What Can We Research about Emergency e-Learning?

When looking to future directions in emergency e-learning research, several important avenues require exploration. Reflection on pedagogical practice is an important part of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) because it draws out the lessons learned from the perspective of the agents of change in the classroom. Simply stated, because the professor plans the course, sharing the professor’s perspective can assist other professors in similar situations. However, this is only one way of “doing SoTL,” and it captures only one particular qualitative form of empirical material. Many institutions are collecting student-experience surveys, which surely will provide new quantitative material to provide general insights into another perspective. However, a fuller understanding of emergency e-learning experiences will be possible only through systematic research combining approaches.

This type of in-depth analysis is particularly important to recognize barriers to access and other unequal experiences of emergency e-learning. Pre-pandemic, laptop ownership (Reisdorf, Triwibowo, and Yankelevich Reference Reisdorf, Triwibowo and Yankelevich2020) and technology maintenance and dependability (Gonzales, Calarco, and Lynch Reference Gonzalez, Calarco and Lynch2020) already pointed out how socioeconomic barriers lead to an unequal experience of postsecondary education. In the age of emergency e-learning, when laptops and dependable connections are not only necessary for assignments and reading but also for the course experience, the socioeconomic barrier increases. Racialized inequality in emergency e-learning is another important topic; previous e-learning researchers have found that—even beyond the economic digital divide—“access does not solve nor provide equitable learning conditions” on its own (Oztok Reference Oztok2020, 112). The extent to which emergency e-learning reproduces institutional and systemic racial inequalities merits careful attention.

Greater attention is necessary to understand how economically disadvantaged communities—as well as other populations with access and dependability issues including rural areas—experienced emergency e-learning and how supports might best be designed in preparation for future pandemics (or future waves of COVID-19).

The mental health impacts of COVID-19 and emergency e-learning are further important considerations for future research. Halladay et al. (Reference Halladay, Bennett, Weist, Boyle, Manion, Campo and Georgiades2020) suggest that the quality of student–teacher relationships may support students’ decisions to seek out mental health treatment, which would be especially important during the pandemic. Preliminary evidence suggests that postsecondary students faced higher levels of anxiety, stress, depression, and substance use during COVID-19 (Charles et al. Reference Charles, Strong, Burns, Bullerjahn and Serafine2020). However, the emergency e-learning environment—even in a synchronous format—is a less-personal connection than face-to-face instruction. The combination of increased mental health symptoms with less classroom contact is an important consideration for pedagogical planning.

Finally, institutional responses to COVID-19 emergency e-learning have proceeded largely on an institution-by-institution basis, and the effectiveness of this policy-making strategy requires attention that political science and international relations may be uniquely able to provide. In contrast with the collaborative response to Hurricane Katrina—in which the so-called Sloan Semester brought many institutions together to offer a catalog of online courses to affected students (Tarantelli Reference Tarantelli2008)—emergency e-learning responses to COVID-19 occurred largely on an institution-by-institution or system-by-system basis.

What Can’t We Research about Emergency e-Learning?

Increasing the attention to the exceptionality of emergency e-learning, however, comes at a cost. Examining the deficiencies, inequalities, and barriers of emergency e-learning as exceptional experiences obscures the deficiencies, inequalities, and barriers that exist in the normal arrangements of educational systems (Murphy Reference Murphy2020, 502). Despite specific attention being warranted to this exceptional experience of emergency e-learning, it is important that its difference from the normal condition not be overstated. The digital divide, racial inequality, policy coordination, and other issues are not limited to the case of COVID-19 responses. It is our hope that this spotlight’s presentation of various perspectives will provide insights as professors and administrators prepare for an uncertain future of COVID-19. We also hope that it sparks a broader conversation and research project into the politics of the classroom, in both exceptional and normal times.