Online Teaching Problems during COVID-19 Pandemic from Teachers and Parents’ Viewpoints and Suggesting Practical Solutions

Covid 19 pandemic has forced educational centers to combine online teaching with their traditional learning strategies. Due to its nature and structure, online teaching has caused multiple problems for both teachers and parents. This study aimed at determining online teaching problems from teachers’ and parents’ viewpoints, prioritizing them and suggesting effective solutions. First, in the qualitative phase, purposive sampling method was used to select 14 teachers and 15 parents. They were interviewed by semi-structured method and their data was analyzed using Colaizzi method to extract key categories. In the quantitative phase, two questionnaires were designed based on the extracted categories from the previous phase. Using snowball sampling method 357 parents and 306 teachers completed the questionnaires via online link. Psychometric properties of the questionnaires were evaluated (construct validity through exploratory factor analysis, criterion, content, and reliability). Data analysis showed online teaching problems from teachers’ point of view could be categorized in 8 components (i.e., harms due to students' excessive use of internet, Shād network and digital resources’ problems, violation of educational justice, poor basic facilities, problems regarding teaching-learning process and assessment, job pressure, lack of parent collaboration and low media literacy, respectively). Online teaching problems from parents ‘point of view could also be categorized in 8 components including poor basic facilities, harms due to students' excessive use of internet, decreasing the efficiency of teachers, interruption in student personality development, decreasing their motivation, disrupting the order of the home and unfamiliarity with the elements and educational skills of parents. Suggestions on media literacy, school-parent relations, online sources, basic facilities, parental supervision, distance teaching techniques and prompting peer relations were discussed.