Through the COVID-19 to Prospect Online School Learning: Voices of Students from China, Lebanon, and the US

Abstract

Online learning has emerged as a widely used learning mode and will likely supplement traditional learning in the post-pandemic era. The purpose of this study is to present student voices of online school education by investigating students’ online learning experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in various contexts, and explain why the impacts are important to student learning and well-being. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with nine students from China, Lebanon, and the United States to gain direct insight into students’ perceptions of each country. The results showed that the online learning environment provided at the national level, such as social conflicts, and the facilities provided at the individual level, such as information access, increase the educational inequity. High-school students experienced numerous psychological changes and encountered academic cheating issues in the home online-learning environment. We recommend that online school education should make significant improvements in pedagogy, students’ mental health, and learning assessment, and consider factors beyond technology solutions.