A Comparative Investigation of the Impact of Effective Online Teaching Strategies Practiced during Corona Pandemic in Ensuring Sustainable Pedagogy

Abstract

This survey reports results and findings related to the perceptions of English language teachers from Gulf universities pertaining to the impact of effective online strategies practiced during corona pandemic. A validated self-developed 5-point survey instrument has been used to collect data for this comparative investigation. The instrument was pilot tested after determining its content validity and reliability. Cronbach alpha (α) reliability test was run to determine reliability. The final version of the questionnaire consisting of 51 items was generalized and uploaded on Google forms to record the participants responses. One hundred forty-four responses were recorded including 94 (n = 94) from Saudi universities and fifty (n = 50) from other Gulf countries including UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait. The participants of the study have seen eye to eye with each other in majority of questionnaire items and ranked asking comprehension questions , teacher-student interaction and teachers oral feedback as the most preferred teaching strategies in enhancing content understanding, students motivation, mutual interaction, teacher-student rapport and active engagement in learning. The findings have also revealed that lecturing, written assignments, individual projects have been perceived least effective teaching strategies in producing positive results during online teaching. Among the most important pedagogical skills needed to deliver successful online courses, communication skills and patience have been perceived most effective. The remaining skills have also been assigned high mean values indicating their positive role in online teaching. Results generated by independent-samples T-test have accepted 6 null hypotheses and rejected one hypothesis. Findings and recommendations have been presented based on the results of this survey.