Abstract:

This qualitative research presents a comparison of online and face-to-face education from the perspective of primary school teachers and students in eastern Slovakia. The COVID-19 pandemic caused sudden changes and many schools had to switch to distance learning without adequate training, leading to unexpected complications. Although online teaching has become a necessity in the last two years, there is still a lack of research articles to offer insights from both teachers and students. The paper aimed to investigate how students and teachers perceived study motivation under different study conditions. We expected that distractors in the home environment, lack of control, and lack of direct contact between students and their teachers result in decreased study motivation in the online environment. The paper provides a content analysis of interviews with 10 primary school students and their teachers. The paper presents similarities and differences in the perception of study motivation during face-to-face and online teaching. Qualitative research serves as a pilot study for the longitudinal research of the doctoral thesis, reflecting the current needs of pedagogical practice to capture changes in the transition from face-to-face to online teaching.

Keywords:

Face-to-face education, online education, study motivation.