights whether the students understood the lecture, or what was their opinion on that subject. This was followed by feeling powerless to change that situation or to influence students without having to be strict—most professors do not like to enforce discipline and are rather motivated by students’ enthusiasm and proactivity. Some teachers tried to spark a discussion, but in many cases that had only modest effect, and then the teachers felt even more frustrated and awkward, witnessing no response to their questions. Some teachers even felt disappointed of students because of this, especially if they called out a student by name and he or she did not respond, indicating that he or she is away from their logged device. They also frequently felt limited and frustrated when having to present something without proper equipment or demonstration tools available, such as specific hardware setup, machine part, or a complex engineering process, thus feeling pessimistic about their chances to teach students properly. Especially, if the teachers had to present a topic that develops in numerous steps, they felt frustrated with limitations of virtual board if only keyboard and a mouse were used.

Structural description: It was highly individual if the teachers wanted to use their own cameras during the class or not, mostly depending on their own preferences and the way they perceive the teaching process: some believe that it is part of their role as a teacher to present themselves visually; others thought that it was their good manners to show their faces at the end of every class; some did not use their cameras at all, believing that it makes no difference. Professors rarely insisted on students getting their cameras on, because majority of them realized that most of the students do not prefer to show their faces; even the few ones who at the start of the semester asked that students have their cameras on gave up after a few weeks, stating that they felt like they were enforcing something against students’ will.

• Theme 8: Nostalgia and hoping that things will soon return to normal

Textural description: Usually at the end of an interview, when asked to sum up their thoughts, the teachers wanted to share that they felt nostalgia for the past times when they taught students in the classroom. They frequently felt yearning for the past, with romanticized descriptions of a teaching process that was once taken for granted, stating that the physical presence of students during the class was the biggest thing they now miss. However, most teachers did not express sadness or melancholy as much as they expressed hope that things will return to normal soon, although they did not provide any specific argument for such a statement.

Structural description: Being physically separated from their offices, classrooms, students and other staff, teachers observe a lack of social stimuli compared to earlier times. They experience an unwanted mix of personal and professional life and tend to dislike the current ambiguous situation.

5.2.2. Composite Description—The Essence of Being Involved in PERT as a Teacher in an Engineering Curriculum

Conducting courses during PERT is a completely different experience for teachers, compared to the traditional means of having in-person classes. At the start of a semester, there is an initial enthusiasm and a perception of an interesting challenge; however, as the semester unfolds, motivation is undermined due to the monotonous routine and lack of two-way communication. Teachers’ focusses of attention and morale are also variable, depending on the class atmosphere and interaction (or lack of it) with students: if students communicate, teachers feel motivated, purposeful, and accomplished; in the absence of students’ reactions, teachers feel frustrated, uncomfortable, disappointed, demotivated, and absurd.

The teaching staff feels challenged by numerous ways in which they are expected to adapt their teaching practices and materials to online classes, which is less frequently motivating and more frequently a continuous source of stress during the semester. They feel overburdened by numerous emails, especially when the deadlines for student assignments are approaching. They also feel frustrated if not being able to present something without proper equipment, and worried if they will experience connection issues and not notice, due to the usual silence from the other side. Only if they are teaching courses relevant to software development or software application, they find this way of teaching more appropriate than in the classroom, feeling more comfortable to share their screen online than on a classroom wall. However, if they teach classes related to some hardware components, or they need to show complex steps of a process, they find it hard to do in an online class. Additionally, teachers feel disappointed if their efforts are not reflected in students’ reactions: they feel pessimistic about their situation, they feel clueless about whether the students are even listening to them and understanding what is being said, and they tend to feel powerless for not being able to influence students from a distance.

The teaching staff perceives only minor benefits in this teaching context. They are, to some extent, enjoying the lack of classroom noise and less distractions during an online class, and they also find it convenient that they do not have to commute. They find it easier to respond to individual student queries, as long as they are sent in a timely manner.

Similar to students, teachers also start the semester with determination and discipline, but it does not last long as the semester unfolds. They also feel stuck in an unwanted situation, hoping (at the back of their minds) that they will soon return to regular classes. They feel nostalgic for their usual routines and are looking forward to going back to a classroom or lab setting, instead of feeling exhausted from long screen times.

5.3. Benchmarking PERT Sustainability

In the last part of the analysis, the interview transcripts and study results have been compared to previously established dimensions of sustainable e-learning systems [19], revealing some of the positive and negative aspects of PERT from the perspectives of teachers and engineering students. The results of this analysis are presented in

Table 3. Engineering students and teachers’ PERT experiences compared to dimensions of sustainable e-learning systems.

Dimensions of Sustainable E-Learning Systems *	Perspective	Positive Aspect	Negative Aspect
Human—Individual needs should be protected and supported with dignity	Student	Online communication 1on1	Individuality is lost during classes
	Teacher	More privacy and working from home	Lack of clear distinction between professional and private life
Social—Relationships of people within society should be equitable, diverse, connected and democratic	Student	No data for most	Lack of peer communication
	Teacher	No data for most	Lack of feedback from the other side, poor interaction
Technical—Technology must cope with changes and evolution in a fair manner, respecting natural resources	Student	Learning platform available on all devices, teaching materials and class recordings allow for individual pacing	Overwhelmed with technology
	Teacher	All materials and data on one platform	High dependence on technology to deliver teaching content
Environmental—Natural resources have to be protected from human needs and wastes	Student	Less commuting	No data for most
	Teacher	Less commuting	No data for most
Economic dimensions—A positive economic value and capital should be ensured and preserved	Student	Less expenses due to distance learning	Less worth in gained knowledge
	Teacher	No data for most	Unable to fully deliver knowledge that is appreciated

* According to [19] (p. 523).

. They show that different dimensions of sustainable e-learning systems may provide both positive and negative aspects for both sides of the educational process. It may be, therefore, interesting for the management of engineering education institutions to learn from these insights when introducing similar changes in the near future, especially if it is expected to have the changes last long and produce significant results.

6. Discussion and Conclusions

This paper aims to describe personal experiences of engineering students and teachers in an emergency setting, using two samples of respectable size for a phenomenological study; these descriptions are needed to understand, above others, individual and social requirements that are highly relevant for the sustainability of e-learning systems [19]. However, unlike other studies that deal with initial perceptions [75] or transition challenges [76] during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research focuses on the setting in which an educational process is running significantly altered for an unspecified (and undoubtedly long) period of time. Thus, we propose a new term PERT to accentuate the temporal spanning of the current global crisis, and we aim to depict how the human capital of both sides is being utilized in a forced process.

This temporal spanning begs the question of sustainability of the PERT process, as the prolonged e-learning puts stress on two of the three identified domains of literature related to sustainable e-learning [77]. The first one is educational attainment, which observes students’ human capital in the means of achievement, retention rates, skill acquisition, and personal development. The second one is professional development and innovation, which observes teachers’ human capital in the means of employees’ adaptation to change by career development and skills acquisition.

Results of both studies depict a situation in which both sides, students and their teachers, experience complex emotions and face multiple challenges in the situation of PERT. These challenges are mostly unfavorable for the sustainability of this situation: conditions required for the e-learning sustainability [5] are not met; nor are most of the high-level sustainability meta-requirements for e-learning [19]. These facts explain why the sentiments of key actors in the process are not optimistic, and why the starting enthusiasm quickly fades as the semester unfolds. The fact that the emergency situation is prolonged indefinitely brings along new obstacles for educational processes, but also for mental processes of all the actors. Similar to other relevant studies [13,14], this research showed that having an educational process adequately set up and running at the system level is not enough for the participants to feel fulfilled and motivated—although they seem content, they frequently report that they feel frustrated, lost or overwhelmed, isolated, clueless, and even absurd. Nostalgic feelings for the “old normal” prevent subjects from adequately engaging in the “new normal” setting, thus perceiving themselves as stuck in a limbo.

As these feelings are frequent companions of emergency remote learning/teaching, implications for engineering education are multifold. For both engineering students and their teachers, self-discipline and motivation are hard to maintain as the semester unfolds, with a number of factors identified [46,47,50]. The educational process should be more immersive and activating during the semester. Lack of interaction with others lowers individual motivation, as lack of proper feedback makes students feel left out, and professors ignored. During the classes, more emphasis should be placed on dialogue and two-way exchange between the two sides, with rich co-creation processes that involve students to a larger extent.

A number of implications for improving sustainability of this education process can be drawn from these studies. As teachers experienced trouble finding alternative solutions and new tools to keep the previous workflow, the question arises of whether is it even the right aim to pursue. In the significantly altered state that lasts for months or even years, the goal of the interaction (the “what”) has to change, and then the tools (the “how”) will follow more easily. Software tools should thus be developed and implemented to aid the learning process (from the students’ perspective), rather than to aid the teaching process (from the professors’ perspective). It is pedagogy, and not technology, that should drive change and improvement in engineering education, as quick fixes and ICT tools are not effective if they are introduced to help the faculty staff, and are the only alteration in the teaching equation [78]. The new generations possess a shorter attention span, and have a constant need to receive new, different types of information, advocating for usage of modern means of education that allow students to undertake learning at individual pace [20]. Students, while feeling left out and not individually addressed, need more help in understanding and witnessing relevant topics from a distance, which asks for technology to help them not only in listening, but in experiencing remotely, where virtual labs are most promising solution [33]. Such solutions could also help the teachers to reach more students and engage them, which is also beneficial for their work morale and its results—closing the circle of questioning who engages who in the process [26], as the teacher role should transform from a content provider to a mentor and a coach [25].

This research, although comprehensive and thorough in its methodology, still has some limitations that could also imply possible avenues for further research. Observing only one engineering education institution had its rationale; however, generalizability of the findings could be put in question, as other engineering schools may have other solutions put to practice. Additionally, this research did not ask participants to express ideas on how to improve their experience in the PERT context, which could be useful. Finally, this research presented results from two cross-sectional studies, processing data from one specific point in time. Further research should employ a longitudinal approach to further depict the temporal dimension of ERT.