The new educational paradigm in the COVID-19 era: Can Blackboard replace physical teaching in EFL writing classrooms?

Editorial note

Editorial Note (26^th July 2023): The F1000 Editorial Team is currently substantiating that this research was presented at an IIARP conference and should be included in the IIARP Gateway. The Editorial Team is currently requesting further information from the authors regarding this. This Editorial Note will be updated as new information is provided.

Introduction

The COVID-19 crisis disturbed different aspects of life in nearly every country worldwide, including, but not limited to, the economy, education, and social life at all levels. The pandemic hit every country at its core. The education sector was thrown into disarray as students and their families became targets of the viral infection.¹ Social isolation became a priority, and as a result, alternative online educational platforms emerged to take the place of face-to-face communication to allow students to receive education even though at a skeletal level. Although this flexibility was necessary during this disruption, its effects could not be fully predicted given the fact that the new system was one that had never been tried before: it could affect the quality of education either way, and there is a need for further investigation to evaluate such experiments in real life.

Closing down of educational institutions has had serious effects on the education, development, and well-being of the students: Apart from the deprivation of social contact with peers and teachers which are vital for promoting mental well-being, the new modes of learning were not authenticated to provide as much learning success as the conventional face-to-face method. The new dispensation also left behind the socially and/or economically disadvantaged students and students with different or heightened learning support needs. Emergency remote learning systems which have since been pressed into action, have struggles to minimize learning loss and increasing inequality in access to education. Among the educational institutions affected by the COVID-19 outbreak was the Department of English and Translation at Qassim University, Saudi Arabia, where, since the pandemic broke out, teaching has been carried out via Blackboard, and physical attendance has been limited to midterm and final exams subject to firm guidelines. To ensure the quality of online teaching and learning, this study sought to investigate the quality of writing instruction by examining students’ final English writing scores before (face-to-face) and after (Blackboard) the COVID-19 crisis and how this pandemic could affect the learning outcomes among Saudi male and female Saudi EFL students.

Qassim University, like most learning institutions not only in Saudi Arabia but across the world, rapidly transformed its learning system from in-class interaction to online learning due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This swift shift was not planned, although there is a Deanship of E-Learning that has been serving the university since 2013. The ultimate goal of the deanship from the day it was created until prior to the pandemic was to raise awareness of the use of Blackboard as an assistant tool alongside face-to-face learning, including by providing intensive courses to introduce Blackboard to faculty members and students explaining the features and benefits of E-learning that could change pedagogies and learning approaches. The sudden and unprecedented use of Blackboard as an alternative tool for teaching and learning before it was fully accepted by all faculty members and students raised vital concerns about the effectiveness of Blackboard in teaching. This paper sought to investigate the effectiveness of Blackboard and face-to-face teaching approaches in promoting writing proficiency among male and female Saudi students in the English Language and Translation department at Qassim University before and after the COVID-19 crisis.

Blackboard as a potential learning system has been examined widely by numerous educators whose findings have highlighted many benefits, including students’ preference for online over face-to-face communication,^2–6 positive effectiveness of online communication,⁶ the sharing and construction of knowledge,⁷ facilitation of students’ learning increased student participation,^8,9 support of learning autonomy,¹⁰ increased student motivation,¹¹ open access to information at all times,¹² and decreased student anxiety.¹³

For teachers, virtual instruction through Blackboard helps instructors to manage course activities, planning, and evaluation more easily.^14–17 On the other hand, a study conducted in Ghana by Okantey and Addo adopted the technology acceptance model (TAM) to measure the effectiveness of Blackboard in education.¹⁸ The results showed that instructors found Blackboard useful but not easy to use. Other studies have shown less positive results for Blackboard. For example, a study conducted by Gregory and Lodge concluded that online learning may interrupt students’ learning cognition due to the lack of physical communication with their instructors.¹⁹ Another study showed that students were unready to deal with online learning platforms because of their lack of online technology experience, or they required one-to-one attention that was not available through electronic programs such as Blackboard.^19,20 Moreover, Hosamo’s findings showed that students and teachers were not interested in the online learning experience in general.²¹ One possible reason for this lack of interest could be faculty resistance to adopting new online teaching pedagogy²² or lack of time.²⁰ Another possible reason for the resistance to technology adoption among faculty is the lack of institutional support.²³ A study by Ben Bakr emphasized the need to revisit online strategic plans before applying them in the classroom to ensure their effectiveness.²⁴ Some research has also indicated some cautions to be considered when adopting online platforms and devises. First, the teacher should carefully design the course content to be appropriate for online display.^25,26 Furthermore, course activities and evaluations should be thoroughly considered because planning an online course may differ from planning for a face-to-face classroom. Hazaea et al. emphasized the need to make online learning programs more user-friendly.²⁷

EFL writing has only recently become a field of significant scholarly interest.²⁸ The social learning approach has been adopted in teaching language skills, and more specifically writing, to engage students in a natural learning environment.^29–31 The emergence of new technologies such as Blackboard has simplified social learning and promoted interaction and collaboration between students.^32–34 Blackboard and many other online collaborative platforms exerts a positive impact on the study of academic writing among EFL/ESL students. Many studies have highlighted the effect of Blackboard on writing outcomes,^12,35,36 peer interaction,^37,38 peer feedback,^39,40 and learning motivation.^12,41,42 This study compared two learning strategies, traditional learning in a classroom and online learning via Blackboard, and examined students’ final scores to determine whether the different strategies were associated with differing results.

Theoretical framework

The world wide web (www) witnessed dramatic expansion in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic with universities scrambling to reinvent the learning environments not only to expand the digital net but also, to effectively complement learning relationships. Looking back, Web 1.0 had little influence on education due to the isolation between receiver and sender.⁴³ In contrast, the emergence of Web 2.0 validates information interaction and the negotiation of meaning in different ways through the use of technology to construct knowledge.^43–45 The virtual learning platform Blackboard is a Web 2.0 program that has been widely accepted among educational institutions to achieve the ultimate goal of collaboration and interaction between students to enhance learning development. Blackboard also serves the constructivist learning theory. According to Vygotsky,⁴⁶ the father of social learning theory, cognitive learning only occurs when interaction takes place between more knowledgeable students and less knowledgeable students.⁴⁶ Social theory also supports a student-centered environment in which the students are responsible for their own learning, and the teacher’s role is merely to guide and facilitate learning. In this sense, Blackboard supports social learning since it enables students’ knowledge construction and learning accountability.

Methods

This study investigates the effectiveness of Blackboard in promoting EFL students’ writing performance in the Department of English Language and Translation at Qassim University. The data were collected for two periods: before (spring 2019) and after (spring 2020) the spread of COVID-19 virus. The study analyzed the students’ final grades in three different levels of writing courses. The results were collected and analyzed across the two different teaching approaches (face-to-face and Blackboard) to evaluate the two learning experiences and to highlight suggestions for enhancing students’ and teachers’ experience in online learning in the future.

Results

Face-to-face and online via Blackboard

The descriptive data for learning approach indicated that the mean in the face-to-face teaching approach was 9 points higher (M = 84, SD = 11) than that of the online learning approach using Blackboard (M = 76, SD = 15) (Table 4).

Table 4. Descriptive analysis of the students’ scores in two learning approaches.

Learning approach	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Minimum	Maximum
Face-to-face	410	84.34	10.752	25	100
Blackboard	423	75.65	14.545	10	100
Total	833	79.93	13.528	10	100

To answer the third research question, about the students’ final writing scores in face-to-face vs. online writing classes, the results in Table 3 showed that the main effect of the learning approaches on students’ final scores was statistically significant (F(1, 821) = 132.612, p = .000), indicating that the students in the face-to-face classroom performed better than those engaging in online learning via Blackboard.

To answer the final research question, whether there is an interaction among the three independent variables (gender, English writing level, and learning approach), there was a significant interaction among the three variables (F(2, 821) = 3.565, p = .000), indicating that at levels two and three, female students had higher final scores than male students for face-to-face instruction and for online instruction via Blackboard. At level one, however, gender had no effect.

Testing simple main effect. To determine whether the main effects of gender, writing course level, and learning approach on students’ final scores in writing are significant, a test of simple main effects is required (Table 3, pairwise comparisons). In Table 5, the test showed the following:

• - At level one, male and female students scored similarly for the face-to-face learning classroom (F(1,821 = 1.223, p = .269) and online learning platform (Blackboard) (F(1,821 = 1.418, p = .234). In other words, gender had no effect on students’ writing performance across the learning approaches in level one.

• - At level two, female students scored 6 points higher than male students for the face-to-face learning approach (F(1,821 = 9.097, p < 0.5) and 14 points higher for Blackboard (F(1,821 = 52.545, p < 0.5). In other words, gender showed an effect on students’ writing performance across the two learning approaches at level two.

• - At level three, female students’ mean was significantly higher (11 points) for the face-to-face classroom (F(1,821 = 28.687, p < .001) and was more than 21 points higher for Blackboard (F(1,821 = 94.759, p < .001). In other words, gender showed an effect on students’ writing performance across the two learning approaches at level three. These findings were displayed in Figure 1.

Table 5. Test simple main effect.

Level of students	Learning approaches	(I) Gender of students	(J) Gender of students	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.b	95% Confidence Interval for Differenceb
							Lower bound	Upper bound
Level 1	Face-to-face	Female	Male	2.593	2.344	.269	-2.009	7.194
		Male	Female	-2.593	2.344	.269	-7.194	2.009
	Blackboard	Female	Male	2.391	2.008	.234	-1.550	6.332
		Male	Female	-2.391	2.008	.234	-6.332	1.550
Level 2	Face-to-face	Female	Male	5.750*	1.907	.003	2.008	9.493
		Male	Female	-5.750*	1.907	.003	-9.493	-2.008
	Blackboard	Female	Male	13.680*	1.887	.000	9.976	17.384
		Male	Female	-13.680*	1.887	.000	-17.384	-9.976
Level 3	Face-to-face	Female	Male	10.666*	1.991	.000	6.757	14.575
		Male	Female	-10.666*	1.991	.000	-14.575	-6.757
	Blackboard	Female	Male	21.509*	2.210	.000	17.172	25.846
		Male	Female	-21.509*	2.210	.000	-25.846	-17.172

* The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

b Adjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni.

Figure 1. Students’ writing performance based on gender, level, and learning approach.

Discussion

This study revolved around three queries as indicated in the research questions. Inquiry showed that female students outperformed male students in the writing tests. This finding can be explained by the fact that the interest and time that female students allocated for their study and practice the writing skills and performing the tasks and assignments that the instructors gave them to respond to as a part of the assessment procedures of the course outweighed that of their male counterparts. This finding is in line with Al-Saadi's who found that Omani female students scored higher than the male students in the writing fluency test.⁴⁷

It also reported that third level students scored higher than first and second level students. This finding is natural because third year students are exposed longer to the language than their counterparts in the first and second level. However, Almekhlafy found that first level students got higher perceptions than the second level students regarding pursuing online learning.¹¹

Finally, students in face-to-face learning did better than they did in online mode. This finding may be interpreted and related to the interest that students have in learning mode. Almekhlafy found that Saudi EFL students have the tendency to learn better in conventional classes than they do though the Blackboard.¹¹ In contradiction, Hemdi reported that Saudi EFL postgraduate students preferred virtual learning than conventional methods during COVID-19 pandemic.⁴⁸

The results of this study align with those of Gregory and Lodge, who questioned the effectiveness of online learning as a means for learning cognition.¹⁹ The students’ poorer performance online could be because Qassim University students were not prepared nor trained adequately to switch to online learning applications, drawbacks of online learning as also suggested by Almansour and Al-Ahdal, Allen and Seaman and Gregory and Lodge.^19,20,49 Scarcity of the desire, time, and technology needed to promote beneficial online teaching among teachers could be another reason for this low performance, as suggested by many previous studies.^20,22,23 This study’s conclusions support those of other studies that argue that the emergence of the shift from face-to-face to online instruction (e.g., through platforms such as Blackboard) requires that teachers consider that the course content may require modifications to be best applied in the online classroom.^24,26 In this case, teachers may need to alter their pedagogical approaches, class activities, and evaluations to be applicable in the online context. This study also highlights the need to prepare students along with teachers to be introduced to online learning environments through extensive training sessions in order to feel comfortable with the new environment, as suggested by Hazaea et al.²⁷

In conclusion, online instruction was compulsion replacing face-to-face classroom teaching during the COVID-19 crisis to ensure continued learning. In this study, English writing performance was evaluated, and the results suggested that face-to-face teaching and learning was more effective than online (e.g., via Blackboard). This study raised suggestions to be considered when applying online technologies to future teaching.

Conclusion

This study aimed to discuss the effectiveness of instruction via Blackboard versus face-to-face approaches on the enhancement of writing proficiency among male and female Saudi students across three levels of English writing courses at Qassim University, Saudi Arabia. First, the results generally showed that the female participants outperformed male participants in their final scores in English writing courses and at all levels except the first. This means that as the levels progressed, female students outperformed their male counterparts. Second, students at level three scored higher than those at levels one and two in writing performance. Third, both groups (male and female students) performed better in the face-to-face classroom than online via Blackboard across all three required English writing courses. Combining the three variables, the results demonstrated that females outperformed male students at all levels across both learning approaches: face-to-face and online learning via Blackboard.

Based on the findings, the study has the following suggestions to make: Online learning apps should be carefully evaluated and assessed as learning tools before being imposed across board in the Saudi context. Greater weightage should be placed on the face-to-face learning approach till the Saudi university students are adequately prepared to be autonomous agencies in learning. When absolutely imperative to resort to online learning approaches such as Blackboard, teachers as much as students should be trained in effective use of the tools. Finally, periodic appraisals of fulfilment of learning objectives and student needs should be encouraged to ensure timely course correction, especially in the current special times. Any study has limitation, and the current study is not free from shortcomings. Quantitative studies help establish trends but as in the present case, they do not give a deeper understanding of the discerned phenomena. This was one limitation of the study, though the sample size was fairly large at 833 and one which could be ironed out by following mixed methods approaches.

Data availability