Abstract
The main aim of this small-scale case study is to examine the challenges that Secondary Education teachers encountered during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Greece. Following a qualitative methodology, 17 Secondary Education teachers from schools throughout Greece were interviewed online. The findings revealed that most of the participants encountered problems in relation to their personal communication and interaction with the students, the equipment and the Internet, the students’ participation and the teachers’ training regarding the online education. The challenges faced by the participants are common to the remote emergency education in other countries. Furthermore, these obstacles have been substantiated in the distance education literature. Therefore, this study, also, considers some possible future changes, which would transform emergency remote teaching into an effective online/distance education after the pandemic. Some of the recommendations include the integration of the principles of equity into the education policies and a change in the focus of the teacher training.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Assareh, A., & Hosseini Bidokht, M. (2011). Barriers to E-teaching and E-learning. Procedia Computer Science, 3, 791–795. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2010.12.129
Becker, K., Newton, C., & Sawang, S. (2013). A learner perspective on barriers to e-learning. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 53(2), 211–233.
Bozkurt, A., & Sharma, R. C. (2020). Emergency remote teaching in a time of global crisis due to CoronaVirus pandemic. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 2020. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3778083
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (5th ed.). PEARSON.
Doucet, A., Netolicky, D., & Timmers, K. & Tuscano, F. J. (2020). Thinking about pedagogy in an unfolding pandemic. An independent report on approaches to distance learning during COVID19 school closures (Issue March).
Elo, S., Kääriäinen, M., Kanste, O., Pölkki, T., Utriainen, K., & Kyngäs, H. (2014). Qualitative content analysis. SAGE Open, 4(1), 215824401452263. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244014522633
Elo, S., & Kyngäs, H. (2008). The qualitative content analysis process. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 62(1), 107–115. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04569.x
Erlingsson, C., & Brysiewicz, P. (2017). A hands-on guide to doing content analysis. African Journal of Emergency Medicine, 7(3), 93–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.afjem.2017.08.001
European Agency. (2020). Country information for Greece – Systems of support and specialist provision. https://www.european-agency.org/country-information/greece/systems-of-support-and-specialist-provision
European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice. (2019). Digital Education at School in Europe. Eurydice Report.
European Schoolnet. (2020a). Emergency remote education to counteract the effects of COVID-19. http://www.eun.org/news/detail?articleId=4938627
European Schoolnet. (2020b). Uncharted Territory? Emergency remote teaching in times of COVID-19 crisis: Our Steering Committee discusses ways forward. http://www.eun.org/news/detail?articleId=4983225
Foulger, T. S., Graziano, K. J., Schmidt-Crawford, D., & Slykhuis, D. A. (2017). Teacher Educator Technology Competencies. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 25(4), 413–448.
Galusha, J. (1997). Barriers to learning in distance education. Interpersonal Computing and Technology Journal, 5(3), 6–14.
Hebebci, M. T., Bertiz, Y., & Alan, S. (2020). Investigation of views of students and teachers on distance education practices during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. International Journal of Technology in Education and Science, 4(4), 267–282. https://doi.org/10.46328/ijtes.v4i4.113
Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (2020). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review, 7. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning?utm_source=Newsletter+de+innovación+educativa+%28docentes%29&utm_campaign=45e0a08d6b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_01_15_LDTEC_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_
Jelińska, M., & Paradowski, M. B. (2021). Teachers’ perception of student coping with emergency remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic: The relative impact of educator demographics and professional adaptation and adjustment. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648443
Kleinheksel, A. J., Rockich-Winston, N., Tawfik, H., & Wyatt, T. R. (2020). Qualitative research in pharmacy education. Demystifying content analysis. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 84(1), 127–137. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe8417113
König, J., Jäger-Biela, D. J., & Glutsch, N. (2020). Adapting to online teaching during COVID-19 school closure: Teacher education and teacher competence effects among early career teachers in Germany. European Journal of Teacher Education, 43(4), 608–622. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1809650
Marshall, D. T., Shannon, D. M., & Love, S. M. (2020). How teachers experienced the COVID-19 transition to remote instruction. Phi Delta Kappan, 102(3), 46–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721720970702
Muilenburg, L. Y., & Berge, Z. L. (2001). Barriers to distance education: A factor-analytic study. The American Journal of Distance Education, 15(2), 7–22.
Nikolopoulou, K., & Gialamas, V. (2016). Barriers to ICT use in high schools: Greek teachers’ perceptions. Journal of Computers in Education, 3(1), 59–75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-015-0052-z
OECD. (2018). Chapter 1. The Greek education system in context. In Education for a bright future in Greece (p. 258). OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/9789264298750-3-en.pdf?expires=1591193399&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=33219713DEE7CDE2F08727602ECF1256
Patton, M. (2002). Patton, M. In Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Sage.
Raluca, D., Arnaldo, P., Jordan, K., & Phillips, T. (2020). Education during the COVID-19 crisis opportunities and constraints of using EdTech in low-income countries (Issue April). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3750976
Redmond, P. (2011). From face-to-face teaching to online teaching: Pedagogical transitions. ASCILITE 2011 – The Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, 2002, 1050–1060.
Regional Center for Educational Planning of Western Greece. (n.d.). 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2020, from https://blogs.sch.gr/pekesde/
Regional Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education of Crete. (2020).
Schlosser, L. A., & Simonson, M. (2009). Distance education: Definition and glossary of terms (3rd ed.). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Stelitano, L., Doan, S., Woo, A., Diliberti, M., Kaufman, J., & Henry, D. (2020). The digital divide and COVID-19: Teachers’ perceptions of inequities in students’ internet access and participation in remote Learning. https://doi.org/10.7249/rra134-3
Trust, T., & Whalen, J. (2020). Should teachers be trained in Emergency remote teaching? Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28(2), 189–199. https://www.learntechlib.org/p/215995/
United Nations. (2020). Policy brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond. In Revista Iberoamericana de Tecnología en Educación y Educación en Tecnología (Issue 26). https://doi.org/10.24215/18509959.26.e12
Vlachopoulos, D. (2020). COVID-19: Threat or opportunity for online education? Higher Learning Research Communications, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v10i1.1179
Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Sage.
Zhang, T. (2020). Learning from the emergency remote teaching-learning in China when primary and secondary schools were disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic (pp. 1–15). https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-40889/v1
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Samioti, P. (2021). Emergency Remote Educational Challenges During COVID-19: The Case of Secondary Education Teachers in Greece. In: Bissessar, C. (eds) Emergency Remote Learning, Teaching and Leading: Global Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76591-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76591-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76590-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76591-0
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)