Barriers to Digital Higher Education Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic from Teachers’ and Students’ Perspectives

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid transition to digital teaching enabled higher education institutions (HEIs) to continue teaching. The strict execution exposed barriers that both teachers and students have faced towards digital higher education teaching around the world. In this paper, the barriers from both perspectives are identified and systematically processed. For this purpose, a quantitative survey of 396 students from HEIs in Sweden, Türkiye, and Germany was conducted. The students’ barriers were identified and assigned to categories based on teachers’ barrier categories, which were analyzed in a pre-study by conducting a literature review. The teachers’ barrier categories could be confirmed by the students’ survey. However, within the subcategories, the two perspectives differ. All categories and subcategories are described in detail so that this contribution offers an overview of barriers that have to be overcome if digital higher education teaching will be followed in the future.