Abstract:

Following WHO’s declaration of a global pandemic in March 2020, the Czech Republic applied social distancing and a lockdown, which has had serious impacts on students, parents, and educators alike. Although distance and blended learning are modes well established and commonly used in the country, is can be assumed that the unforeseen and hasty shift online caught university teachers off guard and confronted them with a number of difficult challenges on the one hand, but also opportunities for professional development on the other. We investigated covid-related changes as perceived by university teachers who work at Czech departments of education in one of the nine subject fields. The online questionnaire survey was conducted over April 2021, i.e. one year after the introduction of the country-wide safety measures, allowing thus respondents to reflect on the whole year and verbalize their overall experience. Apart from a more general Preferences section, the questionnaire comprised 34 Likert-scale items that covered three key areas: Course, Lesson, and Support. Prior to interpreting the data, the reliability of the questionnaire was determined (r = 0.73), with none of its items fundamentally reducing its overall reliability. Using Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA and U test, responses of a representative sample of 364 teachers were analyzed with respect to their subject specification, university affiliation, sex, and years of teaching experience. Each area of interest showed statistically significant differences and similarities among groups of respondents. The findings complement a broader body of research that has been conducted across the globe to address the impacts of the pandemic on both teachers and learners.

Keywords:

Distance teaching, distance learning, pandemic, e-learning.