Postgraduate students online learning challenges during COVID-19 within the CoI framework context

Abstract The emergence of COVID-19 in 2020 forced the whole world to a standstill for a while, causing open and distance e-learning institutions like Unisa to adjust all teaching and learning activities and shift to online teaching entirely. This study explores the online learning challenges students in an open and distance e-learning environment in South Africa experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as guided by the Community of Inquiry framework. This qualitative content analysis study used thirty honours students’ responses to an open-ended question. Participants could share any thoughts on collaborative learning in an online environment. The key challenges identified by participants were the lack of teacher feedback, communication, online discussion, and interaction linked to teaching presence. The cognitive difficulties include complex modules, challenging questions, and a lack of detailed feedback. The social presence challenges indicated a lack of online support, virtual interaction, and online participation by teachers-to-students and student-to-peer-students. The study recommends the importance of teachers incorporating various facilitation strategies using the Community of Inquiry framework to create an effective online learning environment to assist students in studying remotely.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
According to the Community of Inquiry paradigm, this study examined the difficulties with online learning faced by South African students participating in open and distance e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.This qualitative content analysis study used thirty online honours students ' replies to an open-ended question about collaborative learning.The key challenges identified by participants were the need for more teacher feedback, communication, online discussion, and interaction linked to teaching presence.The cognitive difficulties include complex modules, challenging questions, and a need for more detailed feedback.The social presence challenges indicated a need for more online support, virtual interaction, and online participation by teachersto-students and student-to-peer-students.Teachers must use various facilitation techniques while utilising the Community of Inquiry framework to build a productive online learning environment to help students study remotely.

Introduction
Online education is more critical than ever in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic (Borkotoky & Borah, 2021;Johnson et al., 2020;Kulikowski et al., 2021;Shea, 2020).According to (Shea, 2020) online education has quickly become the sole platform for education worldwide due to the ongoing pandemic.Online courses are more adaptable to other life activities, such as work (Schwartzman, 2007) but they are less effective for educational purposes (Horspool & Yang, 2010;Platt et al., 2010).Within an online learning environment, peer interactions and strong interpersonal relationships can help students develop a sense of belonging when studying remotely (Ramsey et al., 2013;Smith et al., 2013), which may enhance student retention and persistence in their studies (National Academies of Sciences, 2019; Smith et al., 2013;Strayhorn, 2012;Walton & Cohen, 2011).This rapid transition from blended to fully online learning met the social distancing requirements and economic shutdowns imposed by COVID-19 (Fernandez & Shaw, 2020;Watermeyer et al., 2020), but it was not without significant difficulties and costs (Aristeidou & Cross, 2021).
The unexpected change to online learning resulted in the need for universities to be agile (Wu, 2020) in transferring their educational content online and focusing more on sufficient internet resources to enable students to study remotely.(Vogels, 2021) indicated that many low-income households globally have poor or no broadband internet connections, and the need for reliable internet became even more critical during the COVID-19 pandemic.As a result, most students lacked proper access to a computer or mobile device to access courses at home, hindering their ability to participate in remote online learning (Hart et al., 2021;Karademir et al., 2020;Ullah et al., 2021;Yeboah, 2022;Zhong, 2020).
In the case of South Africa, a developing country, some rural areas are without internet facilities.Some students in these areas only have access to the internet via their mobile phones (Dube, 2020).This poses connectivity issues due to poor internet signals.South Africa's internet is also costly (Dube, 2020).Thus, network access and bandwidth availability are the main challenges to efficient online learning delivery in developing countries (Kumar et al., 2021;Yeboah, 2022).Other challenges students still experience while studying online include life disruptions such as illnesses, job loss, caring for sick family members, or home-schooling children (Blankstein et al., 2020;Fishman & Hiler, 2020;Garrett et al., 2020).As they juggle employment commitments and family requirements, students may find it even harder to stay engaged in their learning (Blankstein et al., 2020;Fishman & Hiler, 2020;Hinton, 2020) suggesting a greater need for scaffolding student support that can be provided virtually (synchronously and asynchronously).
Remote learning and social distancing have forced students to adapt to studying online.According to a study by (Elhadary et al., 2020) even though students experienced anxiety, social concerns, and internet connection issues during Covid-19, they did perceive the online learning platform as useful.(El-Said, 2021) and (Tamrat, 2021) concur, highlighting that the pandemic significantly influenced students' online learning success and performance.Online learning success can be attributed to various factors, for example, student-student, student-content, student-teacher interaction, course assessment, and effective learning engagement (Owusu-Fordjour et al., 2020).To implement efficient online educational processes and pedagogical frameworks to improve the student's learning experience and help them succeed in their studies, it is critical to investigate a student's knowledge of, use of, and challenges with online learning platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic (Yeboah, 2022).
One of the most renowned online theoretical learning frameworks is the Community of Inquiry (CoI) which has been adopted widely in online learning environments to enhance a student's learning experience (Bozkurt, 2019;Castellanos-Reyes, 2020).The CoI is a community of practice and consists of teaching, cognitive and social presence to enhance collaborative learning (Garrison, 2017).Online learning is best carried out in a social setting involving communication and sharing individual observations and experiences with others, which is the focus of the CoI framework (Khalili, 2020).The COVID-19 pandemic has opened the door for teachers to focus more on enhancing online learning interactions, collaborations and engagements with students (Acheampong, 2023) using the fundamental principles of the CoI to ensure academic success.
Despite the growing research on online learning, few qualitative studies (Cranfield et al., 2021;Jia et al., 2021;Waghid et al., 2021) have investigated the challenges of online learning as guided by the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework in a developing world context.Therefore, this study fills this gap by exploring the challenges experienced by students during the COVID-19 pandemic in an open and distance e-learning (ODeL) environment.

The University of South Africa context
The University of South Africa's (Unisa's) transition from blended to fully online learning was fasttracked by the pandemic.The model plan to teach completely online by 2030 had to be reexamined to achieve success and ensure Unisa's future (Unisa, 2020).According to (Hedding et al., 2020).(p.17), "Unisa is probably best placed to face the challenges presented by Covid-19, but the institution itself was never designed to operate remotely.So even Unisa has had to adapt to the challenges presented by the pandemic".
The most significant changes made by the university were to offer modules entirely online and implement new modern technology to enhance a student's remote learning experience on the myUnisa platform (Unisa, 2020).The vice chancellor of Unisa stated that the university had to adapt quickly to increased online demands and serve over 400 000 students during the crisis (Mphaphuli, 2020).(Unisa, 2020) assisted its students by delivering free internet data services for online examinations.The university managed to process 2.2 million assignments online (Mphaphuli, 2020) and successfully administered 2.9 million online exams during the 2020 academic year (Unisa, 2020).Despite implementing these innovative online learning strategies, the students continued to experience challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic; thus, further research is needed to determine how the university can support students during their online learning experience.

Literature review
The literature review for this paper consists of a theoretical framework and an empirical review.

Theoretical framework
The CoI is a communication and interaction framework designed to support the learning process, help students achieve higher-order critical thinking skills, and create a community of students and teachers in computer-mediated distance learning environments (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).CoI facilitates essential student reflection and critical discourse between the teacher and peer students (Garrison et al., 2000).The framework consists of three categories: teaching, cognitive and social presence, which interconnect to create a learning experience (Garrison et al., 2000).See Figure 1 below.
Figure 1 above illustrates that teaching presence is defined in terms of design, facilitation, and direct instruction (Akyol & Garrison, 2019).(p.4) Cognitive presence captures the extent to which the teacher or students can construct meaning and consists of the following phases: the triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution.Social presence consists of effective expression, open communication, and group cohesion (Akyol & Garrison, 2019).(p.4)According to the CoI framework, deep and meaningful learning occurs if all three presences are present during the learning process (Anderson, 2008).(Kassinger, 2004) defined teacher presence as the interaction and communication style linked with the frequency of the teacher's contribution to online discussion and communication with students.Examples of teaching presence include the teacher initiating discussion topics, building understanding by sharing personal meaning, and providing direct instruction to the students (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).Furthermore, (Martin et al., 2018) stated that a teacher's presence should focus on posting regularly to the discussion forums and timely responding to emails and assignments through good online communication, assessment feedback, and interactions.(Sheridan & Kelly, 2010) study found that students value clear and explicit module requirements and the timeliness of the teachers' responses to questions and concerns raised on the discussion forums.These results support previous researchers' findings that students value timely feedback to assist their learning process (Eskey & Schulte, 2012;King, 2014;Skramstad et al., 2012).(Martin et al., 2018) found that students rated timely responses to questions and feedback on assignments as the highest facilitation strategy for online engagement and learning.Cognitive presence involves constructing and confirming meaning around module content through dialogue and reflection (Means & Neisler, 2021).Examples of methods to facilitate cognitive presence include "giving students a sense of puzzlement (trigger), providing opportunities for students to reflect (exploration), leading students to think and learn through discussion with others (integration), and helping students apply knowledge to solve issues (resolution)" (Jia et al., 2021).(p.4) A study by (Conklin & Garrett Dikkers, 2021) showed that students felt teachers needed to create videos to explain course content.Students with a higher perception of cognitive presence had higher academic achievements (Çakıroğlu et al., 2019).
Social presence can be promoted when students/teachers/peer students interact during online learning activities (Çakıroğlu et al., 2019;Koutsoupidou, 2015).When a teacher has an active social presence, such as posting regularly to the discussion forums, timely responding to emails and assignments, and demonstrating frequent online communication and interaction (Kassinger, 2004;Martin et al., 2018;Whiteside et al., 2017) studies have shown that this connection leads to student satisfaction in the learning process (Akyol et al., 2009;Arbaugh & Benbunan-Fich, 2007;Richardson & Swan, 2019).Furthermore, timely responses to questions, feedback on assignments, and video introductions are essential to students (Martin et al., 2018;Whiteside et al., 2017).It has been established that students value caring and responsive teachers and develop good communication between themselves and the students (Hodges & Cowan, 2012;Sheridan & Kelly, 2010;Whiteside, 2015;Wise et al., 2004).Students feel engaged and connected with the teacher when attending an online discussion class via MS Teams or a recorded video (Conklin & Garrett Dikkers, 2021).
In the case of blended teaching at open distance learning universities, the reduced physical contact with the teacher and peer students that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic may have generated negative emotions such as boredom and anxiety during online learning activities (Brooks et al., 2020;Elmer et al., 2020;Ma & Miller, 2020).An enhanced teaching presence has been found to positively influence online student learning (Kozan & Richardson, 2014) while social presence can improve students' online participation frequency (Rourke et al., 1999) and reduce their sense of loneliness and increase their sense of belonging (Whiteside et al., 2017).A teacher needs to be positive, should frequently communicate and encourage students to enhance their online learning experience.

The goal of the study
The researchers sought to explore the online learning challenges students in an OdeL environment in South Africa experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as guided by the CoI framework.The study aims to determine the challenges postgraduate students experienced with online learning during the pandemic within the context of the CoI framework.The following research questions were addressed: • What were the online learning challenges that postgraduate students experienced with respect to teaching during the pandemic?
• What were the online learning challenges postgraduate students experienced in terms of cognition?
• What online learning challenges did postgraduate students experience regarding social interaction during the COVID-19 epidemic?

Research design
This study reports on the second phase (qualitative) that emanated from a major project (Mutezo & Maré, 2022, 2023) that the authors embarked on, and which investigated the online learning support strategies for honours students using the CoI presences.Phase 1 used the CoI survey to gather data on students' perceptions of the teaching, cognitive and social presence at Unisa (Mutezo & Maré, 2022).The second phase used a qualitative approach based on the interpretive research philosophy (Mason, 2017).This approach offers detailed, in-depth descriptions of participants' opinions, ideas, and experiences while accounting for the influence of contextual factors (Rahman, 2017).Interpretivism focuses on participants' subjective experiences of how they construct the social world by sharing meaning (Rwodzi et al., 2020).

Participants and setting
A non-probability purposive sampling method (Maree, 2016) was used for this study.The participants were enrolled in various online honours-level courses during 2020.The participants were students studying asynchronously and synchronously in an ODeL environment through the myUnisa learning management system (LMS).These students had to rapidly transition from a blended learning mode to a fully-online remote learning setting due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (Unisa, 2020).Thirty participants' responses were drawn, namely, fifteen from the College of Economic and Management Sciences (CEMS) and fifteen from the College of Science and Engineering Technology (CSET) at Unisa.The saturation level determined the sample size the researchers detected when evaluating the required information (Dworkin, 2012;Sandelowski, 1995).

Data collection
In this study, the deductive model of qualitative content analysis was used as the research method because the researchers used the existing CoI presences to identify and encode the challenges to extract the intended categories (Bengtsson, 2016;Mayring, 2014).The data collection process utilised responses to an open-ended question given to honours students from CEMS and CSET.The researchers critically looked at the responses regarding the challenges in terms of the CoI framework to achieve this study's research goal.The open-ended question was guided by structured online survey questions (phase one).For example, "Are lectures providing feedback that helps you to understand your strength and weaknesses relative (related) to the objectives and outcomes of the modules?"/Can you apply the knowledge created in this course to your work or other non-class related activities?"/Do you feel comfortable interacting with other student participants?"/Doonline discussions help you develop a sense of collaboration?".

Ethics consideration and procedures
The CEMS Research Ethics Committee and the Permissions Research Ethics Committee at the University of South Africa approved the study (2019_CRERC_006 and 2019_RPSC_010).The participants consented to participate following an explanation of the study's goals and its voluntary and confidential nature.

Data analysis
The software program, ATLAS.ti 9 supported the researchers in exploring the patterns of challenges by creating a "visual playground" with the codes, as stated by (Rambaree, 2013), and categories of concepts to draw a logico-empirical pattern that emerged from the data collected from the students' responses.Moreover, ATLAS.ti 9 facilitated the study by allowing the researchers to present the findings vividly, visually, and transparently (as shown in Figures 2, 3 and 4).The researchers used conventional content analysis because the coding categories were derived directly from the text data (Powers & Knapp, 2006;Vaismoradi et al., 2013) to achieve the rigour and credibility that ensured the results were as trustworthy as possible (Bengtsson, 2016;Elo et al., 2014).The researchers analysed all the responses from the participants who answered the survey and chose responses that described the challenges the postgraduate students were experiencing with online learning related to the Col.
Content analysis was used to analytically examine narratives from the students by breaking the text into relatively small units of content and submitting them to descriptive treatment (Mayring, 2014).The researchers initially used open coding as there were no pre-set codes, but they developed and modified the codes whilst working through the coding process.Preliminary ideas were developed and grouped using social, cognitive, and teaching presences.The researchers worked through each transcript, coding every segment of the text that specifically addressed the research question to identify the different coding categories as discussed below.

Findings and discussion
The study aimed to explore the online learning challenges students in an ODeL environment in South Africa experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as guided by the CoI framework.The content analysis findings are presented as categories linked to the three themes constituting the CoI framework, namely, teaching, cognitive, and social presences.The first category to be discussed is teaching presence.According to the literature, the involvement of the teacher's presence online facilitates and guides students' learning (Waghid et al., 2021).For this study, the codes associated with the theme of teaching presence emanating from student responses were feedback, communication, online discussion, and interaction, which are all aspects of teaching presence, as shown in Figure 2 below.

Category 1: Teaching presence
In this study, lack of feedback was a challenge mentioned by 10 of the 30 students, six from CEMS and four from CSET, in responding to the question on online experiences.Feedback is restricted when no online conversations are used; for example, some lecturers were not available to answer inquiries on time, and feedback was not offered meaningfully (Figure 2).Some of the direct quotes given by the participants were as follows: Other lecturers are not present to respond to queries on time, and feedback is not given in a meaningful manner.
. . . it is very sad to observe that a lecturer would take months before providing feedback on the assignment or would just respond to your question when it is convenient to do so.
The lectures do not give timely and constructive feedback.Feedback is provided after a very long time, two to three months after the assessment, which does not help a student build on it.
These observations from the students indicate that they did not get timely online feedback from their teachers during the pandemic.This can be due to the quick transition to totally online remote instruction, for which the institution and the teachers lacked the necessary readiness.The above findings are supported by literature which indicates that lecturers' timely responses to questions,

Sub-categories Generic Categories Main Category
Figure 2. Teaching presence.
feedback on assignments, and video introductions are essential to students learning online (Martin et al., 2018;Whiteside et al., 2017).A study by (Conklin & Garrett Dikkers, 2021) concurred that students value timely feedback that is given within 12 to 24 hours.
Another challenge identified by the students was the lack of good online communication; a direct quote given was: Lack of communication and no response to questions posed on the online platform is frustrating for students who want to learn or just want some guidance.
This study found that teachers need to send regular communication and announcements online (Eskey & Schulte, 2012;Ko & Rossen, 2017).This conclusion is supported by (Martin et al., 2018) study, which found that frequent communication and announcements improve student attention, and motivate them to manage their time throughout the semester by encouraging, reminding, and updating them on the course.The students also mentioned the lack of utilising online discussions as a challenge and that it can be beneficial to use online discussion forums.Here are the direct quotes from the students: . . .why don't we have an online discussion via MS Teams instead of only sending questions that students need to answer.
Lecturers did not participate in the online discussion forums at all during 2020.All student questions posed there were unanswered.
Online live discussions can be more effective compared to only posting written views.More use of tools like MS Teams to have discussions around concepts will be more efficient as one can be proactive in addressing any challenges.Emails and forums can be kept for later questions, but bi-weekly MS Teams sessions will be ideal for me.
The students identified the lack of utilising online discussions as a challenge.These findings are supported by (Conklin & Garrett Dikkers, 2021).The authors stated that students feel involved and connected with the teacher when attending an online discussion class via MS Teams or a recorded video.According to a number of researchers, all students value and anticipate having attentive and caring teachers who have established a channel of communication with them during the learning process (Hodges & Cowan, 2012;Sheridan & Kelly, 2010;Whiteside, 2015;Wise et al., 2004).Lack of interaction by teachers was referred to as the lack of connection between students and teachers as a challenge (see Figure 2).Some of the evidence supporting this challenge were: I feel that there is not enough interaction between student and lecture; Risk is a very difficult course, and more interaction with the lectures is needed, for example, pre-recorded lectures, et cetera, or have more video interaction.Nothing beats being able to see and hear one another.I think there have been more low-cost online platforms which pose an opportunity for more interaction with Distance Learning Lecturers.WhatsApp and Zoom, for instance, have been very popular in students interacting with one another.Some subject modules really do require more interaction between the lecturer and students, not simply giving out the prescribed book, assignments, and marked assignments.Some additional material, examples, and explanations could really have helped me.
The lack of teacher interaction was very high in the student's responses.Active teacher presence and interaction contribute to students' online learning experiences (Caskurlu et al., 2021), as teachers should be active online, available, and accessible when students need input or have questions for the teacher (Alanazi, 2017;Lewis, 2019;Steele et al., 2017;Stermer, 2018).Teachers need to create a positive climate to support interaction by using video feedback and recordings, and to ensure that students do not feel isolated during online learning (Caskurlu et al., 2021).There were also positive sentiments that were raised by some of the students on online learning.Based on teaching presence, some students thought that the curriculum was well thought through and the way that Teams, Turnitin, and MS Word functionality was included in some of the modules added value to their online teaching and learning experience.In some modules, very helpful lecturers and online tutors responded to questions on time and explained concepts to students via Microsoft Teams.These students proposed that such modules be used as a benchmark for others.Some students strongly felt that online learning would replace half, if not all, of the traditional learning pedagogy in tertiary studies in the very near future.They were comfortable with it because of how lecturers presented the modules in this space.
The following section discusses the cognitive presence challenges experienced by students.The codes associated with the theme of cognitive presence included complex modules, challenging questions, and feedback, as shown in Figure 3.

Category 2: Cognitive presence
In terms of the current study, the term "challenging modules" alludes to the possibility that a difficult course may necessitate the greater engagement of teachers with students in terms of the module content to create meaning and reflection (Means & Neisler, 2021) (see Figure 3).Three students shared their sentiments as follows: When a student asks a question to a lecturer, the answer provided to the student should elaborate more in order to make him or her understand the topic; this increases interest in the topic and the module itself.
Questions asked are not easy to understand; the lecturers complicate the questions, and no one is there to clarify them.
Lecturers were not useful when questions related to modules were asked; either you do not get a response, or the response you get will not explain the concept you have asked.Some of the modules don't provide exact information about the course content, and sometimes the prescribed textbook doesn't cover the entire course content.The findings echoed by the literature stated that a teacher's feedback should be constructive and detailed, as it assists students in constructing knowledge, meaning, and improving their skills by stating how the students are doing, what they did wrong, and what needs to be done further, especially in difficult modules (Bokhari, 2016;Finley, 2016;Kgatla, 2016;Mills et al., 2016).Feedback is essential when a teacher gives further detail and elaborates on a topic to help students grasp or understand it.Two students commented on the lack of detailed feedback:

Cognitive Presence (CP)
. . .feedback is not given in a meaningful manner.
. . .then lecturer won't be able to give an explanation on his own feedback comment, we sometimes don't know where to go, since it is not a contact learning, we are left in confusion, not knowing what is right to do and what is not.
Some students also felt positive that online learning assisted them in creating more analytical thinking because the course material was challenging and relevant to the work industry.Regular interactive sessions between students and lecturers were offered to improve students' understanding of the topics and thus improve their academic performance.The curriculum was wellthought through, and the structure of the modules was straightforward, leading to students developing critical thinking skills, enabling them to critically analyse and discuss concepts and apply theory to life situations.The findings show that detailed feedback is essential to students because it supports their online learning experience and satisfaction with the module content (Berry, 2017;Jones, 2018;Steele et al., 2017;Williams-Shakespeare, 2018).Students expect to receive detailed feedback on assignments that explain how they are doing in understanding the content.
The last section focuses on the challenges students face regarding social presence.The codes associated with the theme of social presence encompass all the various aspects of online support, virtual interaction, and participation, as shown in Figure 4 below.

Category 3: Social presence
The student responses regarding online support showed the lack of teacher/student relationships, and it was evident that there was a lack of online teacher social presence.In terms of the support aspect, the participants had this to say:

Social Presence (SP)
Online Support More support by lecturers on the online platforms needs to be addressed urgently.
. . .not all lecturers support the students; some lecturer's presence is not felt.
Most lecturers need to have more understanding of the issues students go through, not to put all students in one basket.
When teachers show care, support, and commitment to their students, they will likely establish a good relationship with them online because a friendly and attentive communication environment can promote social presence (Jia et al., 2021).With regard to virtual interaction, the student participants mentioned the need for more video recordings and MS Teams or ZOOM meetings so that students who might have missed a discussion can listen to the recording later.Two of the participants had this to say: Learning online is great, but you miss that personal element; a suggestion I would make is that the lecturers maybe pre-record lectures etc. or have more video interaction.Nothing beats being able to see and hear one another.Just a suggestion.
Regular interactive sessions between students and lecturers could also improve students understanding of the topics and thus improve their academic performance.
Based on the findings above, the appropriate use of video recordings and apps can positively impact the students' learning experiences (Jia et al., 2021).In a remote learning environment where physical contact is impossible, the biggest challenge for online learning lies in creating and sustaining meaningful interaction (Jia et al., 2021).A further social presence challenge identified by the study is better participation by teachers on online platforms and social interaction among the students (see Figure 4).Nine students, three from CEMS and six from CSET supported teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions.These are some of the sentiments they shared that are linked to social presence: With the current situation we are facing, mitigation was of paramount importance regarding lecturer-student allocation as this has affected smooth online interaction between the two.
Student interaction is generally limited, and when there are a few that are available, it works.I found at this level, you are generally studying alone.
The relationship between lecturers and students is vital for one to have confidence in themselves and share their knowledge with other students.
Some students felt that interacting with fellow students online was helpful as it gave them a platform to challenge each other, build their confidence, and air their views.Student groups gave some students hope and a sense of belonging.Some of the social discussions they had, made them feel better, knowing that whatever problems they faced might also affect others, and sometimes they would find solutions as a collective.In cases where queries were written on the discussion forum, some lecturers would respond in a reasonable turnaround time.Online discussion forums were a great way for some to create a sense of independence and teamwork in studying and writing exams.The findings of this study are supported by literature which indicates that teachers should have an active social presence, such as posting regularly to the online discussion forum, timely responding to emails and assignments, and demonstrating frequent online communication and interactions (Kassinger, 2004;Martin et al., 2018;Whiteside et al., 2017).

Conclusions and implications
This qualitative study explored the challenges students experienced with online collaborative learning at the honours level during the pandemic.The CoI framework guided the research.The key challenges identified by participants were the lack of teacher feedback, communication, online discussion, and interaction linked to the teaching presence.The cognitive difficulties include complex modules, challenging questions, and a lack of detailed feedback.The social presence challenges indicated a lack of support, virtual interaction, and online participation by teachers-tostudents and student-to-peer-students.Considering the difficulties identified by students when studying remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study emphasises the need for teachers to focus more on student satisfaction, motivation, and success by connecting and building an online collaborative learning community through an effective online presence.
It is recommended that teachers pre-record lectures or have more recorded videos that include asynchronous interactions for better engagement and to promote active learning.Online learning platforms should foster engaged presence and participation among teachers, students, and peer students, such as presentations, live online discussions, video and audio recordings, and written communication using discussion forums and chats (Aristeidou & Cross, 2021).This study has implications for teachers, curriculum designers, and educational institutions to consider and apply the CoI framework efficiently when transitioning to teaching fully online (Conklin & Garrett Dikkers, 2021).The study recommends the importance of teachers incorporating various facilitation strategies using the CoI framework to create an effective online learning environment to assist students in studying remotely.To reduce students' online learning anxiety, it is recommended that teachers respond promptly to emails and provide early and iterative assignment feedback (Abdous, 2019;Whiteside et al., 2017).
Furthermore, the study was not without limitations as it only considered one ODeL institution and two colleges out of seven; therefore, the findings cannot be generalised to the whole institution and the broader online learning community.The study only considered students' perspectives; therefore, it is recommended that future research based on teachers' perspectives related to the challenges faced by online learning during the pandemic be conducted.Further research on the online learning challenges experienced by students during the COVID-19 pandemic needs to be undertaken post-2020 as the takeup of online learning increases.The findings of this study may be useful to higher education teachers, faculty members, and policymakers in developing and managing an effective learning environment using appropriate online theories/pedagogies and practices to fulfil the identified needs of students.More than ever, educational institutions must now constantly train teachers to conduct interactive online learning engagements (Acheampong, 2023;Yeboah, 2022) using the CoI framework principles.This may establish a sense of belonging and presence that will improve a student's adaptability, accessibility, engagement, information sharing, and interaction during online collaborative learning (Mushtaque et al., 2022).The emergence of fully online teaching has allowed open-distance institutions to provide undisrupted learning forced by the COVID-19 pandemic.Overall, the findings of the study highlight the teacher's critical role in delivering effective online teaching for students at an ODeL institution informed by the CoI framework.