Communication barriers in emergency remote education

Abstract

Despite the abundance of methods, materials, pedagogical philosophies, and a variety of teacher training programs, many educators still do not have the skills and self-efficacy to effectively navigate the new combinations of distance, blended, and in-classroom learning. The review of literature signals the disrupted nature of teacher-student communication caused by the coronavirus pandemic. This is a literature review focused on the findings of 206 published open-access journal articles on teacher-student educational interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary goal of the current research is to provide an initial indication of the potential size and nature of the extant communication barriers in emergency remote learning. Furthermore, authors attempt to draw overall conclusions about the merits of existing propositions or methods aimed at overcoming the existing barriers. The complaints reported in the surveys include technical, psychological, personal, emotional, and health issues, lack of feedback, and poor student engagement. The latter prompts us to search for good practices that solve the aforementioned teacher-student interaction barriers or reduce the scope of these barriers. The outcomes of this study can help theorize about the many forms of barriers that exist in teacher-student interactions in emergency remote learning.