Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education: Addressing the Digital Divide in the COVID Pandemic 9819950759, 9789819950751

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Bhakti More Seena Biju Vinod Pallath   Editors

Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education Addressing the Digital Divide in the COVID Pandemic

Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education

Bhakti More · Seena Biju · Vinod Pallath Editors

Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education Addressing the Digital Divide in the COVID Pandemic

Editors Bhakti More Manipal Academy of Higher Education Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Seena Biju Christ University Bengaluru, India

Vinod Pallath Universiti Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ISBN 978-981-99-5075-1 ISBN 978-981-99-5076-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Dedication to our beloved friend Seena With heartfelt gratitude and prayers, we dedicate this book to our beloved friend Seena, who was with us when we started this journey together with the aim of publishing a book. Seena encouraged this venture with a lot of enthusiasm and vibrant energy, but destiny deferred to allow us to reach the destination together! We believe that her soul is with us until we complete this work with utmost satisfaction. This dedication is a humble tribute to bid farewell to her beautiful soul and celebrate the success of her invaluable contributions together as before! Seena was ever ready for any scientific and scholarly initiative we took up together. She was an expert in the field of Education, Research, Statistics, and Administration. Seena was very bold and outspoken, at the same time affectionate and kind-hearted. We were fortunate to have her on the editorial team. We cherish the happy and ever-green memories of our meetings and working together. We, the remaining friends together,

pledge to continue her passion for the profession and together we bow down to the universe to grant her soul eternal peace and rest! The Editorial Team

Foreword

Launching a multifaceted book that encompasses the academic challenges and opportunities spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic is a daunting endeavour. Nevertheless, the accomplished authors of this compendium have harnessed their talents to engender a remarkable collection of chapters which are both meaningful and thought-provoking. The sheer range of topics covered is matched by the depth of the insights provided. The spirit of the title Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education— Addressing the Digital Divide in the COVID Pandemic permeates every chapter in the book as pragmatic issues are underscored creating an acute awareness while exploring possible avenues to regress the shortcomings. It is the finesse of the authors that has made this book both informative and riveting. Commendation to all the contributors who have conceived the idea of such a book and translated that vision into something tangible and worthwhile for a wider readership. Dr. K. Ramnarayan Pro-Chancellor Sikkim Manipal University Tadong, Gangtok, East Sikkim, India

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Preface

The eruption of COVID-19 fetched a myriad of changes in every walk of human life and also most remarkably in the field of education. From a standstill period of no educational activity on campuses worldwide, the dire need for momentum emerged, resulting in Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). Academics and students were left with no choice but forced to operate through the systems and technology for the progress of achieving educational objectives to move forward. Many aspects of skill achievement such as acquiring hands-on experience were challenging during ERT, and so was the transition to technology usage for the faculty and students alike. The knowledge transmission could progress to a great extent, although there were many pitfalls identified in the examination and evaluation process and also in reaching out to all the sectors of students. This book was envisioned by us, a group of enthusiastic academics from different fields of higher education who share a common goal to bring about positive changes by addressing various aspects of the digital divide and challenges. We virtually met regularly and decided on the title and subtitles and contacted possible authors after finalising the contract with Springer. In fact, we were fortunate to have the constant motivation from Prof. Kwan Hoong Ng, which enabled us to materialise this vision. We believe that the deliberations in the chapters by expert academics of diverse backgrounds will enhance the readers to obtain a wider perspective on the challenges and opportunities to navigate such situations. We are sure that the book is going to enrich the readers with clarity on the future of education, and bring worthwhile curriculum reforms. The book unfolds in 13 chapters authored by renowned academics from geographically and professionally varied backgrounds. Chapter 1 elaborates on the challenges, barriers and strategies put in place to overcome those challenges in nursing education in the USA. Interestingly, the authors also have addressed some of the benefits students with disabilities experienced during the trial period of ERT. Chapter 2 is on a study that explored the perceptions of service quality and satisfaction of graduate and post-graduate students who underwent ERT in India. Chapter 3 is reflections from the Western Sydney University School of Medicine on how to manage the digital divide in a fully integrated, community-engaged medical ix

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curriculum within a hyper-diverse context. The author of Chap. 4 discusses the challenges among visually impaired students in higher education towards online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. The motivational divide during the pandemic is addressed in Chap. 5, such as students’ feelings of isolation caused by the virtual wall, time constraints of domestic responsibilities, and communication barriers related to online delivery. Chapter 6 throws light on the issues of the digital divide caused by online learning in higher vocational education in China and proposes a strategy to narrow down the digital divide. Chapter 7 is a review by authors from Indonesia on theoretical concepts and factors that should be considered in online learning in medical and health profession education contexts. Opportunities and challenges of postgraduate entrance examination preparation within an inclusive education context in China is the theme of Chap. 8. Chapter 9 explores the inclusivity of assessment ePortfolio for multimodal literacy during the pandemic through a case study in Malaysian higher education. The focus of Chap. 10 is the challenges faced by B40 students during the pandemic, which include financial difficulties, Internet connectivity for attending online classes, software, and hardware accessibility. The scope of the book is extended beyond the walls of universities in Chap. 11 by revealing the blind spots in refugee education such as language barriers, lack of qualified workforce, and cultural differences. Chapter 12 is an essay written by two of the editors on the need for Universal Design for Learning for specially-abled students, and the final Chap. 13 is crafted by the editorial team on our concluding remarks on the future of inclusive education. We wish the readers gain the fullest benefit out of this book! Dubai, United Arab Emirates Bengaluru, India Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Bhakti More Seena Biju Vinod Pallath

Acknowledgements

The Journey of publishing the Book has been a memorable one, and the inspiration behind the Book is Prof. Kwan Hoong Ng, Ph.D., FInstP, DABMP, Professor Emeritus, Department of Biomedical Imaging, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Professor Kwan Hoong Ng has encouraged the editorial team to rethink improving inclusivity in Higher Education with the impact of COVID-19. This book was possible with his continuous guidance and support. The Editorial team acknowledges the authors of the Book Chapters who were extremely supportive and patient. We thank them for contributing their immense knowledge to address Inclusivity in Higher Education across various geographies, contexts, and recommendations for the future of Higher Education. The editorial team expresses our immense gratitude to Prof. Dr. K. Ramnarayan, Pro-Chancellor, Sikkim Manipal University, India, for providing his precious words of encouragement as a foreword for this book. The editorial team thanks all the reviewers, especially Dr. Sreejith Govindan, Associate Professor and Deputy Registrar-Evaluation (Health Sciences), Manipal Academy of Higher Education for his advice and valuable suggestions. The Springer Publishing team deserves a note of appreciation for the support that was extended at every stage of the publishing process. In addition, we would like to thank Dr. Yazid Zaiki from Non-Destructive Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research Centre (NDBPRC), Smart Manufacturing Research Institute (SMRI), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia, for his helpful and painstaking proofreading and language editing. Above all, the editorial team expresses their deepest sense of gratitude to the readers for choosing to read and assimilate knowledge from this edited book, the work of a team motivated by the Late Dr. Seena Biju to whom we dedicate the Book. We thank Rhea Biju, daughter of Dr. Seena for all her support for the publication. February 2023

The Editorial Team

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Editorial Advisors

Prof. Dr. Kwan Hoong Ng, Ph.D., FInstP, SABMP was the recipient of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Award in 2018 given by the International Organization of Medical Physics for his excellent contribution to research, education, and leadership. He has been teaching and researching for over 35 years in medical physics with a special interest in nurturing early career scientists instilling in them the virtues to live by. He has initiated a number of impactful interdisciplinary research globally, including risk communication, science, and technology in society. Professor Ng has published extensively in international journals, proceedings, and books. He is one of the world’s top 2% scientists in 2022 as released by Stanford University. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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Editorial Advisors

Current Affiliation: Emeritus Professor Department of Biomedical Imaging Universiti Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences UCSI University Port Dickson Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

Dr. Blessy Prabha Valsaraj, Ph.D., MSN, MSCP, RM, RN has completed PhD in Mental Health Nursing from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, following her Masters in Mental Health Nursing and Master’s in Counseling and Psychotherapy. She has academic experience over two decades from leading Universities in India and Oman and administrative experience of 4 years as Head of the Department of Community and Mental Health in College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University. She has published research articles, and books related to education, mental health, and research. She has received many awards including the Best teacher award, Most accomplished faculty award, Best paper presenter and Best poster presenter. Her current research focuses on mental health, competency building in nursing education, happiness, and workplace wellness. Current Affiliation: Associate Professor Department of Community and Mental Health College of Nursing Sultan Qaboos University Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Editorial Advisors

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Assoc. Prof. Valsaraj Payini, BHM, MHRM, Adv. Certificate in Food Safety has industry experience in the Tourism, Aviation, and Hotel Industry in Bahrain and Dubai for three years. He has more than 25 years of hospitality teaching experience. He has developed various products from indigenous food ingredients and applied for patents. He conducted several community outreach programmes, extension activities, women empowerment programs, capacity building workshops, and cultural and food festivals. His research areas are Sustainable Coastal Tourism, Food and Beverage Products Development, Service Quality, and Wines. He can be contacted at valsaraj. [email protected]. Current Affiliation: Associate Professor Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration Manipal Academy of Higher Education Manipal, India

Contents

1

Supporting Students with Disabilities During COVID-19 . . . . . . . . . . Michelle Hartman, Beth Cusatis Phillips, and Kimberly Coston

2

COVID-19 and Forced Online Education: Students’ Perceptions of Service Quality and Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amol S. Dhaigude and Jyoti Subhash Dhayagude

3

4

5

6

7

Managing Digital Divide in a Fully Integrated, Community-Engaged Medical Curriculum Within a Hyper-Diverse Context: Reflections from Western Sydney University School of Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brahmaputra Marjadi, Sowbhagya Micheal, Glenn Mason, and Victoria Mansour Challenges Among Visually Impaired Students in Higher Education Towards Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sharon Wilson, Rajini Kumar Sreedharam, and Bavani Ramayah The Motivational Divide: Addressing the Diverse Student Body in Challenging Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jessica Grace Cockburn, Wei-Han Hong, Yang Faridah Binti Abdul Aziz, Jamunarani S. Vadivelu, and Chan Choong Foong From Physical to Online Learning: The Digital Divide in Higher Vocational Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yun Fah Chang and Zhongyan Hu

1

13

33

51

69

89

“Am I Ready for This Change?”: Challenges in Optimizing the Use of Online Learning in Medical and Health Professions Education During the Pandemic and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Ardi Findyartini, Diantha Soemantri, Nadia Greviana, and AASA Santhi Sueningrum xvii

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Contents

8

Opportunities and Challenges of Postgraduate Entrance Examination Preparation Within an Inclusive Education Context in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 An Bao Guo and Chua Kah Heng

9

Exploring the Inclusivity of Assessment ePortfolio for Multimodal Literacy During the Pandemic: A Case Study in Malaysian Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Sue Ann Ching Yee Tan, Lee Sze Seau Jill, Shirley Tan, and Raheleh AkhaviZadegan

10 Enhancing Inclusivity in Online Learning Resources for B40 University Students—A Malaysian Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Beh Chun Chee, Cynthia Pui-Shan Lau, and Nurul Ezzati Aisya Mohd Zaki 11 Leaving No One Behind: Educating Refugees During the Pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Daria Morozova, Norani Abu Bakar, and Kwan Hoong Ng 12 The Need for Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education for the Specially-Abled—An Essay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Seena Biju and Vinod Pallath 13 Future Inclusive Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Seena Biju, Vinod Pallath, Bhakti More, Blessy Prabha Valsaraj, and Kwan Hoong Ng Correction to: The Motivational Divide: Addressing the Diverse Student Body in Challenging Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jessica Grace Cockburn, Wei-Han Hong, Yang Faridah Binti Abdul Aziz, Jamunarani S. Vadivelu, and Chan Choong Foong

C1

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bhakti More, Ph.D. has pursued her doctoral studies at the School of Built Environment, University of Salford, Manchester, UK, and has over two decades of experience in teaching. Her area of research is social and environmental sustainability, and she has received an award for the most innovative research at 12th Post Graduate Research Conference from University of Salford, Manchester, UK. She is a coordinator for Manipal Environment and Conservation Students Club and has received consecutive awards for Best Sustainable Green Campus Audit and Best Sustainability Action Project from Environment Agency Abu Dhabi and is part of the core team for preparing the Climate Action Plan for MAHE Dubai for UNFCC, Race to Zero. She was awarded ‘Best Coordinator’ by Environment Agency Abu Dhabi in 2022 for commitment since 2015. Dr. Bhakti is an ambassador for ‘Woman in Construction’ for the Big 5, Dubai, and a mentor for LINK Program, UAE. She can be contacted at [email protected]. Current Affiliation: Chairperson and Associate Professor School of Design and Architecture Manipal Academy of Higher Education Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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Prof. Dr. Seena Biju had an illustrious career as an academic associated with various leading universities. She had served as a faculty member with Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai Campus, T. A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), Manipal, India, Manipal International University (MIU), Malaysia, and Sikkim Manipal University, India. She held various administrative posts including Deanship of the School of Management, MIU, Malaysia, and Associate Director of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sikkim Manipal University. With a career spanning 25 years, she had touched the lives of her students and colleagues as an astute academician and administrator. She was Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certified and has postgraduate degrees in applied statistics and Business administration. She was an alumnus of the Indian Statistical Institute and her key areas of research were statistical modelling, six sigma theory, and Academic Quality Measurement and Assurance. Seena Biju left us for rest in eternal peace on the morning of 10 August 2022 and at that time was associated with Christ University Bengaluru as a Professor at the School of Management. Her Google Scholar profile can be found at https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user= 5-i3KNsAAAAJ&hl=en. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vinod Pallath, Ph.D. has been an active academic for more than two decades in health professionals’ education, with extensive involvement in teaching undergraduate medical students, masters and doctoral students in health professionals’ education, research, and faculty development for health professionals. His teaching and research in Medical Education focuses on Faculty Development, Professionalism, and Competency Based Medical Education and Leadership and Management. As a trained Medical Microbiologist, he also teaches Medical Microbiology and Immunology. He currently focuses his microbiology research on survival strategies of uropathogens. He is a Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) regional fellow, Co-Faculty member for FAIMER Competency-based Medical Education (FACE) professional development

Editors and Contributors

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programme, and Project Advisor to fellows of International FAIMER institute, Philadelphia. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Current Affiliation: Associate Professor Medical Education Research and Development Unit (MERDU) Faculty of Medicine Universiti Malaya (UM) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Contributors Raheleh AkhaviZadegan University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran An Bao Guo School of Marxism, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, China Yang Faridah Binti Abdul Aziz Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Malaya, Malaysia Norani Abu Bakar Southeast Asian Studies, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Regional Centre of Expertise Greater Kuala Lumpur, Education for Sustainable Development, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; The Blue Ribbon Global, Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Seena Biju School of Business and Management, Christ University, Bangalore, India Yun Fah Chang School of Accounting and Finance, Taylor’s University, Selangor, Malaysia Beh Chun Chee Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kajang, Malaysia Chan Choong Foong Medical Education and Research Development Unit (MERDU), Universiti Malaya, Malaya, Malaysia Jessica Grace Cockburn University Health Network, Toronto, Canada Kimberly Coston Duke University Health System, Durham, USA Amol S. Dhaigude S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, India Jyoti Subhash Dhayagude Department of Public Administration, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India

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Editors and Contributors

Ardi Findyartini Department of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia; Faculty of Medicine, Medical Education Center, Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Nadia Greviana Department of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia; Faculty of Medicine, Medical Education Center, Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Michelle Hartman Duke University School of Nursing, Durham, USA Chua Kah Heng Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Faculty of Education, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Wei-Han Hong Medical Education and Research Development Unit (MERDU), Universiti Malaya, Malaya, Malaysia Zhongyan Hu Yan’an University, Shaanxi, China Lee Sze Seau Jill UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Cynthia Pui-Shan Lau Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kajang, Malaysia Victoria Mansour Medical Education Unit, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia Brahmaputra Marjadi Community Engaged Learning, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia Glenn Mason Learning Futures, Western Sydney University, Kingswood, NSW, Australia Sowbhagya Micheal Community Engaged Learning, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia Nurul Ezzati Aisya Mohd Zaki Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Bhakti More School of Design & Architecture, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Daria Morozova Centre for Languages, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Kwan Hoong Ng Department of Biomedical Imaging, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UCSI University, Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia Vinod Pallath Medical Education Research and Development Unit (MERDU), Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Editors and Contributors

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Beth Cusatis Phillips Duke University School of Nursing, Durham, USA Bavani Ramayah Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih, Malaysia Diantha Soemantri Department of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia; Faculty of Medicine, Medical Education Center, Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Rajini Kumar Sreedharam Faculty of Creative Industries, Department of Mass Communication, Universiti Tunku Abdul, Rahman, Malaysia AASA Santhi Sueningrum Faculty of Medicine, Medical Education Center, Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Shirley Tan Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan; Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The Netherlands Sue Ann Ching Yee Tan UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Jamunarani S. Vadivelu Medical Education and Research Development Unit (MERDU), Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Universiti Malaya, Malaya, Malaysia Blessy Prabha Valsaraj Department of Community and Mental Health, College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman Sharon Wilson Faculty of Creative Industries, Department of Mass Communication, Universiti Tunku Abdul, Rahman, Malaysia

Abbreviations

ADA ADD ADHD ALC APEL AR AVE B40 BPR CAIP CAST CERTE CI COVID-19 CP DSU ECT EFA ERT GDP GWS HE HEI ICT IEP IOM IS IT LRC MCMC MCO

American Disabilities Act Attention deficit disorder Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Alternative Learning Centres Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning Augmented reality Average Bottom 40% Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat Climate Action Incubator Programme Center for Applied Special Technology Connecting and Equipping Refugees for Tertiary Education Continued intentions Coronavirus disease 2019 Cerebral Palsy Disability Services Units Expectation-Confirmation Theory Exploratory factor analysis Emergency remote teaching Gross domestic product Greater Western Sydney Higher education Higher education institution Information and Communication Technology Inclusive Education Programme International Organization of Migration Information systems Information technology Learning in Regular Classes Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission Movement control order xxv

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MML MMLA MOE MOHE MOOC NFCP NGO NTIA OAU ODL OSLQ OTL PBL PEE PG POC PRSIS PTPTN PV PWD PWDA RDS SA SDG SEIP SEM SQ SRL SS STEM SWB TAM TBR UDL UG UiTM UN UNESCO UNHCR UNIMAS

Abbreviations

Multimodal literacy Multimodal Content Analysis Ministry of Education Ministry of Higher Education Massive Open Online Course National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan Non-government organisation National Telecommunication and Information Administration Organisation of African Unity Online distance learning Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire Online teaching and learning Problem-Based Learning Postgraduate Entrance Examination Postgraduate People of Concern PerantiSiswa Keluarga Malaysia Student Loan Fund Corporation Perceived value Person with disability Persons with Disabilities Act Residential Determination Status Specially-abled Sustainable Development Goals Special Education Integration Programme Structural equation modelling Service quality Self-regulated learning Student satisfaction Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Social Well-Being Technology Acceptance Model The Blue Ribbon Universal Design for Learning Undergraduate Universiti Teknologi MARA United Nations United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

Abbreviations

UNITAR VI WHO WSU YSS

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Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman Visually-impaired World Health Organization Western Sydney University Yayasan Sukarelawan Siswa

Chapter 1

Supporting Students with Disabilities During COVID-19 Michelle Hartman, Beth Cusatis Phillips, and Kimberly Coston

1 Introduction In March 2020, people’s lives changed forever around the world (Wamsley, 2021). News reports of COVID-19 spreading across the planet stopped people in their tracks and captured everyone’s attention, casting fear and anxiety. Unbeknownst to any of us, this virus caused more than illness. It changed life as we knew it overnight. Offices were shut. Schools were closed. People were afraid to touch anything outside of their homes. Grocery stores were the only place people could be found, and even there, it was different. People began using delivery services for everything: Food, essentials, medicines, etc. Everything else was shut down while people stayed at home waiting for instructions about this unknown future. After a short time, though, Schools of Nursing realized the dire need to continue teaching students as the need for nurses would not go away. Educators around the world knew that they needed to figure out a way to continue to teach students so that when this virus went away (surely within the next few weeks) students could pick up where they left off and complete their programs of study. They recognized the importance of continuing to teach nursing students to prevent a massive shortage of nurses in the years to come. At the same time, it was impossible to continue with class, lab, and clinical experiences in the usual formats. For most, clinical experiences were halted. Within two weeks, US educators were able to quickly flex their traditional methods of teaching to keep the learning going. Learning experiences in the lab and classroom settings were repurposed for the online platform. This abrupt change in the way school was conducted affected many educators and students. It was discovered that students with disabilities, both physical and emotional, reacted M. Hartman · B. C. Phillips (B) Duke University School of Nursing, Durham, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. Coston Duke University Health System, Durham, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_1

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M. Hartman et al.

differently to the crisis and either clearly thrived or miserably faltered. Some were able to participate fully, like other students in the class as they found the online environment to be helpful and more accessible. Others were overwhelmed by the increase in screen time, isolation, and monotonous environment. Educators were unable to fully support the students in the midst of this COVID-19 crisis, in part, because strategies for success were not already in place for these students. This chapter will explore ways students with special abilities need to be supported in higher education; through this COVID-19 crisis, and beyond. To understand how students with disabilities need to be supported and lived through the COVID-19 crisis of 2020, it is important to understand some of the terminology used regarding disabilities. In the United States, the American Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law that was established to prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities regardless of setting. This includes work, school, transportation, and all other places open to the general public. The law was written to protect people with disabilities and ensure they have the same rights and opportunities as others. The ADA protects individuals regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, age or religion (ADA, 2021). In Europe, the European Commission adopted a strategy in 2010, which was updated in 2021, to empower persons with disabilities so that they can enjoy the rights others have and can participate fully in society and in the economy (Union, 2021). Although progress has been made, persons with disabilities still suffer from barriers and are at risk for social isolation and poor socioeconomic status. Around the world, countries have been working on inclusion and education in order to ensure students are not excluded from learning opportunities due to their ability (UNESCO, 2020). The term disability (or specially abled) defines a person who has either physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (ADA-2, 2021). According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2021), over one billion people in the world live with some sort of disability. These numbers are increasing and creates a need for services and processes to help people with disabilities live and thrive in the world. The United Nations (UN, 2021) describes people with disabilities as the world’s largest minority and note that it is imperative that society fully include them, providing them with equal access to quality education. Accommodations refer to modifications or adjustments to a job, work setting, school setting, etc. in order to enable someone with a disability to have an equal opportunity to succeed (USDOL, 2021). Accommodations may include physical changes to a classroom or workspace; assistive technologies such as computer equipment; accessible communications such as large print texts; and policy enhancements such as allowing a service animal in the education setting (USDOL, 2021). All of the accommodations are meant to make the classroom setting a welcoming and available place for all students to learn together.

1 Supporting Students with Disabilities During COVID-19

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2 COVID-19 Arrived When COVID-19 hit and schools were forced to close, the focus was on creating a way to continue to teach online. In schools of nursing, clinical experiences were cancelled, in part, due to the inability of the schools or healthcare settings to provide personal protective equipment for the students. In addition, healthcare settings were struggling to figure out how to stay safe and care for clients with this new deadly virus; they could not allow students to be there during this critical time. Classroom and lab learning were quickly moved to the online environment. For students requiring special equipment or technologies, their learning was in jeopardy. Nurse educators were using all their energy converting lectures and lab sessions to online sessions and could not begin to take in ways to accommodate for students at that time. Classroom routines were disrupted in many ways. Organization of the day, time management, and keeping up with the details of the course created great challenges for some. As one student shared: I think I probably unknowingly relied a lot on professors saying announcements at the beginning of class and students mentioning important due dates/assignments when we were in person. These both seemed to occur much less frequently once we went online, and I realized it was really easy to forget a lot of those things. It took me several semesters to realize that one though. I remember struggling a lot with feeling unproductive when trying to study at home and I can sometimes get distracted easily. Even though there is technically no accountability even when we were in person, it still felt like there was, so it made it a lot easier. In the beginning, I really liked not having to have the cameras on during zoom, but on the other hand I wished it had been required. Initially, I think it was because things like I could get up whenever I wanted to take a break, or get food, or jump rope while listening to class, or get on other websites during class, etc. when I was at home. When the cameras did have to be on, it felt a lot more like I was actually in class and in that school mindset. It made it seem like I had to pay attention and couldn’t get up and do random things like when the camera is off. I know that I am supposed to pay attention so I should online too, but it was 100 times easier when school was in person because it’s not really a choice to get up and go do other things when the professor is teaching. (Anonymous student quote, 2021)

Nurse educators have no control over what the students are doing during an online course, specifically when cameras are off and communication is one way; from educator to students. In large class sizes, it can be difficult to create activities to engage students and keep them interested, while still providing content. The use of break out rooms and facilitators may help keep students focused and engaged, but also requires more staff and technology assistance. Distractions in the home also caused distress for some students. Besides not being able to focus, some had no quiet place to attend virtual classes. One student shared the following: Even if it’s just a super small noise it really bothers me, and ear plugs did not help enough (sometimes). For the most part, it was okay though until August because I lived alone. I had a new roommate move in then, and we both always studied at the kitchen table all day together because there was nowhere else to go. Small things like typing or eating would bother me so, so, so much even though I know it shouldn’t, but it made it much harder to focus sometimes and it would make me angry. The other part with noise was with testing accommodations.

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Some students had challenges with the rapid increase in screen time. Students with visual disabilities found that they could not stay focused on the screen for hours at a time and experienced anxiety, stress, and in some instances pain. The inability to intersperse screen views with active learning activities in the classroom prevented students from changing scenery to help with visual disturbances. One student with a visual disability suffered from significant and debilitating eye pain due to the increase in screen time and considered withdrawing from the program. One issue that was very difficult to address and help with was the ambiguity of everything, from the virus itself, to the plans for school, lost clinical time, etc. The isolation that everyone felt may have been appreciated at first when people thought it would last a few weeks. However, as the weeks turned into months, students’ fear and anxiety increased; fear of illness, fear of not learning everything they needed to learn, and fear that they would not be ready to graduate. Anxiety grew over the lack of control and inability to learn face to face, as these students chose to learn. Anxiety had the potential to exacerbate chronic mental and physical health concerns or introduce new ones. A student interviewed by Kourea et al. (2021) experienced “daily headaches, increased panic attacks, chills, unrestful night sleep, increased levels of stress…It all stems from my anxiety toward COVID-19” (pg 8). Another student described COVID-19 and its effects as “psychologic warfare” (Kourea et al., 2021). Nursing students learn best through experience. The psychomotor skills that are a part of every nursing program were suddenly halted. Learning to give medications, for example, is extremely important and potentially harmful to patients if mistakes are made. Teaching students how to give injections over the internet was definitely better than not teaching, but it lacked student practice, tactile abilities, and critique. Students have a great deal of anxiety with regards to psychomotor skills and can potentially hurt patients (Aldridge, 2017). Students with physical or learning disabilities who need extra time for skill acquisition were faced with incredible challenges. They could not sign up for extra lab time. They could not stay around after lab for additional time and questions. Schools were challenged to develop educational strategies that facilitate learning psychomotor skills from a distance but with limited resources. Educators lacked experience in applying accommodations to this new method of instruction that often included a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning. Students with disabilities who were interviewed by Kourea et al. (2021) expressed that requesting and receiving accommodations were more challenging in an online setting. Students also reflected that they needed different types of accommodations for virtual learning that they hadn’t anticipated. For example, one student would have found additional breaks to be helpful so would get up during an exam

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that they were otherwise expected to complete without getting up from their chair. Students in the study also stated that extra time to complete assignments during online learning would have also better supported their success due to challenges with time management (Kourea et al., 2021). Finally, senior students shared things they missed during COVID-19 that caused problems in their learning process. These involved systems and processes not formally taught but were clearly needed and valuable. We discovered that students often learn informal lessons from being around educators and other students. Learning to organize and prioritize are essential for nurses. Educators often revisit course objectives periodically throughout the semester as a way to solidify learning and connections. They also link back to previously learned content or skills. This iterative, interleaving not only solidifies learning but also provides students with valuable ways to grow and develop as a nurse. Nonetheless, students found that these useful examples were not implemented during online classes. In addition, educators often talk through the steps of their thinking during skills and patient experiences with students so that the students can understand their thought process. For example, when reviewing a case study, the educator may say, “I noticed that the patient’s heart rate was extremely high compared to the last set of vital signs. I wondered if the patient was in pain or was anxious. I know that both can cause tachycardia.” But much of this learning has been lost due to the pandemic. This may be because educators were spending all their energy to ensure content was covered or possibly because of the unconventional switch to the online environment. Either way, students had to make extra effort to learn things outside of the structured curriculum when everything changed and, as result, missed out on valuable opportunities to develop into nurses. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged both students and educators to modify learning and teaching strategies. Solutions to support the academic success of students with disabilities during this time included incorporating strategies embedded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and adopting a student-centered approach through building relationships.

3 Universal Design in Learning In 2007, The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) introduced Universal Design for Learning, an evidence-based approach to teaching and learning based on the concepts of universal design in architecture. According to Rose and Strangman (2007), the goal of UDL is to “design curricula that will succeed with the widest possible range of learners, with explicit considerations of students with disabilities” (p. 385). The three main principles of UDL are engagement (the “WHY” of learning), representation (the “WHAT” of learning), and action and expression (the ‘HOW” of learning) (CAST, 2018). Fundamental to UDL Guidelines is the acknowledgment that no single means of engagement, representation, or action and expression will be best for all learners, so

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providing a variety of options for each is key to reaching the diversity of learners present in any given learning space. The UDL Guidelines offer concrete suggestions within each of the three principles of UDL. Within each principle, “checkpoints” include detailed suggestions for implementation (CAST, 2018). We found several of the suggestions in each principle were critical to support the learning of students with and without disabilities during the pandemic. Suggestions that we felt were critical included creating an accepting and supportive classroom climate, fostering a sense of collaboration and community, minimizing threats and distractions, and varying the level of sensory stimulation and social demands. Creating a learning environment that facilitated student engagement was foundational to students’ success during the pandemic. Checkpoints included under the principle of engagement include creating an accepting and supportive classroom climate, fostering a sense of collaboration and community, minimizing threats and distractions, and varying the level of sensory stimulation and social demands. Creating an accepting and supportive classroom climate proved challenging given the magnitude of stressors students were experiencing outside of their virtual learning spaces. Many factors contributed to the stress the students felt including isolation, concern for their own health, balancing new responsibilities at home, and navigating a new learning modality. Students appreciated a moment of centering at the beginning of online class to acknowledge the complexities of what was occurring in our world with the pandemic and racial injustices and help them transition into the learning space. One educator created an anonymous Zoom poll to check in with the group each week and monitor the overall well-being of the cohort. Based on the general responses, they could follow up with the cohort representatives to determine what additional resources were needed to support their academic success and overall wellbeing. Workshops on time management and note taking were requested by students, as well as additional opportunities to support their mental health. Many students expressed difficulties participating in synchronous online classes due to competing priorities such as caring for family members or helping their own children with schoolwork. To accommodate, synchronous classes were recorded so that students could view them at an alternative time if the scheduled time was not optimal for their learning. Students with and without disabilities reported having classes recorded as being a strategy that supports their academic success so they can go back and review the material at a pace that is conducive to their learning. Because this was such a successful strategy, we have continued to record all of our classes since returning to in-person learning. However, this prevented students from being actively engaged during the live session to ask questions and contribute to the learning. Due to the physical isolation created by virtual classrooms, students craved opportunities to interact with each other and educators on a more personal level and in smaller groups outside of learning spaces. Multiple strategies were adopted to foster a sense of collaboration and community. The educators and staff in our academic program organized times when students could join them for online games, virtual chats over coffee, and walks outside. These social opportunities allowed educators to assess what was occurring with students outside of the virtual classroom and offer support and encouragement. It also provided an opportunity for informal sharing for

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both students and educators that created a sense of normalcy that was missing in this new world. As with before the pandemic, students were connected with peer mentors upon entering the program to help with their transition to an accelerated health professions program. Many students with learning difficulties routinely took advantage of free peer and alumni tutoring programs; the change in teaching and learning strategies presented additional and unexpected challenges to learning for these students. It was vital that this offering was continued, so it was transitioned to a virtual format through various technology including Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom. Minimizing threats and distractions proved to be especially difficult for students with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other learning difficulties. Many students expressed they chose an in-person program as opposed to an online program because it offered a structured environment to facilitate their learning and took them away from their home where distractions abound. Although not always possible, students were encouraged to designate a specific place in their house to “attend” virtual classes that would minimize distractions. In addition, they were encouraged to utilize technology aids such as silencing notifications or programs limiting website browsing during class or study times. Some students commented that they found it helpful to organize their desktops to minimize distractions caused by the chat feature in Zoom. Lecturers were asked to mute any background notifications from their computers during their presentations that might cause a distraction. Prolonged periods of time in a virtual classroom proved to be difficult and did not support learning acquisition. To vary the level of sensory stimulation and social demands, educators adopted several strategies guided by student feedback. Classes were divided into asynchronous learning assignments and synchronous learning sessions; students could complete the asynchronous work on a schedule that matched their focus and situation. During synchronous class, frequent breaks were provided to support students who needed to get up and move or stretch to stay engaged in learning and to decrease eye strain associated with being online for extended periods of time. Zoom features provided students with options to decrease visual stimulation by turning off their own camera and limiting the number of participants they viewed to only the speaker if that was their preference. To offer an alternative to viewing PowerPoints on their computer screen, educators and staff mailed printed handouts to students who requested them on a weekly basis. Educators used various instructional methods, including short lectures, interactive quizzes, case studies, and group work to provide variation and help meet the learning needs of the diverse learners. Additional solutions adopted often address both the representation and activity and expression principles of the UDL Guidelines. Due to the transition to online or virtual learning formats, multimedia became a cornerstone of education during the pandemic. Educators utilized a combination of interactive web tools such as chats and polls as well as illustrations, drawings, and videos embedded in their teaching modalities. Due to the lack of physical clinical and lab learning spaces, instructional methods for clinical application relied heavily on virtual simulations that were created by educators and staff or purchased from a vendor. These virtual simulations provided a scaffolded approach that focused on cognition and allowed

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for critical thinking to be solidified prior to the introduction of a psychomotor skill, which students often prioritize over the cognitive domain. While virtual learning presented the material in visual and hearing domains, it lacked the traditional handson learning aspect fundamental to nursing education. To overcome the challenge that distance learning presented for learning psychomotor skills, educators and staff shipped packages of manipulatives to each student to support the hands-on learning needed to gain mastery for skills. Items sent included urinary catheter kits, simulated medications, syringes of varying sizes, and dressing supplies. This provided the opportunity for students to have the actual piece of equipment in front of them while the educator was demonstrating the skill online. Learners who require additional time to master psychomotor skills appreciated the accessibility to the materials in addition to recordings of the demonstration that they could watch at a pace that met their learning needs. Managing the complexity of asynchronous and synchronous coursework on top of other competing demands proved challenging for students, especially for those with a disability that included difficulty with organization, time management, or executive functioning. During the pandemic, our learning management software were updated to include checklists that could be created to help students quickly identify what tasks were required each week. While this was originally adopted in one class, the students advocated it be adopted across all their courses. In addition, some educators chose to send weekly summary emails and recordings with important announcements. The revised curriculum was structured in such a way to assist students with time management and accountability; asynchronous material was to be reviewed prior to the synchronous class time. Educators used the first part of the synchronous class session to review key details, clarify muddy points, or offer an opportunity to apply the information learned using polls and practice questions. These practice questions offered real-time feedback to the students about their comprehension of the material and feedback to the instructors on areas that may benefit from additional remediation and review prior to moving on to new content.

4 Adopting a Student-Centered Approach We must build a trusting relationship with students with disabilities so they do not feel judged and can openly share barriers to learning they experience. A “one size fits all” approach does not work when building relationships and efforts to connect often need to be repeated. Two strategies we found to be successful during the pandemic were scheduled office hours and consistent, regular individual advisor meetings. For academic purposes, students reported that scheduled office hours were helpful as they appreciated knowing when educators would be available to answer questions about course material. For students who did not feel comfortable asking questions in a group due to anxiety, educators could adopt another approach and offer one-on-one meetings with those individuals as needed. For academic and non-academic purposes, a successful approach for supporting students with disabilities was having consistent,

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scheduled meetings with advisors or trusted educators. This provided advisors the opportunity to check in routinely and monitor and mitigate difficulties that students were experiencing. This approach decreased some of the potential barriers students may perceive regarding obtaining support and it also increased the likelihood that challenges could be resolved earlier with fewer interventions. One interesting benefit of the changes related to COVID and online learning that was shared in one of the advisor/advisee sessions was about interactions with other students. This student shared: I really liked how it (online learning) made it impossible to compare/compete with other students. It was a cohort norm rule not to talk about grades and for the most part everybody had always respected that. However, it was still inevitable to a point when school was in person, mostly from small indirect comments (e.g., a bunch of people saying “that test was so easy” when we walk out after class, or others say they didn’t even study or it’s really easy for them, etc.) I don’t think I realized how much those constant, small comments had affected me when school was in person, and how much I unknowingly compared myself to others when I did hear them. So, I will forever be grateful for that part. (Anonymous student quote, 2021)

Once we have established a trusting relationship and students feel comfortable expressing the challenges they are facing, we are able to adopt a student-centered approach to further support the success of students with disabilities. In a previous example, a student described not being able to take advantage of their accommodations for testing in a quiet environment because the regular testing date was on the same day her apartment complex did lawncare. A student-centered approach would allow us to adapt to meet student accommodations during the pandemic; the educators could have worked with the student to reschedule the tests on a different day when she could utilize her accommodations for testing in a quiet environment. This adaptation is crucial when the availability of testing environments was restricted to environments where there was a lack of control over things such as noise. This example highlights the importance of educators meeting with students to determine how the plans for learning, assessment, and evaluation need to be adapted to ensure accommodations can be met during situations that disrupt how accommodations are usually provided. Students would also benefit from disability officers at their institutions proactively reaching out to see if changes or additions to their accommodations would be beneficial. In another example where the student suffered eye pain associated with her disability aggravated by increased screen time, we modified her matriculation plan to decrease her course load while still supporting her progression through the curriculum and promoting her health. While most of the strategies discussed thus far have focused on academics, evidence also shows that additional supports are necessary to support students with disabilities. Students with disabilities were more likely to report mental health and well-being challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic than students without disabilities (Soria et al., 2020). Soria et al. (2020) also found that students with disabilities were more likely to experience financial hardships and food and housing insecurity than students without disabilities. Students with disabilities also reported being less

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likely to live in safe environments when compared to their peers without disabilities. Knowing this inequity, educators, advisors, and administrators should routinely assess these impacts, proactively provide resources, and secure additional supports through referrals. Services such as emergency housing, food banks, and mental health care and counseling should be considered critical access services when resources need to be prioritized. Technology can play a vital role in increasing accessibility to these services. Our university added a 24/7 mental telehealth option for students at no cost. The service provided on-demand mental health support to discuss anxiety, depression, isolation, or other concerns. Creating and maintaining systems outside of the pandemic to capture student needs and other vital information will allow for a smoother transition should another crisis arise.

5 Conclusion For students with disabilities, COVID-19 fundamentally changed their educational journey as they navigated a new reality of learning. For some, learning during the pandemic presented multiple challenges and barriers while others unexpectedly found positives in the adaptive learning environments that were created from the chaos. Educators around the globe continuously adapted and supported student progression during these unprecedented times with the assistance of technology, utilizing the principles of universal design in learning, and adopting a student-centered approach.

References ADA. (2021). What is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? National Network, Retrieved on October 26, 2021 from https://www.adata.org/learn-about-ada ADA-2. (2021). Disability; Glossary of Terms. National Network, Retrieved on October 26, 2021 from Aldridge, M. (2017). Nursing students’ perceptions of learning psychomotor skills: A literature review. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 12(1), 21–27. CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines Version 2.2. Retrieved on November 30, 2021, from https://www.udlguidelines.cast.org/ Employment, Social Affairs, & Inclusion. (2021). Union of equality: Strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities 2021–2030. Retrieved on November 10, 2021, from https://ec.europa. eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1484&langId=en Kourea, L., Christodoulidou, P., & Fella, A. (2021). Voices of Undergraduate Students with Disabilities During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Pilot Study. European Journal of PsychologyOpen, 80(3), 111–124. https://www.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1024/2673-8627/a000011 Rose, D. H., & Strangman, N. (2007). Universal Design for Learning: Meeting the challenge of individual learning differences through a neurocognitive perspective. Universal Access in the Information Society, 5(4), 381–391. https://www.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-0060062-8

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Soria, K. M., Horgos, B., Chirikov, I., & Jones-White, D. (2020). The experiences of undergraduate students with physical, learning, neurodevelopmental, and cognitive disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. University of California - Berkeley and University of Minnesota. United Nations. (2021). Disability and higher education: Workforce preparedness for students with disabilities. Retrieved on November 1, 2021, from https://www.un.org/en/disability-higher-edu cation-workforce-preparedness-students-disabilities UNESCO. (2020). Inclusion and education. Global Education Monitoring Report. Retrieved on November 22, 2021, at https://www.en.unesco.org/gem-report/report/2020/inclusion US Department of Labor. (2021). Accommodations. Office of Disability Employment Policy. Retrieved on November 1, 2021, from https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-areas/emp loyers/accommadations Wamsley, L. (2021). March 11, 2020: The day everything changed. NPR; retrieved on November 23, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2021/03/11/975663437/march-11-2020-the-day-everythin gchanged

Dr. Ann “Michelle” Hartman DNP, RN, NP, is the Assistant Dean for the ABSN program at Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) where she teaches a variety of courses in the undergraduate program. Her scholarship has focused on innovative pedagogy and undergraduate nursing education. She has secured numerous grants to support curricular work of the community and public health nursing course and her development as a master teacher. She has presented locally, nationally, and internationally on cultural competence, interprofessional education (IPE), global immersion experiences, Teambased Learning™, and community and public health didactic and clinical experiences. She came to DUSON from Jefferson College of Health Sciences in Roanoke, Virginia. She earned her BSN and MSN at Virginia Commonwealth University. She worked as a pediatric nurse practitioner at level 2 NICU in Georgia and as a Clinical Nurse Specialist at a multidisciplinary children’s hospital in Virginia. She then transitioned to a faculty role while completing her DNP at Case Western University. Dr. Beth Cusatis Phillips PhD, RN, CNE, CHSE, is the Strategic Nursing Advisor with ATI and Ascend Learning. Prior to joining ATI, Beth spent 16 years at Duke School of Nursing as Associate Professor and Director of the Institute for Educational Excellence. Beth taught in the ABSN and MSN programs. Beth spent 9 years at Vance Granville Community College where she taught in and directed the ADN/ LPN programs. Prior to that, Beth worked for 13 years at UNC Hospitals and Vidant Hospital. Beth received her ADN from Waukesha County Technical Institute; her BSN from East Carolina University; her MSN from Duke; and her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Beth’s educational/ research/presentation interests include faculty orientation and development, curriculum development, professional identity in nursing, student decision making, student support and development, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Beth is very involved with the International Society for Professional Identity in Nursing.

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M. Hartman et al. Kimberly Coston RN, BSN, is a Registered Nurse working at Duke University Hospital in the CCU and on the Patient Response Team for Behavioral Emergencies. Prior to that, she worked on the Cardiothoracic step-down unit. She came to Duke after obtaining a degree in psychology and recreation from the University of Northern Colorado. Kimberly is an avid jump roper and has a creative mind and spirit. She is a product innovator and enjoys 3D printing and wood working.

Chapter 2

COVID-19 and Forced Online Education: Students’ Perceptions of Service Quality and Satisfaction Amol S. Dhaigude and Jyoti Subhash Dhayagude

1 Introduction The end of 2019 witnessed the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the Wuhan province of China. By January 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic has spread to more than 221 countries. This highly contagious virus has affected billions of people and downed more than 5.8 million (WHO, 2022). Prevention is the only cure; thereby, to stop the spread of this deadly virus, countries worldwide have gone for strict measures such as lockdowns and closing borders (Khlystova et al., 2022). Lockdown has restricted the physical movement of people and confined them to their respective homes. The entire world economy has stood still and billions of people have lost their jobs (Sattar et al., 2020). On the brighter side, technological innovations have leapfrogged. COVID-19 has put developing countries like India in the technology innovation and adoption ahead of time (Kumar et al., 2021). The digital/online way of doing things, like digital payment, meetings, conferences, court hearings, or education, has become a standard post-outbreak of the COVID-19 virus (Li & Lalani, 2020). The education sector has been at the forefront of adopting the online mode of service delivery (Li & Lalani, 2020). Learning things online was not new and millions of students were taking online courses. For example, In India, Edtech firms like Coursera, Unacademy, Byju’s, and Vendantu have flourished and seen exponential growth in their user base. Learning from Youtube and the allied platform was a commonplace scenario even before the pandemic. However, these online learning platforms and initiatives were a free choice for the students and not a forced A. S. Dhaigude (B) S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, India e-mail: [email protected] J. S. Dhayagude Department of Public Administration, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_2

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one. Students may opt for one or more online courses/platforms and learn independently. Furthermore, most schools/universities/institutes preferred the traditional offline classes and discouraged online learning. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the tables, and online learning emerged as the only viable option for all education institutions. From March 2020, formal classes of the kindergarten to PhD courses were being conducted through virtual mode only. The luxury of offline classes had disappeared, and online teaching was made compulsory. However, this adoption of the technology-assisted mode of service delivery (education) was a forced one. The students have no choice but to attend all the sessions through virtual meetings. With no time to adapt themselves amidst the ongoing uncertainties of COVID-19, online education looked even more challenging to both teachers and students. More specifically, there were challenges related to training, infrastructure, course contents, examinations, project/lab-based work, and team projects, to name a few. Nevertheless, service delivery through online education is still ongoing and with the rise of COVID-19 variants and more waves likely to be seen. Therefore, this forced online education will be here for some time. Service quality (SQ), perceived value (PV), student satisfaction (SS), and continued intentions (CI) have all been identified as major success criteria in previous studies of online education (Tan & Kek, 2004; La Rotta et al., 2020). As the number of studies on forced online education service quality is limited, this study inspects the relationships among SQ, PV, CS, and CI to determine which dimensions of SQ are significantly associated with PV, SS, and CI. More specifically, this study tries to answer the following research questions/objectives: • What challenges did UG and PG students face in forced online education during the COVID-19 crisis? • What is UG and PG students’ perception of service quality about forced online education during the COVID-19 crisis? • What is the relationship between perceived value, satisfaction, and willingness to continue forced online education during the COVID-19 crisis? Data was collected by a cross-sectional survey method using a structured questionnaire. 228 valid responses were obtained and were subjected to structural equation modelling (SEM). Results indicated that Assurance, Reliability, Responsiveness and Tangibles were positively associated with students’ PV. However, empathy is not significantly related to PV. In forced online education, the PV is directly and positively associated with student satisfaction and willingness to continue. However, the direct relationship between PV and CI diminishes when satisfaction is introduced in the model. This finding is in line with the tenet of ECT. Even in a forced setting, the CI will not be obtained unless satisfaction is achieved. This study contributes to the literature on forced online education and technology adoption. The outcomes can help online education service providers maintain and improve their SQ. This study is one of the earlier studies to explore the role of the five dimensions of SERVQAL, namely Empathy, Assurance, Responsiveness, Reliability and Tangibles on the PV, SS, and CI of forced online education service delivery after the outbreak of COVID-19. The research on forced online adoption of education has

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been limited and this study tries to fill this gap. COVID-19 has brought unlimited challenges to businesses and society at large. Nevertheless, there can be a silver lining as well. The adoption rate of digital technology has accelerated at an unprecedented rate, and the education sector is no exception. This study is one of the early attempts to explore service quality dimensions and paves the way for future research to strengthen online education. This study will help academicians to focus on the dimensions of the SERVQAL to meet the student’s expectations, thereby increasing the PV, SS, and CI. Our results will aid academicians in course design delivery, evaluation, and effective classroom engagement. On the other hand, our results will help the managers and decision-makers make and improve business strategies, say the design of online meeting platforms software, new hardware, student–teacher interventions, and educational products like e-books and examination platforms. The rest of the chapter is further divided into five sections. Section 2 deals with the conceptual background/literature review. Section 3 talks about research methodology. Sections 3 and 4 are about data analysis and findings of the study, respectively. Section 5 highlights the conclusion, discussion, and implications. Finally, Sect. 6 deals with limitations and directions for future research.

2 Theoretical Grounding Theory of Expectation–Confirmation The theory of Expectation-confirmation (ECT) was used as the theoretical underpinning for this study. Bhattacherjee (2001) explained information system continuity using ECT adopted from consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction theory. The postacceptance and post-consumption expectations variables are the focus of ECT. The ECT framework, which originated in marketing, outlines the process of customers’ repurchase intention (Oliver, 1980). Before making a purchase, customers establish initial expectations about a product or service, primarily based on earlier experience and information (Zeithaml & Berry, 1990) via interactions with various communication distribution channels. Consumers obtain product information/knowledge through mass media channels such as advertising, packaging information, media reporting, & media interviews. Direct selling, opinions from previous consumers, opinion leader’s recommendations, and peer customers discussions are all examples of interpersonal communication channels. As result, the expectation levels for the same product may differ amongst buyers depending on the communication networks and the information source’s quality and dependability. False and misleading information and a lack of product understanding can lead to unreasonable expectations. For instance, a customer may assess the product’s performance level based on product information; however, if the information is deceptive or exaggerating, the expectations become unreasonable, affecting the entire satisfaction-intention process. Consumers accept, purchase, and utilize the

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product if they believe it is valuable. They create opinions on the product’s performance after the time of the first usage. Third, they evaluate the product/perceived service’s performance based on their initial expectations and judge how their expectations are met. A positive disconfirmation is predicted if the product performs better than expected. On the other hand, if the consumers’ assessment of the goods falls short of expectations, a pessimistic disconfirmation arises. Furthermore, a “simple confirmation” is anticipated if the product’s performance meets expectations. Finally, customers’ attitudes are moulded depending on their expectations and satisfaction, leading to future intentions to engage/disengage with the product/service. Expectation confirmation, perceived utility, satisfaction, and CI are the four fundamental constructs of ECT. The degree to which users think their original expectations are being fulfilled during actual use is confirmation. As result, Bhattacherjee (2001) highlighted that users’ expectations develop with more experience in the post-adoption environment, and post-adoption expectations will be based on actual user experience. In our case, students will be satisfied when online education service delivery meets expectations from the university. ECT has been employed in several studies, including e-services, online shopping, and internet banking. Lin et al. (2005) used the ECT in conjunction with playfulness to evaluate users’ CI toward a website.

3 Literature Review Forced Online Education Online education and service quality have attracted the attention of the scholarly community across the world. Online education has been defined as “a process of delivering course content to the end-user by means of a computer using Internet technology” (Rosenberg et al., 2001). Literature has ample evidence to establish the relationship between service quality and student satisfaction in an online setting (Eom et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2020). Some studies have found a positive relationship between online education and satisfaction (e.g., Wei & Chou, 2020); a few studies have argued it is negative (Wang et al., 2019), and lastly, there is the third set of studies claiming this relation is neutral (e.g., Keeler, 2006). There are inclusive results about the impact and relationship of online education and student satisfaction in an online setting, and thus more studies need to be conducted to bridge this gap. Another thread in the literature talks about technology and its adoption for online education (e.g., Lee, 2010). Preliminary topics such as technology-assisted, mediated, and managed studies (Buchanan et al., 2013; Thor et al., 2017), to name a few. Extant literature has stated that online education leads to greater convenience (Watts, 2017), cost reduction (Jung & Rha, 2000), higher flexibility (Stone et al., 2019), time and space freedom (Daymont et al., 2011), new ways of interaction, real-time and customised feedback (Leibold & Schwarz, 2015) to name a few. On the other side, online education leads to an increase in screen time, leading to physical

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and mental health issues (Barr, 2014), higher burnouts (Hogan & McKnight, 2007), disturbing classwork and life balance (Košir et al., 2020), demotivation in group activities (Albion & Weaver, 2006), increase in examination fear and anxiety (Chandra, 2020); higher stress on faculty and loss of control in the classroom engagement (McCann & Holt, 2009) to name a few. Forced online education is an extension of online distance education, combining material and pedagogy in a virtual environment with the generally unwelcome compulsion to be online (Maguire, 2005). After the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions, the transfer of educational content to an online mode was not carefully planned against the typical distance education. Furthermore, to save a study year, instructors were compelled to transfer what they had to the internet in a very short period. Forced online education establishes a new framework for online education and does not treat students and instructors equally. This forced online education may have more negative consequences than traditional online education because it has not been studied well (e.g., Mseleku, 2020). As the COVID-19 uncertainties were too high in the surrounding environments, everyone learning or teaching had to devise coping mechanisms to deal with the new and rising difficulties. There are limited studies on forced online education. Moorhouse (2020) explored the challenges of forced online education in Hong Kong and concluded that for a better student experience, a combination of asynchronous and synchronous modes of instruction should be used. During the COVID-19 lockdown in Slovenia, Dolenc et al. (2021) investigated instructors’ and pupils’ perspectives and concluded that opposing viewpoints outnumber positive viewpoints, and instructors’ scores were higher than students. Moreover, the most positive factor is ‘Perceived usefulness’, whereas the most negative one is ‘Technology’. Since students and their instructors have been forced into this new learning method irrespective of their skills and capabilities, this study is an attempt to explore the students’ perception of service quality, value, satisfaction, and CI.

Online Education and Service Quality The term “service quality” encompasses the physical, technological, and picture aspects of service. Parasuraman et al. (1985) developed a model and scale to measure the service quality known as SERVQUAL. Though scholars have examined the role of online education on service quality (e.g., La Rotta et al., 2020; Lee, 2010), research on forced adoption is minimal. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is one of the most cited models for technology adoption (Davis, 1989; Roger, 1995). TAM claims that consumers’ adoption of technology is influenced by their perceptions of the effects of its use. The two most critical factors influencing users’ adoption habits are perceived ease of use and perceived utility. TAM believes consumers would welcome modern technologies if their expectations of the technology’s ease of use and utility are favourable. Though there are various modifications of the TAM model (e.g., Venkatesh & Davis, 2000;

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Venkatesh & Goyal, 2010), the forced adoption of technology, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak, has not been explored much in the literature. TAM defines adopters’ acceptance to adopt technology to support the task designed to be executed. This concept has evolved over the years where researchers are finding out variables that influence the acceptance of technology adoption by the users. In this project, we try to gauge the student’s adoption of technology and their comfort level in adopting the newer technologies employed by the educational institutions. The findings will impact the understanding of the post-graduate students along with the relationship with the teachers and the policymakers of the institution. Although the educational institution has the autonomy to decide the technological upgrade, the effective use of the technology is greatly influenced by the student’s ability to utilize the resources, which may not be constant across the institutions.

4 Hypotheses SERVQUAL and PV Reliability: The dimension of reliability has been seriously affected in the context of online classrooms in the COVID-19 era. High dependence on technology has affected the consistency factor wherein the service provider has to shift a certain amount of focus towards learning the new technology. Service providers are forced to modify the timeframes as the students’ attention span is relatively less in the online mode of education. This constraint harms delivering the service within the promised timeframe. Problem resolution also becomes more difficult as the students are scattered and require additional effort in bringing them together with the aid of a platform. Responsiveness: It has become challenging to keep customers informed about when services will be performed due to the sudden increase in users due to COVID19. Due to the lack of required facilities due to the sudden involvement of many users, it faces problems to solve Prompt service to customers. Service providers are willing to help customers, but labour shortages affected the completeness of customers’ requirements. Assurance: When we consider the quality dimension assurance for “Online classroom service quality perspective in the COVID-19 era”, we can see that online classes’ instructor-student interactions get affected directly. Due to the COVID-19 situation, the physical relationship is affected, and assurance, trust, and confidence arise only when the interaction is correctly done. Trust and confidence required quite an amount of time, effort, and interactions. To build trust and confidence among the students and the staff, having an offline mode of classes with physical interactions has an added advantage in building trust and confidence. Assurance has a low positivity rate on the minds of the individuals due to the online mode of education.

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Empathy: The imposition of lockdown and cancellation of in-person classes due to COVID-19 has insisted that higher education instructors nationwide change the way they deliver the courses quickly. The prime goal was to minimize disruptions in the academic routines. Empathy plays a significant role in such situations. Because of this uncertain situation, empathy in the classroom can help students manage their anxiety and keep them engaged. Instructors need to acknowledge the challenges being faced by students right now. There is a greater need for rapport between students and faculty; to attain that, the instructor should ensure they are there for students during virtual office hours and outside. The ‘teacher-centred’ or traditional way of teaching does not go that well in this modern setup. Since it is hard for students to concentrate on the computer screen for 50–75 min where only one-way communication is happening, instead of that, delivering a shorter lecture and having interactive learning activities through small group presentations and exercises keeps the students motivated and engaged. Tangibles: The Tangible construct has significant relevance in online classes as the effectiveness, and proper delivery of the service purely depends on the availability and impeccable functioning of certain physical facilities such as computers, web cameras, and microphones which enables the service to be delivered appropriately. As this online platform is highly dependent on technology, the inadequate availability or improper functioning of any physical devices might result in inconsistent and ineffective delivery of the services, which further negatively impacts the delivery of the service. In addition to this, as most of the tangibles of online education services include sophisticated electronic devices, it is quite expensive for both the service providers and customers to properly maintain. In the research on the relationships between the above dimension of SQ and customer PV in conventional retailing and online shopping, most empirical studies have pointed out that SQ will positively influence PV (e.g., Cronin et al., 1997). Among the online education industry studies, Dlaˇci´c et al. (2014) argued that SQ is positively related to PV. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypotheses: H1: In a forced online learning mode, assurance positively influences the students’ PV. H2: In a forced online learning mode, responsiveness positively impacts the students’ PV. H3: In a forced online learning mode, reliability positively impacts the students’ PV. H4: Empathy positively impacts the students’ PV in a forced online learning mode. H5: In a forced online learning mode, tangibles positively influence the students’ PV.

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PV and SS & CI In researching the relationships between PV and CS, empirical online education studies discovered that PV positively impacts CS (e.g., Nugroho et al., 2019). In investigations of e-services, a similar result was presented (e.g., Aditi et al., 2021). The same is true for the relationship between the PV and CI (Hamari et al., 2020). Thus, Hypothesis 3 is proposed as follows: H6. Students’ PV in a forced online learning mode is positively linked with satisfaction. H7. Students’ PV in a forced online learning mode is positively linked with the continued intention.

Mediation Role of Satisfaction PV is a crucial determinant of CS and continued intentions (CI) in e-services (Chen, 2012). PV may help students of online classes assess utilities, but CI will come after the CS, that is, the customer’s faith in the odds of service, leading to a favourable consequence. The theoretical support for this relationship can be drawn from the ECT. According to the ECT theory, satisfaction is entirely inspired by perceived performance and disconfirming beliefs. Furthermore, it is argued that CS grows in strength as an individual’s PV is addressed in a relationship. CS is an important consequence and a key indicator of customer patronage and desire for future purchases (Chen, 2012). Therefore, CS mediates the relationship between PV and CI. In line with the above argument and consistent with the published literature on satisfaction and CI (e.g., Akroush & Mahadin, 2019), we hypothesize: H8. Students’ satisfaction mediates the PV and willingness to continue the relationship in a forced online learning mode.

5 Research Methodology This study adopted a cross-sectional survey. A structured questionnaire has been created to capture the independent, dependent, and demographic variables. The service quality dimensions were captured using the scale proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985). It has five constructs namely Empathy, Assurance, Responsiveness, Reliability. and Tangibles. Overall, there were 18 items to capture these five constructs measured on a five-point Likert scale. The dependent variables (DV) were perceived value, satisfaction, and continued intentions. All DVs were adopted from well-cited literature. Finally, there were several qualitative questions and sections to capture the demographics of the respondents. Appendix A provides the questionnaire used in this study.

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The four subconstructs of SERVQUAL namely, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and assurance, were adopted from Olorunniwo et al. (2006) and Stodnick and Rogers (2008) modified to suit the online learning context. The tangibility component of SERVQUAL has been modified to suit the online education context. In this study, Tangibility refers to the online platform and its features (say Google Meets, Zoom, and Webex). These are the platforms that users need to install on their devices to involve in online education. The satisfaction construct was adopted from Zhang and Prybutok (2005), a well-reputed scale in IS research. Finally, the continued intention was adopted from Zhang and Prybutok (2005). The exact questions are provided in Appendix A. This paper used the convenient sampling technique and snowball sampling technique. As the time for data collection and analysis was limited, random sampling was avoided. Students under and post-graduate courses of a reputed university located in central India were recruited to fill out the questionnaire. The selection of students from one university will reduce the biases of the service delivery and aid in generalizing results to similar institutions across India and the world. These students have attended a minimum of six months of online classes. The online version of the questionnaire was shared with the prospective respondents through email, Whatsapp, and Facebook. 234 responses were received from 250 invitations, and a success rate of 94% was the outcome of the convenient sampling technique. Due to incomplete responses, six responses have been discarded, leading to 228 valid responses. Table 2.1 provides the demographics of the respondents. On average, it took approximately eight minutes to fill out the survey. This study adopted SEM using SmartPLS 3.0 for data analysis (Ringle et al., 2005). SmartPLS has been utilized in various IS studies to explore the relationship among the latent variables/constructs (Chaouali et al., 2017). It is applied to analyses construct and structural validity. PLS was used to investigate construct validity because it has fewer constraints on data distribution, formative/reflective constructs, and sample size than covariance-based SEM. Furthermore, component-based path analysis was also established with SmartPLS. PLS offers to model many IVs and DVs while also dealing with multicollinearity among the IVs. It also handles missing data based on cross-products, producing more accurate predictions.

6 Analyses and Results Phase 1: Qualitative Analysis In the first phase of the data collection, open-ended interviews were conducted with the students. Students were invited for interviews in an online meeting. A team of two researchers conducted a total of 16 interviews. The interviews lasted for 44 min on average. Ten male students and six female students representing the population were chosen and participated in the open discussion. The data was transcribed manually,

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Table 2.1 Demographic distribution Title

Category

Percentage (n = 228)

Gender

Male

148

Female

80

UG

160

PG

68

3–6 Lacs

102

6–10 Lacs

80

More than 10 Lacs

46

Less than one year

10

Between one year to three years

182

More than three years

36

Zoom

42

WebEx

26

Google Meets

144

Any other

16

Rural

58

Semi-urban

80

Urban

71

Metropolitan

19

Course Family Income (Per Annum)

Experience with online learning

Online platforms used

Housing location

Source Data collected by authors

and issues related to forced online education were identified. After analysing their responses, we developed a list of issues, as shown in Fig. 2.2.

Phase 2: Quantitative Analysis: Measurement Model Analysis The CALIS technique of SmartPLS was used to test the construct validity. Furthermore, EFA was used to verify the measurement model’s reliability (see Appendix A). All the questionnaire items were loaded to a satisfactory level. (CR > 0.70). Acceptable CR ratings for SAT (0.95) and BI (0.97) were also achieved, indicating that the elements that make up each construct do not need to be further refined. To test the dimensionality of the PV measure, a more rigorous technique was used. As shown in Fig. 2.1, the measurement model identifies five factors and their interrelation. The proposed model is found to be an appropriate measurement model after the assessment of the fit statistics. The t-tests for the factor loadings were used to determine convergent validity. The loading items for each component were set exactly as the model suggested in terms of parameter estimates. For all five components of SERVQUAL, the metric was generated by setting the coefficient for

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23

one indication to 1.000. Apart from the fixed loadings, each indicator variable showed significant t-stat, implying that all measured items are excellent gauges of respective latent constructs, hinting at strong evidence for convergent validity. Furthermore, the claims of convergent validity become even more robust, as all the AVE values were more than 0.50, and the square root of AVE was more than 0.71 (see Table 2.2). The discriminant validity was checked by looking at the correlations among the variables. The claims of discriminant validity were also backed by the minimal interitem associations and by the higher distinctions reflected amongst AVE square root for every construct (see Table 2.2).

Fig. 2.1 A proposed conceptual model (Developed by authors)

Poor Network

94%

Online meeting software issues

63%

Lots of assignments

44%

Time management issues

56%

Disbalancing classroom and personal…

100%

Mental and physical health toll

75%

Missing friends and campus life

94%

Boredom

38%

Missing hostel life

31%

Poor Classroom experience

56%

Poor performance in exams

69%

Missing Extra and co-curricular… 0%

50% 20%

40%

60%

80% 100% 120%

Fig. 2.2 Issues of forced online education (n = 16) (Developed by authors)

0.80

0.70

0.78

0.79

0.57

0.51

0.44

0.47

Assurance

Empathy

Responsiveness

Reliability

Tangibles

Perceived value

Satisfaction

Cont. Intent (CI)

Assurance

Table 2.2 Correlation matrix

0.57

0.54

0.38

0.47

0.78

0.77

0.89

Empathy

0.54

0.56

0.40

0.49

0.78

0.88

Responsiveness

0.58

0.55

0.65

0.61

0.90

Reliability

0.49

0.55

0.67

0.93

Tangibles

0.54

0.48

0.89

Perceived Value

0.66

0.96

Satisfaction

0.95

CI

24 A. S. Dhaigude and J. S. Dhayagude

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The research model is depicted in Fig. 2.3 with regression coefficient and significance level. The study hypotheses were fully supported by the high reliability and validity and the fit measurements that arise. Table 2.3 summarizes the findings, indicating that all hypotheses other than H3 were supported. Therefore, our model suggests that “Assurance”, “Reliability”, “Tangibles” and “Responsiveness” are the predecessors of PV. Four of these five components, according to the research, influence the PV. H4 is rejected because “Empathy” reveals a favourable but insignificant association with PV. It is worth mentioning that “Tangibles,” one of the study’s primary contributions, have the most significant influence on PV (coefficient = 0.38). The model’s R

Fig. 2.3 A path analysis

Table 2.3 Hypothesis results

Hypothesis

Path Coef.

H1

0.20**

H2

0.16*

H3

0.17*

H4

0.12

H5

0.38***

H6

0.36**

H7

0.12

H8

0.85***

Note R2 for PV, SAT and Learnings are 0.71; 0.64; 0.90 respectively * and ** stands for 5% and 1% level of significance

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A. S. Dhaigude and J. S. Dhayagude

square is 0.71, suggesting an excellent match. H6 (PV to Sat) and H7 (PV to CI) are significant at a 1% significance level. In terms of the mediation hypothesis, the path coefficients values are 0.38 and 0.85 for the PV to SAT and SAT to CI, respectively. These values indicate that student satisfaction is critical in the forced online learning model. However, the relationship between PV and CI becomes statistically insignificant (0.12 path coefficient) if we add SAT as a mediator. These results strongly support the full mediation effect of PV on CI via SAT.

7 Discussion and Implications The objectives of this study were threefold: First, to investigate the issues students faced during forced online education after the COVID-19 outbreak. Second, to investigate the perception of service quality of post-graduate students about forced online education during the COVID-19 crisis. Third, to explore the relationship between PV, satisfaction, and willingness to continue online education. Understanding the impact of service quality, PV, and satisfaction is critical as the education sector has undergone considerable changes after the outbreak of COVID-19. Stodnick and Rogers (2008) employed service quality to assess the quality of a typical classroom, which inspired our research. We have added a new dimension, PV, and boosted the model’s predictive power. Our study backs up the IS Success Model proposed by Demir et al. (2020), which asserts that service quality is positively linked with PV. Furthermore, the PV leads to satisfaction and CI. We further show that satisfaction mediates the relationship between the PV and CI. Published literature has indicated that service quality dimensions have a positive association with PV and PV to satisfaction and CI relationship (e.g., Che-Hui et al., 2011). This research was focused on different sorts of services, such as public sector services (Wisniewski, 2001), nursing care (Pakdil & Harwood, 2005), IT consultancy (Yoon & Suh, 2004), and even online education (Chen et al., 2020). One of the study’s significant contributions is the extension of this notion to forced online learning. This conclusion implies that academicians must pay heed to service quality dimensions and design contents and offerings to increase PV and satisfaction. Our findings are comparable to Stodnick and Rogers’ (2008) results that “Assurance” substantially influences PV and satisfaction. These authors also concluded that “Responsiveness” did not significantly influence PV, whereas the “Reliability” dimension was partly significant. In our case, we found that both “Reliability” and “Responsiveness” significantly impacted PV. Contrary to Stodnick and Rogers’ (2008) findings, we do not find any significant association between empathy and PV. “Empathy” dimension minor significance might be explained by the fact that the students may feel disconnected and distanced from the instructor because they are forced to attend online education setting. The online mode does not have the luxury to connect the same way as the typical offline classroom. As outlined in the qualitative

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study, multiple constraints restrict the ability to connect with students, impacting the empathy dimension. The other four SERVQUAL dimensions significantly impact the PV. These results imply that e-learner’s PV is a function of “assurance”, “reliability, “responsiveness”, and “tangibles”. Institutions that want to increase their students’ PV should consider these aspects. The results also suggest that, while PV is not a major driver of CI, its indirect influence on CI, as mediated by satisfaction, is critical. This result validates the precepts of ECT theory. The R squares values of.64 for satisfaction and.90 for CI are significant and explain a considerable percentage of the variation in the model. Our findings support earlier research, indicating that while service quality might not directly influence CI, satisfaction is a mediator (Olorunniwo et al., 2006). In the context of forced online learning, the indirect influence of PV on CI is sufficient to justify recognising student satisfaction as a needed mediating concept among PV and CI. Moreover, as the forced online learning environment has lesser possibilities for student–teacher interactions and a smaller level of peer interactions, the direct relationship between PV and CI might not be as crucial as the indirect effect via student satisfaction. Last but not least, forced online education has opened the doors of possibilities, especially for inclusion in higher education. It has aided the continuous and transcendent process of improving educational systems to meet the needs of all people, particularly those from marginalized communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has made online education as next best alternative to offline education. Key stakeholders like teachers, students, parents, employers, government bodies, regulators, and financial institutions have accepted online education as mainstream education. Online education is going to stay and grow. It boosted the inclusiveness by eliminating the physical barriers of time and space and introducing the latest technology to enhance the learning experiences.

8 Conclusion, Limitations, and Future Directions This study explored the role of service quality, PV, student satisfaction and CI in forced online education in India. Other than empathy, all dimensions of SERVQUAL have a positive and direct impact on PV. Furthermore, student satisfaction mediated the relationship between the PV and CI. This paper has a few limitations that may pave directions for future research like any other scientific study. First, students from one institute have been selected for this study for better generalization; more students studying in different parts of India and Asia need to be considered. Second, for more concrete results, longitudinal studies should be conducted. Thirdly, some intervening variables can explain the relationship between SERVQUAL dimensions and satisfaction. Future studies should involve mediators and moderators to explore the service quality of online education. Lastly, a higher level of analysis, say structural equation modelling, may be conducted to explore the service quality of online education.

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Appendix A: Factor Loadings

Service quality dimensions

Standard loading

Composite reliability

Assurance A1: The instructor is knowledgeable in his/her field 0.82 A2: The instructor is fair and impartial in grading

0.83

A3: The instructor answers all questions thoroughly

0.79

A4: I am confident the instructor has an expert understanding of the material

0.8

0.88

Empathy E1: The instructor is genuinely concerned about the students

0.9

0.95

E2: The instructor understands the individual needs 0.91 of students E3: The instructor has the students’ best long-term 0.87 interests in mind E4: The instructors encourage and motivates students to do their best

0.89

Responsiveness RS1: The instructor quickly and efficiently responds to students’ needs

0.91

RS2: The instructor is willing to go out of his or her way to help students

0.92

RS3: The instructor always welcomes student questions and comments

0.83

0.91

Reliability RB1: The instructor is knowledgeable in his/her field

0.85

0.93

RB2: The instructor is fair and impartial in grading 0.93 RB3: The instructor answers all questions thoroughly

0.82

Tangibles T1: The online classroom platform is modern and updated

0.78

T2: The virtual environment of the classroom aids learning

0.77

T3: The online classroom is equipped with all the basic equipment to aid learning

0.82

T4: The online classroom is free of distractions

0.86

0.95

Perceived value (continued)

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(continued) Service quality dimensions

Standard loading

Composite reliability

PV1: Online classroom are of very good value for money

0.83

0.91

PV2: One gets what they pay from these online classrooms

0.78

PV3: Online classroom are worth the money paid

0.9

PV4: Compared to alternatives this online classrooms charges fairly

0.88

Satisfaction S1: I am satisfied with my decision to enrol in the online classes

0.95

0.96

S2: My choice to enrol in online classes was a wise 0.97 one S3: I think I did the right thing when I paid for online learning service

0.93

S4: I feel that my experience with online learning has been enjoyable

0.98

Continued intention CI1: Would you continue this learning if given choice?

0.92

0.92

CI2: Would you recommend this online learning to 0.94 someone else? CI3: I would likely do another degree program online

0.93

References Akroush, M. N., & Mahadin, B. K. (2019). An intervariable approach to customer satisfaction and loyalty in the internet service market. Internet Research, 29(4), 772–798. Bhattacherjee, A. (2001). Understanding information systems continuance: An expectationconfirmation model. MIS Quarterly, 25(3), 351–370. Buchanan, T., Sainter, P., & Saunders, G. (2013). Factors affecting faculty use of learning technologies: Implications for models of technology adoption. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 25(1), 1–11. Chandra, Y. (2020). Online education during COVID-19: Perception of academic stress and emotional intelligence coping strategies among college students. Asian Education and Development Studies, 10(2), 229–238. Chaouali, W., Souiden, N., & Ladhari, R. (2017). Explaining adoption of mobile banking with the theory of trying, general self-confidence, and cynicism. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 35, 57–67. Che-Hui, L., Wen, M. J., & Chung-Cheng, W. (2011). Investigating the relationships among Eservice quality, perceived value, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in Taiwanese online shopping. Asia Pacific Management Review, 16(3), 211–223.

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Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319–340. Demir, A., Maroof, L., Khan, N. U. S., & Ali, B. J. (2020). The role of E-service quality in shaping online meeting platforms: A case study from higher education sector. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 13(5), 1436–1463. Dlaˇci´c, J., Arslanagi´c, M., Kadi´c-Maglajli´c, S., Markovi´c, S., & Raspor, S. (2014). Exploring perceived service quality, perceived value, and repurchase intention in higher education using structural equation modelling. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 25(1–2), 141– 157. Dolenc, K., Šorgo, A., & Ploj Virtiˇc, M. (2021). The difference in views of educators and students on Forced Online Distance Education can lead to unintentional side effects. Education and Information Technologies, 26(6), 7079–7105. Hamari, J., Hanner, N., & Koivisto, J. (2020). “Why pay premium in freemium services?” A study on perceived value, continued use and purchase intentions in free-to-play games. International Journal of Information Management, 51, 102040. Hogan, R. L., & McKnight, M. A. (2007). Exploring burnout among university online instructors: An initial investigation. The Internet and Higher Education, 10(2), 117–124. Jung, I., & Rha, I. (2000). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of online education: A review of the literature. Educational Technology, 40(4), 57–60. Khlystova, O., Kalyuzhnova, Y., & Belitski, M. (2022). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the creative industries: A literature review and future research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 139, 1192–1210. Košir, K., Dugonik, Š., Huski´c, A., Graˇcner, J., Kokol, Z., & Krajnc, Ž. (2020). Predictors of perceived teachers’ and school counsellors’ work stress in the transition period of online education in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational Studies, 1–5. Kumar, R., Bhalla, S., Arora, T., & Kumar, M. (2021). Proliferation of Digital Education in Times of COVID19. Proceedings of the International Conference on Innovative Computing & Communication (ICICC). La Rotta, D., Usuga, O. C., & Clavijo, V. (2020). Perceived service quality factors in online higher education. Learning Environments Research, 23(2), 251–267. Lee, J. W. (2010). Online support service quality, online learning acceptance, and student satisfaction. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(4), 277–283. Leibold, N., & Schwarz, L. M. (2015). The art of giving online feedback. Journal of Effective Teaching, 15(1), 34–46. Maguire, L. L. (2005). Literature review–faculty participation in online distance education: Barriers and motivators. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 8(1), 1–16. McCann, J. T., & Holt, R. (2009). An exploration of burnout among online university professors. Journal of Distance Education, 23(3), 97–110. Moorhouse, B. L. (2020). Adaptations to a face-to-face initial teacher education course ‘forced’online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Education for Teaching, 46(4), 609–611. Nugroho, M. A., Setyorini, D., & Novitasari, B. T. (2019). The role of satisfaction on perceived value and e-learning usage continuity relationship. Procedia Computer Science, 161, 82–89. Oliver, R. L. (1980). A cognitive model of the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction decisions. Journal of Marketing Research, 17(4), 460–469. Oliver, R. L. (2006). Customer satisfaction research. The handbook of marketing research: Uses, Misuses, and Future Advances, 1. Olorunniwo, F., Hsu, M. K., & Udo, G. J. (2006). Service quality, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in the service factory. Journal of Services Marketing, 20(1), 59–72. Pakdil, F., & Harwood, T. N. (2005). Patient satisfaction in a preoperative assessment clinic: An analysis using SERVQUAL dimensions. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 16(1), 15–30.

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Dr. Amol S. Dhaigude is working as an Associate Professor in department of operations, supply chain management and quantitative methods at, S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) Mumbai India. He is Fellow of Indian Institute of Management Indore, India. His publications have appeared in Journal of Knowledge Management, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Decision System, Tourism Recreation Research, Measuring Business Excellence, Journal of Public Affairs, Operations Management and Education Review, Journal of Business Education to name a few. He is actively engaged in research in supply chain coordination, tourism management, services operations, blockchain in supply chain and supply chain analytics. He is a profound case-writer and teacher and published more than 25 cases in leading case publishing outlets including Ivey Publishing and Emerald Emerging Market case studies.

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A. S. Dhaigude and J. S. Dhayagude Dr. Jyoti Subhash Dhayagude is working as Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India. She is gold medalist in her PG course and cleared the prestigious SET exam in first attempt. She has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience. Her research interests are Local Self-Government, Rural Development, Women Leadership, Administrative reforms and Population Policy and Implementation. She has more than 50 publications in journals, edited books, and magazines of repute. Her teaching interests are Indian Planning and development, comparative public Administration, office management and Agricultural administration in India.

Chapter 3

Managing Digital Divide in a Fully Integrated, Community-Engaged Medical Curriculum Within a Hyper-Diverse Context: Reflections from Western Sydney University School of Medicine Brahmaputra Marjadi , Sowbhagya Micheal , Glenn Mason , and Victoria Mansour

1 Context Western Sydney University (WSU) was established in 1989 as the University of Western Sydney and obtained its current name in 2015. The University has been dedicated to the development of Greater Western Sydney (GWS) which is one of the most diverse and fastest growing regions in the country (Western Sydney University, 2021a). The GWS population varies not only in countries of origin and languages spoken (170 + and 100+ , respectively) (Western Sydney University, 2021a), but also in various other identities, socio-economic status, and values, which qualify GWS as a hyper-diverse region (Tasan-Kok et al., 2013). GWS is also home to a significant number of Aboriginal communities (Lawton, 2017). This hyper-diversity is represented in the WSU student population, academic and professional staff, and community partners. Approximately 77% of WSU students are from the GWS area (Western Sydney University, 2021a) and 40% of WSU students were born in more B. Marjadi (B) · S. Micheal Community Engaged Learning, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] G. Mason Learning Futures, Western Sydney University, Kingswood, NSW, Australia V. Mansour Medical Education Unit, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_3

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than 175 countries overseas. In addition, international students comprise approximately 16% of the WSU student population (Western Sydney University Office of Equity and Diversity, 2021). WSU staff also reflect the rich diversity of the GWS region with approximately 40% staff being born overseas across 70 countries (Western Sydney University Office of Equity and Diversity, 2021). With this hyper-diversity imbued throughout the university, WSU has a strong commitment to lead positive transformation of the GWS region (Western Sydney University, 2021a). In 2004, following political and public concerns about quality health care provision in GWS, the Commonwealth and State governments in conjunction with WSU announced the development of the WSU School of Medicine (Western Sydney University, 2021b). The WSU School of Medicine (SoM; established 2007) proudly carries the social accountability mission to improve the health of the GWS community and other under-served regions including rural Australia (McCarthy et al., 2010). The SoM’s 5-year curriculum was founded on evidence-based pedagogical principles including: self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 2000), immersive experiential learning (Maudsley & Strivens, 2000), community-engaged learning (Talib et al., 2017) and partnership pedagogy (Barrie & Pizzica, 2019). These curricular approaches intersect with the hyper-diversity of SoM’s students, academics, professional staff, and community partners, which provides the backdrop for this chapter. As the COVID-19 pandemic reached Australia in March 2020 and immediately started impacting the tertiary education sector (Dodd et al., 2021), WSU SoM faced major challenges with the online shift of teaching and the loss of face-to-face immersive experiences in the hospital, general practice, and community settings. Simultaneously, students and staff living or working in GWS, one of Australia’s most COVID19-affected areas (Nicholas, 2021), were grappling with the sudden changes to their day-to-day lives. This chapter discusses how WSU SoM sustains inclusivity in its curriculum delivery and addresses the digital divide which was accentuated under the COVID-19 pandemic. Following this overview of the WSU SoM context, this chapter provides an outline of the issues faced and addressed by WSU SoM in relation to COVID-19 related digital divide. Three case studies are reported to illustrate these issues, and the common threads and lessons learned will be discussed. This chapter will conclude with recommendations which are applicable across other tertiary education settings including different disciplines, countries, and educational contexts.

2 Digital Divide in Medical Education The ‘digital divide’ phenomenon is both a term that has been used to drive the investigation of observable phenomena (e.g., access or skills and usage of technology) as well as a lens to explore the causes of these differences and the consequences of the stratification of technology access and use in society. The digital divide phenomenon has been explored using a wide array of approaches across multiple disciplines, from economics through to sociology and psychology (van Dijk, 2020). As van

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Dijk (2020) reminds us, the ‘digital divide’ is a metaphor that signifies a binary division which tends to create the impression that the ‘divide’ relates to possession of technologies between the ‘haves and have nots’. This is an important insight because this binary division does not accurately characterise the phenomenon of usage and access to digital technologies. It is a multifaceted phenomenon which requires the consideration of various factors that van Dijk (2020) suggests can be divided into three phases. The first phase of digital divide research (van Dijk, 2020) focused on physical possession of technology, and variables such as educational level, age and gender were used to measure the extent of the ‘digital divide’. The second phase of research introduced by Hargittai (2002) explored equity related to skills and usage of digital technologies. The third phase concerned the benefits of online practice and the consequences of being excluded from meaningful use of technologies. Therefore, the term ‘digital divide’ needs to be viewed as the starting point for an investigation of how technologies are meaningfully integrated in social and individual practices (Warschauer, 2003), taking into account the mediating role of social and cultural factors in engagement with technology (Selwyn, 2004). In this third phase, the discourse of digital divide has two inseparable components. The first component is an exploration of the social and cultural factors related to adoption and use of technologies. The second component is an investigation of the equity issues that arise from the access-based or use-based exclusion. When the discourse of the digital divide is framed in this way, it becomes clear why there are significant implications for learning and teaching because the consequences of forms of the digital divide will have ongoing effects on student learning experiences and learning outcomes. In the context of medical education, there has been a significant amount of reflection and research on teaching and learning during the pandemic (Dost et al., 2020; Leong et al., 2021). In a 2020 survey of medical students in the United Kingdom (Dost et al., 2020), the lived experiences of online learning revealed the multifaceted nature of their experiences. In the domain of learning design, for example, asynchronous learning was reported to provide less opportunity for students to interact with their lecturers. Other factors such as heightened distraction in domestic settings, lack of physical space and the timing of tutorials were seen by students as barriers to effective online learning. There is, therefore, a constellation of factors that provide the contextual narratives for exploring the nature of equity in the practices related to teaching and learning in the medical education space. Our model for addressing the ‘digital divide’ in our medical education context starts with Kahu’s student-centred model for articulating the factors related to student engagement (Kahu et al., 2020) (Fig. 1). In this model, Kahu refers to the ‘educational interface’ that comprises the dimensions of emotion, cognition, behaviour, and student engagement. These student-based factors form the core of the ‘educational interface’. These dimensions are affected by university policies and the wider socio-cultural factors which inform and mediate student learning, including statebased educational policies. This concept can be represented as a three-component model comprising micro (educational interface), meso (university policy), and macro (social and cultural factors) levels.

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Fig. 1 Pathways to engagement: a longitudinal study of the first-year student experience in the educational interface (Kahu et al., 2020). Permission has been obtained for the use of this image

Kahu’s model provides us with an opportunity to indicate the different levels of the digital divide in the medical educational space. This chapter concentrates on the impact on the ways that the digital divide can be addressed at the ‘educational interface’. Three case studies will be presented, followed by a micro-meso-macro analysis and what WSU SoM has done to alleviate the digital divide.

3 Case Studies Case Study 1: Digital Divide in General Adaptation to Online Learning and Teaching The mandated COVID-19 restrictions prompted a shift to 100% online delivery of face-to-face teaching sessions at WSU SoM. While online technology had always been used in blended learning and teaching at WSU SoM (Marjadi et al., 2017; Micheal & Marjadi, 2018), the rapid transition to complete online delivery brought to the forefront several issues which were never encountered previously. Internet availability, low bandwidth, and camera availability were the most common concerns for staff and students. Lack of access to internet and appropriate technology is prevalent in GWS, with up to 40% households not having access to reliable internet in some of the most disadvantaged suburbs (Wester’ly, 2020). Lack of digital skills is another disadvantage. Some academics, professional staff, and guest lecturers had limited digital knowledge and skills required for online teaching at the start of the COVID19 restrictions. Educators were required to quickly improve their digital teaching and learning skills while simultaneously converting their face-to-face teaching curricula to an online format and juggling personal and family challenges in working from

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home. Educators also faced challenges in maintaining students’ engagement and active participation in learning activities. Although the challenge to adapt to full online learning and teaching under COVID19 restrictions was faced by everybody in the education sector, a combination of the complexity in medical teaching and the wide diversity of WSU SoM students, staff, and community partners amplified its magnitude. Many WSU SoM students work part-time to support their studies and their family, and the loss of income due to the closure of businesses under the pandemic restrictions created some serious wellbeing issues for them which negatively impacted their academic performance. Some WSU SoM international students were unable to return to Australia to continue their education due to border closures. The sudden reduction of international student enrolments due to the COVID-19 pandemic was predicted to result in a loss of approximately $19 billion across Australian universities by 2023 (Thatcher et al., 2020). Measures to address the university’s loss of income included a sudden reduction in the number of academic staff who were employed on a casual basis i.e., not on a permanent (tenured) or fixed-term position. These ‘casual academics’ play an important role in the teaching and learning delivery and facilitation across the university. The redeployment of research-focused academics (many of whom had to put their research on hold) to replace the casual academics and support teaching was a welcomed relief. However, many of the research-focused academics needed digital upskilling to deliver online teaching. Hospital-based clinical teachers and some community partners were limited in the online platforms they could use for teaching as set out by their organisational policy on data security requirements. Many clinician-academics also had to adjust to online teaching while managing COVID-19 patients at their practice, and community guest lecturers were struggling to adjust their service delivery model at the same time. Privacy—or the lack thereof—for WSU SoM students, staff, and community guest lecturers quickly emerged as a key concern along with the technical challenges. Students often shared learning spaces with roommates (sometimes from the same cohort), family members, or sometimes with unknown persons in local libraries or cafes. In some instances, the lack of privacy limited students’ ability to divulge information, particularly when discussing the medical details of clinical conditions they encountered in their study and sharing their personal reflections. Educators, particularly those with young children who were being home-schooled or children with special needs, struggled to find quiet spaces to focus and teach. Interruptions from children, life partners and pets, while welcomed and entertaining at times, often disrupted the flow of online teaching and learning. Staff and students’ emotional wellbeing was greatly affected during online learning since physical restrictions brought about social isolation. Adapting to a ‘new normal’ puts considerable pressure on top of the already very heavy study load (for students) and teaching load (for staff) in Medicine. Prior to the pandemic, Australian tertiary students were found to have higher rates of generalised psychological distress and depressive symptoms compared to the general population (Browne et al., 2017). During the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian tertiary students reported greater anxiety and lower wellbeing (Dodd et al., 2021). Students’ inability to engage

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in discussions about their personal wellbeing during online sessions (due in part to the lack of privacy at home or public spaces) reduced their opportunities to debrief and find avenues to improve their emotional wellbeing. Social connections with fellow students and staff, which are integral to supporting wellbeing and building professional identity as medical students, were also severed. While students were encouraged to connect online with peers, these online connections were not seen by students as beneficial as those made during face-to-face interaction, with comments such as “I can see many of my classmates [online], but I don’t have any friends”. The 2020 and 2021 student cohorts started their learning journey with only a couple of weeks face-to-face engagement before COVID-19 restrictions moved all interactions online, severely disrupting the collegiality and camaraderie which just started developing. For staff who missed interacting with colleagues, regular online catchups were organised, but eventually these online sessions added to the screen fatigue from teaching and numerous work meetings. Several other factors led to a lack of motivation in learning and teaching. Professional boundaries in online classrooms were blurred due to some students attending classes while reclining in bed or dressed in their pyjamas. Some students and staff who live with disabilities or chronic pain found it difficult to engage in online learning especially in back-to-back sessions. In large classes such as whole-cohort lectures, the limited visibility of students on online screens made it difficult for educators to gauge students’ engagement and respond accordingly (Toney et al., 2021). One of the most impactful factors to students’ lack of motivation was a sense of identity loss. COVID-19 restrictions meant WSU SoM students were not allowed to enter medical teaching facilities on campus, teaching hospitals, and general practice clinics. Students could not fully feel like medical students since they could not enter these places where their medical student identity was tied (Goldie, 2012). In WSU SoM context where the medical curriculum is fully integrated and clinical encounters occur from the first to the last semester, this sense of identity loss was felt by both pre-clinical and clinical students. Digital fatigue set in as online teaching continued which also affected students’ motivation to actively engage in online sessions. In turn, this lack of students’ motivation affected the educators, since the classroom dynamics were negatively impacted and the educators and professional staff could not provide the level of pastoral care support they would normally do, due to the limitations of the online environment. While the SoM, the University, and several community partners provided counselling and mental health support, medical students’ usage of these services has been notoriously low since before the pandemic due to the fear of being judged as weak or unprepared for the challenges of the profession (Givens & Tjia, 2002), and there was no indication of any marked increase during the pandemic. In summary, the intersecting hyper-diverse context of WSU SoM students, staff and community partners contributed to deepening the digital divide in a broad sense beyond simple access to technology. The next two case studies provide a more indepth look into Problem-Based Learning and Medicine in Context components of the WSU SoM curriculum as two exemplars of specific challenges related to the digital divide.

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Case Study 2: Digital Divide in Problem-Based Learning As in most other medical schools, Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is the hallmark of WSU SoM pre-clinical teaching. The PBL design follows a closed loop cycle (Barrows, 1986) using the 7 steps developed by Maastricht University (Dolmans et al., 1997). WSU SoM students discuss 25 clinical case scenarios in their first year and 27 cases in the second year of study. Each PBL case is discussed in two 2-hour tutorials. In the first tutorial, students are introduced to the clinical case and by the end of the session develop a set of learning objectives. All students undertake a period of self-directed study and then use this information to evaluate and discuss the resolution of the clinical case in the second tutorial. Lectures, practicals, and other learning methods in these pre-clinical years are built to align with and support these case scenarios. The challenges in moving WSU SoM PBL tutorials online within a week’s notice at the beginning of the pandemic were immense. The PBL teaching team had to develop an unprecedented fully online PBL model which would maintain the PBL pedagogical principles, from the highly interactive delivery to formative feedback and assessments (Davis & Harden, 1999). There was a large amount of cognitive overload and teething issues that accompanied the implementation of the new delivery, assessment, and feedback methods. The PBL teaching team had to ensure all staff and students could use the online platform while at the same time trialled a few alternative platforms before deciding on the most suitable. Students and staff needed to be prepared for the online delivery with training sessions/video walkthroughs. The PBL format works best in small groups with intensive interactions (Davis & Harden, 1999). Turning on video during PBL sessions is compulsory at WSU SoM to ensure students’ attendance, enhance group interactions, and equal expectations (Leong et al., 2021). However, the team quickly identified the challenges for students such as distractions from pets, children, or partners in the background. This distraction and embarrassment in front of peers while trying to learn online can be very distressing for students who wish to do well. Since emotions play a key role with motivation (Bate et al., 2014), such distress may contribute to student disengagement during PBL tutorials. The online environment of PBL also created inequity in the assessment of students’ performance and engagement. Naturally quiet students and/or international students whose first language was not English tended to participate less since the more vocal students (often domestic students whose first language was English) were much more comfortable to have their audio on and speak freely. Some students who were less tech-savvy also experienced disadvantage when presenting their learning in tutorials and when they needed to collaborate to develop online mind maps to integrate the case material and their learning. The use of online whiteboards for collaborative in-class learning was also challenging for some students, especially those who had to resort to using a smartphone to join the tutorial. Another important feature of PBL is focused on the constructivist approach, where learning builds on students’ prior knowledge (Hendry et al., 1999). Although students are encouraged to apply their

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prior knowledge during PBL case discussions in class, they are often tempted to take shortcuts e.g. by doing quick internet searches to answer questions, which can be considered a characteristic of surface learning (Marton & Säljö, 1976). This temptation is greater in the online PBL delivery because the limited view of students (from the chest up) prohibits tutors from noticing if students are searching for information shortcuts using additional browser pages and/or other devices. Considering all these factors in the online environment, PBL tutors were instructed to pay particular attention to these issues to ensure fair assessment. However, this extra attention increases the cognitive load and becomes problematic if tutors are limited to using smaller screens and/or when the group size is large. Another challenge when transitioning PBL online was providing formative feedback to students. In face-to-face mode, this feedback is given in one-on-one discussion between students and their PBL tutor. In the online delivery, one-on-one feedback provision could not be run in the first COVID-19 wave because the re-deployed research academics who supported the PBL program still needed to learn about PBL delivery methods. As a temporary solution, the WSU SoM PBL teaching team decided to have tutors review students’ online self-assessment reports and provide detailed written responses as formative feedback. Considering the broader context involving the newly re-deployed tutors, this alternative was the best, albeit not ideal solution. However, experienced tutors were concerned about the loss of open conversation, rapport and trust between tutor and student to unpack the concerns students were having about their progress. In summary, the online transition of PBL as the backbone of pre-clinical year learning and teaching at WSU SoM was compounded by dimensions of the digital divide among students and staff. While the PBL team was able to reduce the negative impacts on learning, some threats against the principles of PBL remain and require ongoing development for alternative methods.

Case Study 3: Digital Divide in Medicine in Context Program Medicine in Context (MiC) is the WSU SoM’s flagship community-engaged teaching and learning program (McCarthy et al., 2010). The program focuses on integrating Social Determinants of Health to clinical patient care. Using a fully immersive approach, the MiC program is delivered via student placements at community partner organisations and General Practice clinics, scaffolded by on-campus tutorials and workshops that are co-delivered by community guest lecturers (Marjadi et al., 2020). Transition to online teaching for the MiC program gave rise to challenges of finding comparable alternatives for students’ face-to-face placements that met the Course Learning Outcomes, provided students with client/patient contact, and accommodated the wide range of students’ and community organisations’ digital access capabilities. In close collaboration between academics, professional staff, students, and community partners (Marjadi et al., 2021), alternative models such as online placements where students were placed virtually at community placement

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organisations were quickly developed. These measures were highly appreciated by students and community organisations. Students reported that they found opportunities to see how the digital divide impacted patients in the community, whose access to health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic greatly depended on their access to digital technology and their digital literacy. However, similar issues mentioned in Case Study 1 also arose during these online placements. The on-campus learning components of the MiC program (tutorials and workshops) adopt gamification (Seaborn & Fels, 2015), experiential learning (Maudsley & Strivens, 2000) and flipped classroom (Brame, 2013) approaches, resulting in highly interactive tutorials and workshops. These interactive methods have not only motivated students to engage with Social Determinants of Health which used to be highly unpopular due to its perceived non-clinical nature, but also led to deep learning as demonstrated in students’ assessment results. Under COVID-19 restrictions which led to campus closure, the MiC team managed to develop innovative ways to retain the gamified, engaging online delivery methods, but quickly encountered dimensions of the digital divide that functioned as barriers among both students and community guest lecturers. Many community guest lecturers whose core business focused on working face-to-face with their clients/patients had limited digital literacy. Some of them had never even used any online meeting platforms before the pandemic, and while they were quite skilful in face-to-face teaching, they struggled with the nearly overnight transition to online teaching. Compounding their limited digital literacy were bandwidth issues and their working from home situation, especially those with young children who had to be home-schooled during the pandemic. Community guest lecturers’ digital issues often intersected with students’ lack of privacy and low bandwidth which resulted in complex teaching and learning challenges. For example, guest lecturers’ struggle with technical issues impacted negatively on their credibility with the students. On the other hand, community guest lecturers at times questioned active engagement of students who may have had cameras off or needed to engage with family members during online workshops. Support for students and community guest lecturers in online learning was provided by academics and/or professional staff. However, the added workload was often a challenge especially since casual employment was very limited due to the reduced budget affecting all Australian universities, as previously mentioned. In summary, the community-engaged learning as applied at WSU SoM (Marjadi et al., 2021) was challenged by aspects of the digital divide which stemmed from the diversity among students and community partners. Creative solutions needed to be developed to address these challenges while retaining the co-design, co-delivery, co-assessment, and co-evaluation pillars of the community-engaged learning model (Barrie & Pizzica, 2019; Marjadi et al., 2021; Talib et al., 2017).

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4 Analysis The three case studies outline various manifestations of digital divide at WSU SoM which were inseparable from the inclusive approach to student and staff recruitment and engagement of community partners in learning and teaching. The WSU SoM response to these challenges is discussed below. Using Kahu’s framework (2020), most of the WSU SoM’s responses fall under the category of micro level (i.e., educational interface). A few notes on the meso and macro levels are discussed briefly afterward.

Micro Level Responses The WSU SoM experiences indicated a need for the promotion of digital literacy. Digital literacy encompasses various types of digital learning practices such as reflection, the construction of knowledge in collaborative learning environments and capacity to engage in self-directed learning (Zimmerman, 2000). It is important to promote digital literacy in the student cohort because teaching and learning is increasingly becoming mediated through learning management systems, and even more so under pandemic restrictions. Self-efficacy in digital learning practices, therefore, needs to be promoted. From the teachers’ perspective, one must not assume that all teachers are equally digital literate. Just as much as students vary in their digital literacy levels, so are the teachers. In a community-engaged learning model such as the one adopted by WSU SoM (Marjadi et al., 2020; 2021), the community guest lecturers also come with a wide range of digital literacy levels which must be supported and developed. Promoting digital literacy is important for university teachers so they can engage in the structures of discourse related to digital communication. Digital literacy also needs to be promoted to community guest lecturers to improve their personal and organisational understanding of digital communication and improve student experience and satisfaction with their teaching. For smooth transition to online delivery, guideline documents, video walk throughs, and online training were developed at WSU SoM. These resources continue to be used as new staff and community guest lecturers join the teaching team. Promoting hybrid learning models is another micro issue which WSU addresses. Higher education institutions need to continue to provide (where possible) hybrid learning modes such as flipped learning models (Micheal & Marjadi, 2018) as well as modes that attempt to combine the online and face-to-face in synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning (HyFlex) (Beatty, 2019). These modes will help to provide flexible learning opportunities for a diverse student body. However, the focus on students’ learning needs must not overlook the digital divide among teachers. The potential for increased workload in delivering multi-methods teaching must also be carefully considered to prevent educators’ burn-out.

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Practical measures for technical improvements also need to be developed at this micro level. For example, WSU uses the ‘Ally’ Blackboard-based tool to make learning materials accessible to students with diverse learning needs. This tool provides students with options to download different formats for various content types. The PBL and MiC teams developed ‘How-to’ documents and/or video walkthroughs for WSU staff, students, and community guest lecturers on creating online IDs, screen sharing, and using breakout rooms and online whiteboards, as these features were identified as keys in the facilitation of workable online teaching delivery methods. For online teaching delivery, which marked a significant difference from the face-to-face version with which the educators had become accustomed, teachers’ guides were rewritten for online delivery which included the ‘How-to’ instructions. To resolve the issues around compulsory use of video cameras, WSU SoM adopted an inclusive approach where students with valid concerns were given permission to turn off their video and even audio, or to join the tutorial through a phone call rather than via the internet, as long as they participated. These inclusive allowances assisted students to focus during class rather than struggling with video-related issues. The PBL team developed online tutorial etiquette guidelines for students with regards to the circumstances for video and/or audio use during class. It has now become standard protocol to discuss this etiquette with students at the start of the teaching session to ensure students are aware of the expectations and flexibility with the online learning environment. Under the pressure to effectively respond to COVID-19 restrictions while maintaining curriculum delivery, providing educational ‘equivalence’ became a significant challenge. This equivalence is becoming increasingly important in the context of online learning as student learning tasks are being increasingly conducted in ‘hybrid’ mode (Binnewies & Wang, 2019; St-Onge et al., 2021). Students who are studying in asynchronous mode, for example, must not be at a disadvantage compared to their peers who are learning in synchronous mode. Assessment tasks for online students also require the consideration of equivalence in the design of assessment tasks for different learning modes. Under pandemic-related or other restrictions, it is also imperative to maintain equivalence with non-pandemic situations, especially since substantial changes are required to maintain educational programmes.

Meso Level Responses At the meso level, the hyper-diverse student and staff populations bring about a challenge in ensuring equity which pertains to both material access to machines and internet access and equivalence in all forms of learning and teaching. WSU SoM also maintains equity and inclusion in recruitment of both students and staff, and in partnering with community organisations. The PBL and MiC teams responded to the COVID-19 restrictions through migration of teaching to fully online mode, which was the first for both teams in the history of WSU SoM. Using the online format allowed the continued delivery of the PBL

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and MiC programs regardless of the pandemic fluctuations and stay at home orders which may change at a short notice. As time progressed and teething problems were resolved, the format for PBL formative feedback in the second semester of online teaching was adapted to simulate “in-person” discussion of performance using the online breakout room functions. This was a practicable measure since by that stage all teaching staff and students had become familiar and comfortable with the online technology. Although this process did require technical capability and time management, it was felt by all teaching staff as a suitable alternative in the online platform that enabled student support in the way pre-pandemic formative feedback was carried out. In the MiC program, full online migration of classroom teaching was accompanied by the development of four format options for immersive community placements. First, students may attend fully face-to-face community placements under strict COVID-19-safe conditions. The second option was a combination of face-to-face and ‘work from home’ placements with a series of homework. Third, students may spend their time in fully off-site ‘work from home’ placements with routine online meetings and discussions with community placement supervisors and/or participation in online service delivery. The fourth option was reserved for the direst situation where no community placement opportunities were available in the peak of COVID19 restrictions, and students were assigned to a ‘virtual community placement’ where they conducted guided self-study on a community service sector. Equity in the amount and depth of learning and in assessments across the four placement formats was achieved through a thorough co-design process by academics, professional staff, student representatives, and community partners (Marjadi et al., 2021), and confirmed via the monitoring of students’ evaluation and assessment results. These measures resulted in the completion of approximately 500 online and a few virtual placements in 2020–2021, allowing the curriculum to be delivered with minimal disruptions. Student feedback on the online program delivery indicated an overall positive picture. PBL student feedback highlighted that they felt well supported in their transition to online learning. Student and staff feedback led to further improvements on the way mind maps are created by the groups and how assessments are conducted to enhance the program moving forward. New PBL teaching methods such as introducing PowerPoint presentation summaries were found to help students in their PBL tutorial presentations and maximise time in class to discuss their research findings with their peers in more detail. The positive impact on student learning has prompted ongoing incorporation of these innovations to the PBL program when returning to campus for face-to-face sessions. Similarly in MiC, online innovations such as bespoke workshops for medical students run by community partner organisations are retained as the face-to-face placement opportunities started becoming available again as the pandemic restrictions were lifted. In both PBL and MiC programs, monitoring of students’ evaluation inputs and assessment results indicated that the modified programs successfully maintained their learning quality compared to the pre-pandemic face-to-face delivery, thus achieving the equity mission.

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Macro Level Responses At the macro level, in terms of the wider implications for health, it is important that students are provided with skills to engage effectively in the area of digital health, which starts with embedding equity in all forms of student learning at the ‘educational interface’. This provision is important because the implications for not addressing the digital divide at the ‘educational interface’ are likely to be felt by patients in the community. Students’ own experiences of the digital divide, and their witnessing of the digital issues faced by SoM staff, community guest lecturers, and patients in the community, provided students with a deep insight into the ways in which technology can become a barrier or facilitator to accessing healthcare. Students realised that healthcare access of some patients, for example those with mobility or transport issues, greatly improved through the use of digital health. At the same time, students also saw the ways in which exclusion from digital technology intersects with and compounds existing disadvantages for many people in GWS, including those with limited English proficiency, low digital and/or health literacy, members of culturally and linguistically diverse communities, people with visual and/or hearing impairments, and people living with mental illness. These first-hand experiences greatly improved students’ understanding of how they can provide patient-centred care to their future patients at a time when technology is fast becoming a centrepiece of health care. Students also gained an understanding of the limitations that health practitioners may have in delivering quality healthcare to patients who face a digital divide and may actively try to overcome these limitations in their future clinical practice.

5 Lessons Learned and Recommendations The WSU SoM commitment to the GWS region ensures deliberate recruitment of students and staff from a wide range of backgrounds which means they have various (and often intersecting) challenges in online learning. WSU SoM’s communityengaged learning and partnership pedagogy approaches include a wide range of community partners in curriculum co-design, co-delivery, co-assessment, and coevaluation (Marjadi et al., 2020, 2021), further adding to the digital divide challenges as WSU SoM manages the pandemic restrictions. WSU SoM’s experiences strongly indicated that the digital divide intersects with and compounds existing disadvantages. Lack of attention to the digital divide at the ‘educational interface’ can have implications for the variation in student learning. Despite significant challenges, WSU SoM’s journey of rapid transition to online learning has been largely positive. During online learning, staff were able to support students’ digital learning and develop innovative, new online teaching methodologies, many aspects of which will be retained on return to face-to-face teaching. The development of WSU SoM teaching staff and community partners’ digital literacy

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and online teaching skills presented an opportunity to upskill and further expand their capabilities. Digital empowerment of teaching staff and community partners has positive cascading effects on students, their organisations and the GWS communities with whom they engage. With strong Academics-Professional Staff-Student-Community partnerships (Marjadi et al., 2021), and supported by the University’s learning and teaching infrastructures, WSU SoM managed to overcome much of the digital divide, as evidenced by two University Excellence Awards in 2020, positive evaluations from students, and students’ comparable academic achievements with pre-pandemic times. WSU SoM review indicated that 59% of academics felt that online and remote learning worked well, a significantly higher proportion (+17%) than the rest of the University. Fifty percent of WSU SoM staff reported that students felt prepared for future flexible and flipped learning (Western Sydney University, 2021b). Furthermore, despite challenges, 77% of WSU SoM staff reported effectively managing worklife balance during the COVID-19 pandemic (Western Sydney University, 2021b). Lessons learned and resilience built during the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions greatly assisted students and staff to once again rapidly transition to online learning in 2021 when the second COVID-19 wave hit the GWS region. Inclusive strategies which lead to diversity in students, staff, and community partners can lead to a positive set of resources and practices in addressing the digital divide. It is imperative that all stakeholders involved in online learning, including academics, professional staff, students, and community partners have input into online learning technologies and experiences. Further research into student experiences of online learning during COVID is necessary to inform the development of future online/blended learning strategies. Student experience of wellbeing during online learning is also critical to ensure adequate support is provided for students for optimal experience of online learning. During times when quick changes occur, it is important to address the immediate requirements necessary for success. However, it is equally important that aspects which were ‘band-aid’ measures are re-evaluated. With the updates that continually occur with online platforms it would be a valuable strategy to have regular reviews since the updates may include features to enhance the online learning experience i.e., the blurred background function to enhance privacy and classroom virtual backgrounds to simulate a classroom feel. In the short term, the transition to an online setting posed numerous challenges for delivery, feedback, and assessment which were due, in part, to the digital divide conceived in its broad sense. However, the online migration also resulted in many positive changes which proved to be beneficial to students’ learning, which WSU SoM decided to retain as face-to-face teaching gradually returned. One of the most important improvements was the increased awareness of the digital divide, which leads to a critical perspective among students, academics, professional staff, and community partners about social justice in the digital era.

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6 Conclusion Commitment to social accountability, diversity, and community-engaged curriculum creates a set of challenges as well as opportunities in managing digital divide in teaching and learning. It is imperative not to get bogged down by the challenges, but instead focus on the richness and resourcefulness of students, university staff, and community partners. The WSU SoM teaching and learning experience under the COVID-19 restrictions has resulted in a stronger, future-proofed curriculum delivery model which would be translatable to other disciplines and educational settings.

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Thatcher, A., Zhang, M., Todoroski, H., Chau, A., Wang, J., & Liang, G. (2020). Predicting the Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Universities. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 13, 188–208. Toney, S., Light, J., & Urbaczewski, A. (2021). Fighting zoom fatigue: Keeping the zoombies at bay. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 48, 10. https://doi.org/10.17705/ 1CAIS.04806 van Dijk, J. (2020). The digital divide. Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press. Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press. Wester’ly. (2020). Digital and Educational Exclusion COVID-19 Submission 115. Sydney: Wester’ly. Retrieved fromhttps://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=bb2f4683-7e56499d-b28d-11fd6a5294c7&subId=682897 Western Sydney University. (2021a). About Greater Western Sydney. Retrieved October 22, 2021, from https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/rcegws/rcegws/About/about_greater_western_sydney Western Sydney University. (2021b). Cultural Diversity. Retrieved October 22, 2021, from https:// www.westernsydney.edu.au/equity-and-diversity/cultural_diversity Western Sydney University Office of Equity and Diversity. (2021). Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD). Retrieved October 22, 2021, from https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/equityand-diversity/cultural_diversity/culturally_and_linguistically_diverse_cald Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Chapter 2 - Attaining Self-Regulation: A Social Cognitive Perspective. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of Self-Regulation (pp. 13–39). San Diego: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012109890-2/50031-7

Associate Professor Brahmaputra Marjadi MD, MPH, PhD, SFHEA, FPHAA is an Associate Professor in Community Engaged Learning and Associate Dean for Engagement at the School of Medicine, Western Sydney University (WSU). He is a multi-award-winning leader in diversity, intersectionality, equity, and inclusion in medicine, public health, and medical education through his vast internal, regional, national, and global networks. He is a Fellow of WSU Badugulang Centre for Teaching and Learning Excellence, a Fellow of the Public Health Association of Australia, and a Senior Fellow and Accreditor of the Advance Higher Education (UK). Brahm is a mixed-methods researcher with particular interests in community engaged medical education; diversity, intersectionality, equity, and inclusion; and cross-cultural knowledge translation.

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B. Marjadi et al. Dr. Sowbhagya Micheal FHEA is a Lecturer in Medical Education and Convenor of the community-engaged Medicine in Context program at the School of Medicine, Western Sydney University (WSU). She has experience working with underserved communities in India, Bangladesh, and Australia. Sowbhagya combines her expertise in public health and teaching by translating community realities and contexts into medical education. She is a Fellow of WSU’s Badugulang Centre for Teaching and Learning Excellence and Advance Higher Education (UK). Her research focuses on teaching innovations, communityengaged medical education, and improving access to health services for marginalised communities. Sowbhagya also initiates and maintains partnerships between the School of Medicine and local community organisations. Dr. Glenn Mason SFHEA is the Lead Learning Science Analyst at Western Sydney University (WSU). He has interests in various areas of technology and education including learning theory, methodology and learning analytics and he has a particular interest in adult learning and technology in the health space. He is the editor of WSU’s Online Engagement and Teaching Hub (OETH) and is a Fellow of WSU’s Badugulang Centre for Teaching and Learning Excellence. Dr Mason’s excellence in technology-enhanced learning has been recognised via a an internationally recognised Australian Office of Learning and Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

Dr. Victoria J. Mansour BSc (Hons), PhD is a Lecturer in Medical Education. She leads the Problem-Based Learning program and the Online Curriculum Roadmap for the preclinical years at the School of Medicine, Western Sydney University. Victoria combines her expertise in the basic sciences and teaching experience into medical education, with specific focus in the pre-clinical stage of the medical programme. She has interests in Problem-Based Learning, curriculum design, integrating approaches that enhance the student learning experience, and partnership pedagogy, with much of her research focused in these areas.

Chapter 4

Challenges Among Visually Impaired Students in Higher Education Towards Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia Sharon Wilson, Rajini Kumar Sreedharam, and Bavani Ramayah

1 Introduction In Malaysia, universities have endeavoured to create an environment that allows every student to move freely and independently in both the social and emotional realms, as well as the physical realm (Sundarasen et al., 2020). The visually impaired student in higher education (HE) is not exceptional. Certain universities have formulated a special policy about disabled students following the nation’s development and HE institutions’ intention to become a PWD-Inclusive university and per the stipulations of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Zaki & Ismail, 2021). However, HE institutions encountered many challenges in providing online teaching for the visually impaired students in the COVID-19 pandemic (Smith, 2020). Many universities were not prepared for online teaching not only for the visually impaired students but also for ordinary students. The existing physical design teaching and learning methods are not suitable for online teaching and learning. Lecturers are expected to be able to select, change, or supplement a suitable framework to ensure that all learner types have access to the learning environment by using specialised educational design standards tailored to their students especially visually impaired students (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013). Unfortunately, the visually impaired students faced many challenges especially the accessibility to information, communication, and technology. In addition, inadequate equipment and hostile settings make it even S. Wilson (B) · R. K. Sreedharam Faculty of Creative Industries, Department of Mass Communication, Universiti Tunku Abdul, Rahman, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] B. Ramayah Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih, Malaysia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_4

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more difficult for lecturers and students to adopt home-based e-learning (Amin et al., 2021). The visually impaired students are not aware of the modern tools or platform of learning such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom (Dhawan, 2020). In such circumstances, they must depend on the support and instruction from their lecturers and other students. This chapter will examine the challenges faced by the visually impaired students towards online learning in the HE during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia. Henceforth the laws that governs the visually impaired people rights for education will also be discussed.

2 Online Learning in Higher Education (HE) During COVID-19 Pandemic Previously, only a few universities that offered distance learning courses offered online learning. Students do not have to physically attend classes if they take an online course, and it is ideal for part-time students because online classes may be adjusted to their schedule. Online courses include practically every subject and they also have flexible timetables to accommodate students’ schedules. Part-time students have embraced online learning as an alternative to traditional classrooms. Students who desire to study abroad can do so while remaining in their own country by taking an online course. E-learning, distance learning, and networked learning are only a few examples of online education. Online education is a method of teaching and learning that makes use of internet technologies to interact and cooperate in a classroom setting. Malaysia has emerged as an education hub in Southeast Asia as a result of substantial reforms in public and private institutions. As result, in most private colleges and universities, the conventional method of face-to-face interaction has gradually given way to online learning. Many public colleges, however, continue to employ the traditional method. There are numerous advantages to instructors who employ online education. One of the advantages of online education is that it allows students to learn at their own pace. Students might also save money by avoiding college or university attendance. Another advantage is that students can complete their assignments by using online books or journals. Since the beginning of the year, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced school closures in nearly every country in East Asia and the Pacific, affecting the education of over 360 million students. The speed and scope of educational disruption were unprecedented, endangering the progress made in access and learning. Students with disabilities, students who relied on classroom support staff, and students who use learning aids and equipment that were not available at home during school closures were more likely to have missed out on learning, and they are especially at risk of dropping out of school if the closures continued. As COVID-19 cases increased rapidly in Malaysia, the Movement Control Order (MCO) was imposed nationwide by the government, resulting in the immediate

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closure of schools and universities. Consequently, teaching and learning were instantaneously transformed into the distance and remote formats. The Malaysian government issued the MCO on March 18, 2020 to prevent the spread of the outbreak in the country (Bunyan, 2020). As the MCO took place, all private and government educational institutions were closed. To sustain teaching and learning processes during the MCO period, the Ministry of Education (MOE) created guidelines for the teachers to execute teaching and learning processes during the outbreak. The MOE encouraged teachers to use the online educational technologies introduced by the ministry, such as the Google Classroom and Microsoft Team, to conduct online education (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2020a). The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the lives of people in many countries, especially students. It is the first global pandemic in recent times, and they have been pushed to wrestle with pandemic situations and struggles till now. However, online teaching and learning became the best alternative mode and the “rescuer” for students and academicians. Online platforms have been the most essential tool since the beginning of the pandemic. They are many studies that highlighted the experiences and challenges encountered by educators and students. However, little attention has been given to people with visual impairment.

3 Visually Impaired People During Lockdown Period A disability is defined as a “continuing condition that restricts activities of daily life”. They are differentiated into visible (e.g., visual impairment and physical disability) or invisible (e.g., mental disability, learning disability, speech impairment, and hearing loss) (Chai & Jing, 2019). Visually impaired people are not only referred to as those who are blind but also those who have less clarity in their vision. Visual Impairment is defined as “a reduction in the clarity with which a person can see objects"(Chou et al., 2013). Visual impairment is divided into several categories such as blindness, low vision, and color blindness. Blindness involves “a substantial, uncorrectable loss of vision in both eyes” (Shadi Abou-Zahra, 2021). The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a person as blind when the person’s vision is worse than 3/60 in the better eye with the best possible correction and his/her visual field is less than 10 degrees from fixation in both eyes. Visions with less clarity and partially sighted are referred as low vision. Tunnel vision, central field loss, and clouded vision are part of low vision. Vision with a lack of sensitivity towards colors refers to color blindness. For instance, people with color blindness will have difficulty differentiating between red, green, yellow, and blue. Visual impairment can occur at any age and ranges from low vision to total blindness. In Malaysia prevalence of blindness for all ages is 0.2% and low vision is 2.44% (based on the National Eye Survey, 1996) (myHEALTH Malaysia Health Ministry, 2021). Visually impaired people use assistive technologies such as hardware and software to interact with web pages. Web users with low vision use magnifiers, extra-large monitors, or screen enhancement software to enhance the size of the font and images

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(Shadi Abou-Zahra, 2021). However, people with color blindness use their own choice of color as an alternative for the font and background color chosen by the web developer (Shadi Abou-Zahra, 2021). Besides people with color blindness and low vision, blind users use a screen reader where the audio mediated software will help to read the web content based on their navigation movement using a virtual cursor (AFB, 2015). A research by Wang et al. (2020) revealed that people with all levels are at risk of COVID-19. Those living with disabilities such as people with visual impairment are among the most vulnerable (Kwegyir Tsiboe, 2020). People with visual impairment encountered several challenges and these challenges were mostly recognized before the COVID-19 pandemic (Brulé et al., 2020; Fuglerud, 2011; Vanishree et al., 2017). Consequently, people with visual impairment become more distressed during the lockdown period due to the physical distancing and/or separation from caregivers and support networks compared to other people from the high-risk group. They face difficulties in performing everyday activities. The sudden transformation causes more issues due to a lack of accessible emergency preparedness plans, and communication. Many research have confirmed that people with visual impairment encountered difficulties during the lockdown period (Bernard et al., 2020; Dobransky & Hargittai, 2020; Dror et al., 2020; Ginley, 2020; Jalali et al., 2020; Ph & Santo, 2021). Remote home working, inaccessible websites, and lacking inclusive design principles are the issues reported in the earlier studies (Dror et al., 2020; Ginley, 2020).

4 Challenges Towards Online Learning Among Students with Visual Impairment in Higher Education (HE) Inaccessible Learning Materials Generally, people with visual impairment use special software to help them accomplish their tasks. Assistive technology is a software or hardware that ease people with disabilities to communicate with the computer. There are software programs that convert text into synthesized speech and people with visual impairment are able to listen to web content. These software programs are called screen readers. A screen reader is the most popular assistive technology utilized by people with visual impairment. The most popular screen readers are JAWS (Freedom Scientific, St. Petersburg, FL) and Window-Eyes (GW-Micro, Ft. Wayne, IN) (Center for Persons with Disabilities, 2016). Screen readers allow users to use a computer and navigate the content in many ways. An accessible material will provide equal access to everyone, and it could work compatibly with any device used by visually impaired (VI) people (Kulkarni, 2019). These accessibility issues occur whenever the screen reader could not interact with material or is not able to interpret the content of the reading material. For instance, JAWS uses a visual cursor that can read online reading materials (WebAIM, 2013).

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However, some of the web content such as non-descriptive graphics, video and audio content without captioning, and overly complex screen layout create barriers to the accessibility and the pages cannot be read by using assistive technologies. According to a report by The News Strait Times (Rayyan Rafidi, 2020), the main issue for visually impaired students in HE in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic was the incompatibility of learning materials with screen readers. Therefore, it is important to ensure that online materials and platforms are accessible to the assistive technology used by students with visual impairment. Siew (2019) reported that visually impaired students in HE were not able to access e-books and e-learning materials due to accessibility issues. Most of the e-materials were unreadable by their computer such as materials with scanned image documents or some softcopy document with too many graphics. The visually impaired students in HE faced various accessibility challenges even before the COVID-19 pandemic. With the sudden transition from face-to-face to online learning in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the needs of visually impaired students are sometimes overlooked. With the urgency of moving teaching mode online due to COVID-19, universities and colleges may even give less attention to whether the platform, teaching mode, or materials are accessible or not.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Related Challenges Various online applications like Google Classroom, Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom are being used to continue teaching–learning process including HE in Malaysia (Shamas-ul-Zia et al., 2021; Rayyan Rafidi, 2020). Students with visual impairment feel it’s difficult to familiarize themselves with each application as some of the features of the applications are not accessible to blind students. One of the blind students stated he was struggling to navigate when using platforms for video conferencing with the support of screen reading software. Besides, the main challenge is when lecturers use the screen sharing feature to display documents (Rayyan Rafidi, 2020). According to them, only screens shared via Microsoft Teams are compatible with the screen reader. Sometimes, blind students would receive the snapshots in class discussions which are inaccessible for them to interpret. As a result, they missed out on plenty of details covered during each lecture. Therefore, inadequacy and technological limitations affect visually impaired students since their learning methods can be time-consuming. This situation can increase dependency on others for assistance for additional support which was very limited during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period. In addition, the entire learning process became more challenging during COVID-19 pandemic compared to other students and it affected the overall performance of the visually impaired students.

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On the other hand, research and reports from various media outlets have highlighted how technological limitations primarily affect students in rural areas such as Sabah and Sarawak, as well as remote areas in Peninsular Malaysia, who lack access to high-speed internet connections to participate in online learning sessions (Azman & Abdullah, 2021; Daily Express, 2020). Some pupils in the B40 income group, which is defined as those from families earning less than RM 3,000 (USD 750) a month, lack technology, gadgets, and equipment like a desktop or laptop computer, as well as a broadband Internet connection (Azman & Abdullah, 2021). This situation may have a negative impact on children with visual impairments in the B40 category.

Limited Support, Guidance, and Communication Barriers Students with special needs feel isolated due to the physical distancing and/or separation from support networks during the COVID-19 pandemic (Hwang et al., 2020; Paramasivam et al., 2022). Particularly, visually impaired students reported that they feel frustrated and isolated due to the limited movement control with their peers on the campus (Paramasivam et al., 2022). Similar to the situations of students around the world, students with visual impairment’s anxiety and stress level resulted from the urgency of mastering new technology, and a lack of self-confidence in a new learning mode (Azman & Abdullah, 2021). This is sensible as students have difficulties managing their learning online. Other common problems during online classes in a home environment are poor self-discipline, lack of suitable learning materials, or an unconducive learning environment. Generally, many students who attend online classes were easily distracted. It became harder for students who are visually disabled to concentrate and have less freedom to ask questions. Conversations during in-person classes help them to discuss and clarify doubts and information. The reduction of in-person interactions causes more communication barriers among students with visual impairment. Therefore, the online teaching mode which was executed hurriedly during the COVID-19 outbreak was clearly the main cause of anxiety for the students (Nortajuddin, 2020; Regehr & Goel, 2020).

5 Laws that Govern and Protect Education is a fundamental pillar to create a humanistic, compassionate, and allinclusive policy to build a nation. Rights to education are vital for everyone, immaterial of concern on race, religion, status, gender, and ability or belief. In any situation, teaching and learning must be performed without any obstacle for a student to have the right to education. The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed in-person teaching and online learning. Assistive technology, communication barriers, assistance from the teacher, external factors such as infrastructure, internet connectivity, lack of

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a successful approach method, and digital literacy skills could make the process unsuccessful, especially for the visually impaired students (Greta Anderson, 2020). The following discussion will begin with the Federal Constitution followed with regulations that protect the rights of education for the disabled people, especially the visually impaired students.

Federal Constitution The Federal Constitution is the supreme law in the country which guarantees the ultimate protection of its citizens without discrimination. This is evident as stated in Article 8, as all persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law (Federal Constitution, 1957). The adaptations of Article 8 on equality issues applied well in Article 12 regarding rights in respect of education. With no influence, there shall be no distinction against any citizen on the reasons only of religion, race, descent, or place of birth. Children with disabilities enjoy equal educational rights as normal children. Therefore, no citizen shall be discriminated against in terms of admission into an educational institution run by public or private authorities. The Federal Constitution does not define disabilities as non-discrimination. Therefore in 2008, as remedial, the Malaysian government enacted the Persons with Disabilities Act, which introduced the notion of equality and non-discrimination for disabled people. In addition, the Act is to be read in the framework of the Federal Constitution as stated in its preamble that persons with disabilities are eligible to equal opportunity and protection as provided by the Federal Constitution (Federal Constitution, 1957).

Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 The Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 was passed in Parliament on December 24, 2007, was gazetted on Jan 24, 2008, and came into force on July 7, 2008. This Act was enacted to protect people who have learning, mental, physical, multiple disabilities, visual impairment, hearing impairment, & speech impairment problems. Persons with disabilities (PWDs) are now eligible to exert their civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights on an equal basis with others. It has been more than 13 years since the Malaysian Persons with Disabilities Act (PWDA 2008) was ratified to defend persons with disabilities. The Malaysian government executed many policies to reduce the problems among persons with disabilities including the visually impaired. The objective of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 are (1) accessibility to the physical, social, economic, and cultural environment; (2) accessibility to health, education, employment, information, and communication; and (3) equal opportunities, protection and assistance in all circumstances (Ang, 2014) and subject only to such limitations, restrictions and the protection of rights as provided by the Federal Constitution of Malaysia (1957). Instituted regulations and compliance requirements

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observed in Malaysian authorized guidelines, such as the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 (Part III of Act 685), which are planned at supporting the establishment of accessibility to public facilities, amenities, services, and equipment for PWDs. Such accessibility is the key for PWDs to entirely and effectively play a part and contribute to the well-being and diversity of the community and society, primarly on access to education, information, communication, and technology (Ang, 2014).

Access to Education, Information, Communication, and Technology Henceforth for discussion, two sections, namely Sect. 28 access to education and Sect. 30 access to information, communication, and technology will be analysed to understand the protections given to visually impaired people (Persons with Disabilities Act, 2008). Section 28 clearly states that the government and private education institutions must provide a basic education from pre-school to university including vocational training on an equal basis without discrimination. This includes appropriate infrastructure, equipment and teaching materials, teaching methods, curricula, and other forms of support that meet the different needs of persons with disabilities. Hence Sect. 28(3)(c) ensured that the education of persons, and in particular children, who are blind, deaf, or deaf-blind is delivered in the most appropriate languages and modes and means of communication for the individual, and in environments which maximize academic and social development (Islam, 2015). Section 30 explains that persons with disabilities shall have the right to access information, communication, and technology on an equal basis with normal people. Both the government and private sector must provide such access in terms of information, communication, and technology in accessible formats and technologies applicable to different kinds of disabilities promptly and without further expense. Therefore, the use of Malaysia Sign Language, Braille, augmentative and alternative communication, and all other accessible means, modes, and formats of communication of their choice by persons with disabilities in official transactions are needed. Many visually impaired students still depend on Braille for learning. Online learning without the inclusion of Braille would limit this group in their learning as in Malaysia not many reading materials are available in Braille (The Star Agency, 2021).

The Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013–2025 The Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013–2025 is the outcome of broad research and public meeting conducted by the Malaysian Ministry of Education. The Blueprint was developed with three specific objectives namely (1) understanding the current performance and challenges of the Malaysian education system, with a focus on improving access to education, levitation values (quality), concluding attainment gaps (equity), nurturing harmony amongst students, and increasing system efficacy;

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(2) creating a strong vision and objectives for individual students and the education system as a whole over the next 13 years; and 3) drawing an inclusive conversion plan for the system, comprising key changes to the Ministry that will permit it to encounter original demands and rising expectations, and to ignite and support overall civil service transformation (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013). The Ministry of Education provides three options of education for children with disabilities as mentioned under the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013–2025 in order to provide equal education access for all children. The three options are the Special Education Programme, Special Education Integration Programme (SEIP), and the Inclusive Education Programme (IEP). There are several categories of Special Education, namely for Visual Impaired, Hearing Impaired, and Learning Disabilities. Special Education students with visual impairment consists of students with visual problems. The method of teaching and learning for students with visual impairment is customized to improve their academic achievement, such as the use of the Braille system (Othman & Rahmat, 2020). The customized method for online teaching is still unresolved.

Education (Special Education) Regulations 2013 The Education (Special Education) Regulations 2013, which was passed on 18 July 2013, provides the essential foundation for special needs education for children with disabilities in Malaysia. These rules repeal the previously debated 1997 regulations that limited the access to special education programmes to those children with disabilities who are “educable” and are able “to operate themselves with no assistance” (The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, 2015). Among the focus of the regulations are Students’ Criteria, Students’ Placement, Teacher, and Teaching and Learning. With reference to teaching and learning alterations in teaching, resource planning and delivery methods can be created to improve learning. Class preparation must be created based on students’ medical reports, profiles, and accomplishment records. Teachers must combine the detailed learning needs of the students in their usual lesson plan. In addition, individual education planning can be prepared to examine their suitable intervention requirements. Hence the shift of online teaching and learning for the visually impaired during the COVID-19 pandemic has formed many challenges, especially for the teachers and students who are not prepared to adapt to technology-base education.

National Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities 2016–2022 The Malaysian government approved a new Plan of Action for Persons with Disabilities (2016–2022) in 2016. This plan is a future development for persons with disabilities in Malaysia which adopted a dual approach, encompassing the Convention on

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the Rights of Person with Disabilities as a global mandate and the regional mandate for persons with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific region, The Incheon Strategy is a strategy to “Make the Right Real” for Persons with Disabilities (2013–2022). The recent plan of action is established on the common standards and obligations specified in the Incheon Strategy (Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, 2016). A few traits were focused such as promoting the rights of persons with mental and intellectual disabilities and enhancing the accessibility of information and technology with inclusive development. This plan would be ineffective if there are no improvements in the accessibility of information and technology for the group, especially for visually impaired students (Othman & Rahmat, 2020). Methods and delivery of teaching methods need to be adapted to the child to optimize academic achievement and daily learning (Latiff et al., 2015).

6 Recommendation The following are recommendations made for HE institutions and policymakers to ensure an accessible learning environment for students with visual impairment to lessen their burden and struggles.

Teaching and Learning Support Our education system has commonly been using a “one size fits all” model, whereby students are exposed to the same teaching styles and evaluation methods regardless of their ability or interest. This method will not work in HE if a class consists of visually impaired students (Hornby, 1999). Generally, before the COVID-19 pandemic, they were required to attend face-to-face classes together with non-special needs students. This is the common practice of HE in Malaysia. Since there are only a small group of students involved in each class and course/program, this approach did not cause a major problem since guidance and support are frequently obtained from their peers and lecturers when they have in-person classes. Unfortunately, students with special needs, especially visual impairment, started to struggle once the in-person classes were converted into online mode. Since they faced many barriers due to their visual limitation, the general teaching style online for all groups of students caused coping issues among visually impaired students and this made them feel neglected. It is impossible to ask the lecturers to design or alter their teaching style based on each student’s disability. However, they could provide a special learning period for disabled students, especially for students with visual impairment to study according to their capabilities. Lecturers can prepare teaching material with a voice-over to enhance the entire learning process and make them available in various accessible formats like Braille, enlarged print, digital book, and audio recording (Shamas-ul-Zia

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et al., 2021; Siew, 2019). These substitute methods and extra efforts could prevent students with visual impairment from feeling left out. Previous research on online learning directed towards the incorporation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching indicated that teachers and students have very little awareness of technology and handling of equipment (Ziadat, 2019). For educational institutions, an introduction session followed by comprehensive ICT training should be provided on each campus to ensure that visually impaired students receive all information and knowledge they need to begin their HE careers (Mahfuz et al., 2021). This includes additional training to HE academicians who teach and support visually impaired students (Vashkar & Shahriar, 2021).

An Inclusive Campus with Accessible Facilities In terms of technology, everyone should have access to a computer with the necessary software, including Braille displays, headphones, speakers, and audio transcriptions. Braille printers and associated software should be made available at all computer labs on campus. Students should also be able to take their tests online to reduce their reliance on volunteers. If one or more visually impaired students are detected, educators should audio record their lectures and regulations should be implemented to handle copyright infringement when recording parts of books for academic purposes. Apart from infrastructure that is accessible to visually impaired students, GPS-accessible mobility solutions for visually impaired students to roam around the campus on their own can be provided (Mahfuz et al., 2021).

Public and Private Universities To support students with visual impairment in developing positive identities, developing a sense of belonging, and realising their full potential, universities must create an inclusive environment where equality is upheld and diversity is recognised. For the benefit of the university’s community, particularly students with visual impairment, inclusive ideals must be embedded into its fundamental ecology of teaching and learning, governance structure, student support system, and infrastructure. University policies must strive to give visually impaired students with equal opportunities and make the university online teaching completely accessible to them. These rules must protect the rights and interests of visually impaired students while also improving the country’s education quality and enhancing the university’s international reputation. The accommodations made to satisfy the needs of visually impaired students should include facilities, equipment, and services because it is their right to have their needs met and maintained, just as it is for non-disabled students. These activities are not acts of charity or corporate social responsibility; they are simply carried out when a company has extra cash or employees. Standard operating procedures for teaching

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and learning, industrial training, examinations, counselling services, scholarship, and financial support are all part of the Inclusive University Policy implementation.

Improvisation of PWD Act and Related Policies Rights for education are a natural right for everyone. One of the most significant way people can embark on their life is with the protection provided by existing rules and regulations in education. This education should be available without any obstacles for everyone especially for the visually impaired students under any circumstances as stated in Article 12 of the Federal Constitution. Even though the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008’s objective is to protect the disabled people but the adoption and implementation by the government and private educational institutions and other related sectors are puzzled especially in teaching online for this group of students. The students’ access to online learning would be difficult as many medium providers are not prepared for such teaching for this type of group. Reasons for the problems in PWDs are numerous, ranging from a lack of understanding of disability to an absence of effective policies and legislation to protect the rights of the visually impaired. The Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 needs to be reviewed and improved to protect and make the online teaching and method better for the visually impaired students. The government or lawmakers must understand that the existing PWD Act 2008 and related policies were made before the COVID-19 pandemic in which there was no focus on accessibility issues for people with visual impairment pertaining to online learning in HE. Therefore, the existing Section 28 (access to education) and Section 30 (access to information, communication & technology) of the PWD Act 2008 need to be amended especially on the enforcement of punishment and penalties. There are no punishment and penalties stated in the PWD Act 2008 for the defaulter at the current stage. Incorporating punishment and penalties in the PWD Act 2008 would encourage HE providers to be more responsible and vigilant in providing online learning platforms that are accessible to the visually impaired students. Moreover, the rules and regulation such as the Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013–2025, Education (Special Education) Regulations 2013 and National Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities 2016–2022, should be improvised. The improvisations need to be focused on the online teaching and learning methods for the visually impaired students. For policymakers, visual impairment awareness and sensitivity training should be provided to all university-level instructors and administrative employees. To create an inclusive campus, the state and federal governments should devote more funds for HE institutions. Issues involving the physically and visually impaired students should be dealt with by the Ministry of Education instead of the Ministry of Social Welfare to mitigate bureaucratic “red tape.“ All government websites and job sites should be made visually impaired student friendly. These recommendations are not specific to Malaysia but can be incorporated in other countries as well where displaced visually impaired policies can be rectified to ensure that visually impaired students are included in receive equal

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education and privileges as their visually abled colleagues. Protection of laws must be in practice when considering the challenges faced by visually impaired students rather than in a document.

7 Conclusion In a nutshell, visually impaired students in HE face challenges in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The major contributors to their dissatisfaction were: (a) Inaccessible learning materials, (b) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related challenges and (c) Limited support, guidance, and communication barriers. Therefore, visually impaired students can benefit from changes to the existing online teaching style as well as additional aid, better communication, consistent support, and advice. Instructors will struggle to impose and meet certain standards without sufficient training, equipment, and online materials. The challenges can be addressed with more university support by addressing the needs of visually impaired students and enhancing academic staff capacities while preserving the quality of online education during the epidemic. The existing laws and regulations in Malaysia protect the rights of education for the visually impaired students. However, there should be amendments in term of its enforcement and penalties. This would encourage HE institutions to implement online teaching and learning without neglecting the rights of visually impaired students in Malaysia.

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Dr. Sharon Wilson holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and received her BA in Translation and Interpretation and a Master’s in Communication from Universiti Sains Malaysia. She has been a Scholar of the Study of the United States Institutes’ Journalism and Media Program (SUSI) at Ohio University and a Fellow of the Summer Institute for Asia Fellows in News Literacy Program in Hong Kong. In 2020 she received the first place in the ICD teaching competition. Her research focuses on media, crime and society and woman and identity. Currently, she chairs the Center for Media and Communication Research (CMCR) at University Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Dr. Rajini Kumar Sreedharam is a Social Scientist & Leadership Coach. Currently he is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Creative Industries, University Tunku Abdul Rahman. Academically, he has completed PhD in Law at National University of Malaysia (UKM), Master’s degree MSc (Corporate Communication) at University Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Degree is in LL. B (Law) from Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom. He is highly specialized in consultancy and expert in solutions management with a strong capacity to conduct independent research and accreditation process in which he has published journals and conference papers. He has 20 years of progressive teaching experience in various national and international universities in Malaysia. His current research is on the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 and Elections Act 1958 in protecting visually impaired person’s freedom of expression in casting votes in Malaysia. Dr. Rajini Kumar is also a Certified Corporate Trainer by the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) Malaysia. Having more than 16 years of training experience which has groomed him to be an excellent internal and external communicator with a great leadership skill. His expertise reaches approximately 23 corporations across all industry platforms, including the Cabinet, Constitution, and Inter-Government Relation Division of the Prime Minister’s Department. Dr. Rajini Kumar serves as an Accredited Mediator and was selected as a Professional Panel Member by the Malaysian International Mediation Centre (MIMC) affiliated with the BAR Council Malaysia.

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Dr. Bavani Ramayah is an Assistant Professor in Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia with 17 years’ experience working in academic field and 4 years in industry as a programmer. She obtained her PhD in Visual Informatics from National University of Malaysia (UKM) and Bachelor of Science and MSc in Computer Science from University Putra Malaysia (UPM) Malaysia. She is a Professional Technologist under Malaysian Board of Technologist (MBOT) and a fellow of the Higher Education (FHEA) Academy UK. She is an active member in IEEE and appointed as the secretary of IEEE-Consumer Technology Malaysia Chapter for the year 2019-2023. Her current research interests are Human Computer Interaction and Teaching & Learning. Since year 2008, Dr Bavani actively involves in research related to visually impaired people by closely working with Bind association in Malaysia. Besides, she has authored journals, conference proceedings and serves as a reviewer in number of journals.

Chapter 5

The Motivational Divide: Addressing the Diverse Student Body in Challenging Times Jessica Grace Cockburn, Wei-Han Hong, Yang Faridah Binti Abdul Aziz, Jamunarani S. Vadivelu, and Chan Choong Foong

1 Introduction Offering higher education programmes online during the COVID-19 pandemic was the best choice to continue education while following public health orders. The advances in online education have already transformed the delivery of higher education and its usage is increasing (Anderson, 2008; Dorn et al., 2020; Srivastava et al., 2022). However, (Dorn et al., 2020; Srivastava et al., 2022) the transition of programmes to virtual spaces during the pandemic, despite the validity, was met with significant challenges that resulted from hastily converted materials and students needing to adapt (Foong et al., 2021a, 2021b; Guragai et al., 2020). This resulted in a digital divide between students with different identities and psychosocial needs who were differentially advantaged.

The original version of the chapter has been revised: The author’s “Chan Choong Foong” given name and family name have been updated. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_14 J. G. Cockburn (B) University Health Network, Toronto, Canada e-mail: [email protected] W.-H. Hong · C. C. Foong Medical Education and Research Development Unit (MERDU), Universiti Malaya, Malaya, Malaysia Y. F. B. A. Aziz Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Malaya, Malaysia J. S. Vadivelu Medical Education and Research Development Unit (MERDU), Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Universiti Malaya, University Malaya, Malaya, Malaysia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2024 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_5

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The diverse needs of higher education students are important considerations for the equitable classroom (Dalton et al., 2019; Ludwig et al., 2020). Student identity includes many factors like: gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. But it also arises in domestic stability, health history, and personal experiences (Meyer & Cui, 2019). Diverse groups are being increasingly represented in higher education (Dorn et al., 2020; Vieira et al., 2020), making it necessary to provide inclusive programming (Bertolin et al., 2021; Dalton et al., 2019; Gordon et al., 2016; Rogers-Shaw et al., 2017). This requires careful planning, which wasn’t possible when rapidly transitioning to virtual learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic (Biju et al., 2022; Bodhi et al., 2022; Salta et al., 2022). This unintentionally resulted in a multi-faceted digital divide related to student advantages and disadvantages. For example, online learning improved flexibility, which added accessibility for busy students, but required technical resources, which reduced accessibility for students with limited internet (Foong et al., 2021a, 2021b; Meda & Waghid, 2022). However, even with students who benefited, as for some students with physical disabilities, preference remained for in-person study (Bartz, 2020; Meda & Waghid, 2022). This chapter explores how remote learning affected motivation in these various groups.

2 Diversity in the Classroom Inclusive classroom environments provide all students with an opportunity to participate in conducive learning experiences and meet the needs of increasingly diverse student bodies (Coffman & Draper, 2022; Vieira et al., 2020). Positive inclusive environments encourage learning and must meet the needs of many students in a single space (Baker et al., 2020). This is challenging in classrooms, though given common ground and a neutral physical space, it is possible to establish an equitable classroom culture that respects diversity while instilling boundaries, norms, and expectations for each student (Hansen-Thomas & Chennapragada, 2018; Kavrayici, 2021; Villanueva Alarcón et al., 2021). Students are also an important part of the culture as they contribute to the environment and learn from each other (Meyer & Cui, 2019; Schneider et al., 2022). However, it is more difficult to provide these features in remote classrooms, since remote learning occurs in personal silos (Bodhi et al., 2022; Schneider et al., 2022; Taylor et al., 2020). When students moved from physical to remote classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic, they experienced reduced inclusiveness that divided student learning opportunities.

Learning Preferences In addition to social learning, participating in traditional physical classrooms provides opportunity for students to use various learning modalities that support visual, aural, and kinaesthetic styles. While capable of learning in each style, students

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gravitate towards specific modes (Rovers et al., 2018). These are inherent in most programmes that provide content through lectures, readings, tutorials, and labs. This is important because students who use preferred modalities enjoy the subject more (Karadag & Yasar, 2010) and results in better academic performance (Price Banks & Vergez, 2022; Smale-Jacobse et al., 2019). Delivery was simplified during the pandemic, resulting in students having less choice in learning strategy and with less enjoyment (B˛aczek et al., 2021; Díaz-Noguera et al., 2022; Muthuprasad et al., 2021). Of course, some students were happy and motivated to learn given quality in learning content, infrastructure, competency in technical and communication skills, readiness, and follow up (Foong, et al., 2021a, 2021b; Gustiani, 2020; Muthuprasad et al., 2021). Moving forward, it is important to offer options for students that utilize the strengths of multiple modalities.

Cultural Expectations Another challenge to providing inclusive classrooms is anticipating student reactions in certain situations based on values aligned to their cultural group (Krishnan et al., 2019). Higher education institutions with international student bodies must support the values of individuals and not encroaching on those of others (Liu et al., 2010; Srivastava et al., 2022). Doing this provides an opportunity for more efficacious and collaborative learning (Bodhi et al., 2022). Hofstede’s four-dimensional model helps to evaluate cultural responses in higher education during the pandemic (Cranfield et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2010). For example, collective needs of entire classes were more frequently prioritized, though this is valued differently, particularly when these decisions challenge existing power structures (Cranfield et al., 2021; Firat, 2016; Liu et al., 2010). Exploring how online learning challenged certain social-cultural belief systems helps to understand how the digital divide arose between students from different backgrounds.

3 Self-regulation During COVID-19 During the COVID-19 pandemic, students faced a change from teacher- to learnerdependent environments, requiring self-regulation (Chitra et al., 2022; Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009). Learners had to be readied to meet learning outcomes effectively and independently during the pandemic (Hong et al., 2021), since students might not have developed the self-regulation needed to meet the challenges of the COVID19 pandemic (Edisherashvili et al., 2022; Patel et al., 2015; Pelikan et al., 2021) or who were predisposed to cultural patterns of self-regulation (Chen et al., 2015; Harrison et al., 2016; Sheldon, 2012). The transition to distance learning midsemester also affected self-regulation, since it required early goal setting and identification of resources (Foong, et al., 2021a, 2021b; Rovers et al., 2018) with the

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added challenge of simultaneously adapting to the modifications and developing new study habits (Pelikan et al., 2021). Discussing factors that contribute to selfregulation, particularly motivation, shows why students responded so differently to the modifications.

Motivation Motivation is a multi-dimensional factor for self-regulated learning that can be influenced by personal needs, behaviours, and experiences (Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009). Several learning theories describe the complex nature of motivation (Table .1) and provide insight to mechanisms and factors needed for learning (Cook & Artino, 2016; Frank et al., 2010; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Weiner, 1985; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Specifically, satisfaction of individual needs is necessary and positive experiences and intrinsic motivation leads to excellence, making it an important consideration for educators (Cook & Artino, 2016; Dettweiler et al., 2017; Kusurkar, 2018). External factors, like academic recognition and inclusive environments also significantly contribute to learning (Altuwairqi et al., 2021; Bodhi et al., 2022; Rashid et al., 2019). COVID-19 modifications led to changes in experiences and internal and external motivators, greatly affecting student learning (Bodhi et al., 2022; DíazNoguera et al., 2022; Pelikan et al., 2021; Salta et al., 2022; Tempski et al., 2021). Since student motivation is built on identity, experience, and preference, it also aligns to the digital divide.

4 The Virtual Wall Despite providing similar content, virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic created a virtual wall between students and their education. Despite the continued flow of content to students, unintended consequences resulted in dampened relationships, increased worry, and decreased engagement. These affected students differently, depending on personal and social factors, creating a digital divide between student populations around the world.

Emotional Disconnect The virtual wall has technical and personal limitations that negatively impact emotional stability. It is well established students benefit from peer and instructor interactions at school, including casual conversations and during group study (Alawamleh et al., 2020; Dost et al., 2020; Khalil et al., 2020; Leal Filho et al., 2020). In-person learning modalities are critical for relationship building, and comparable

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Table 1 Motivational theories Theory

Concepts

Impact on learning

Possible teacher/ institutional role

Attribution

• Personal • Personal and • Support the experiences, either environmental development of positive or negative, factors influence appropriate and positive contribute to perception of student attributions expectations and learning success or • Provide effective feedback, avoiding effect emotions and failure attribution errors such as • Emotions and motivation labelling motivation that • Avoid assumptions: emerge from the attributing success to learning high effort or failure to experience depend low aptitude on: locus, stability, controllability • Learning experiences, in turn, affect emotion and motivation for future learning

Expectancy-value

• Expectancy drives • Success or failure motivation towards in learning is achieving a task influenced by • Belief in success is perception influenced by: goals, • Students more self-concept, readily engage in difficulty, ability valued tasks • Perception of the • Valuation related value of the task is to the expected influenced by: success influences interest, importance, realized success utility, priorities/ costs

• Select students who value their programme of interest • Train students to develop realistic expectancy of success based on ability • Outcomes/competence are explicitly articulated to students • Effective feedback to increase competency • Emphasize attainment of domain-specific competency (continued)

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Table 1 (continued) Theory

Concepts

Impact on learning

Possible teacher/ institutional role

Goal orientation

• Performance goals • Performers are set by students are more often feel influenced by how actions are they wish to be predicated on perceived by others abilities • Mastery goals set by • Performers who students are don’t reach influenced by their expectations are desirability to learn vulnerable to avoidance to limit perceived failure • Mastery learners more often embrace failure as a learning opportunity

• Reiterate that competencies are learnable tasks • Progressively increase the depth and complexities of concepts by repeatedly introducing themes throughout the programme • Remove extrinsic motivators and focus on the development of competencies • Effective feedback encourages mastery

Self-determination

• Three underlying • Curriculum that psychological needs supports students for self-motivation: promotes relatedness, excellence and autonomy, lifelong learning • When extrinsic competency rewards (grades) • Quality of are removed, motivation ranges motivation to from unmotivated, sustain learning external motivation, decreases internal motivation • Internal motivation is self-sustaining

• Autonomy: provide student choice and open communication • Competence: encourage reflection of personal achievements • Relatedness: integrate and involve student interests and • Use student-centred teaching strategies • Recognize competency development as assessment

Sources Cook and Artino (2016), Dweck and Leggett (1988), Ryan and Deci (2000), Weiner (1985), Wigfield and Eccles (2000)

versions of these activities provided during the pandemic were not as enriching, leading to reduced feelings of relatedness (Atwa et al., 2022; Brewer et al., 2021; Dhillon et al., 2020; Dost et al., 2020). Further, isolation caused by the virtual wall was damaging worldwide, as students reported feeling lonely, demotivated, and bored (Browning et al., 2021; Knight et al., 2021; Sahu, 2020). Student identity plays a role in these feelings (below), so it is important to consider how preferences and cultural values contribute to the emotional disconnect.

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Student Preparedness The ultimate goal of higher education is to train for future endeavours, but students reported feeling less prepared due to the use of virtual environments (Choi et al., 2020; ten Cate et al., 2021), even though modifications were aligned to existing curriculum (Foong et al., 2021a, 2021b). Students from practical programmes, like medicine and engineering, were particularly at risk of feeling unprepared as many relied heavily on simulations, virtual guided labs, and reliable access to digital resources (Almomani, 2019; Balasubramaniam & Indhu, 2016; Baltà-Salvador et al., 2021; Tabatabai, 2020). Self-regulation requires forethought and planning that would have been disrupted during the COVID-19 transition, which is likely why students felt unprepared as if they hadn’t met their goals (Pelikan et al., 2021; ten Cate et al., 2021). Another consideration is that students felt less confident (Hong et. al., 2021), indicating the need to understand how feelings of unpreparedness arose.

Virtual Classroom Engagement As above, a positive and inclusive learning environmental is critical for student learning, which was disrupted by the virtual wall. Communication between students, teachers, and administrators was impacted technically and socially. First, the ability to provide updates or receive feedback was ineffective, through lost e-mails and outdated e-notices (Alawamleh et al., 2020). Also, during synchronous sessions, students unable to use their cameras left peers and lecturers unaware of questions or concerns (Castelli & Sarvary, 2021; Corcuera et al., 2021). Other environmental factors that were modified, like required and monitored attendance, may have dissuaded students who are otherwise active in their learning (Cockburn et al., 2022; Firat, 2016; Pelikan et al., 2021; Surkhali & Garbuja, 2020). Further, the monotonous nature of the modifications and prolonged screen-time made it challenging for students to remain engaged (Baltà-Salvador et al., 2021; Cowan et al., 2022). Creative delivery and new strategies are needed to better engage students.

The Digital Divide The digital divide resulting from the virtual wall during the COVID-19 pandemic represents student groups who experienced similar modifications but with vastly different experiences. For example, pre-recordings potentially increase feelings of competence, as students can rewatch segments to improve understanding or increase relatedness for those who were able to learn in a more comfortable home environment. Comparatively, students with limited technical resources were disadvantaged by pre-recordings (Foong et al., 2021a, 2021b; Muthuprasad et al., 2021; Surkhali &

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Garbuja, 2020). Education should be equitable, so disadvantage caused by the digital divide in this way must be evaluated and rectified for future students.

5 Divergences in the Digital Divide When COVID-19 emerged, the modifications were meant to be a short-term stopgap with minimal consequence, but the challenges were exacerbated by lengthy restrictions (Ilangarathna et al., 2022; Meagher et al., 2020). Most students continued learning online satisfactorily, which is established in the validity of inclusive virtual learning (Kirupainayagam & Sutha, 2022). However, some students had different experiences, with more ill-effects for those from vulnerable groups (Bartz, 2020; Zabadi et al., 2016). The following focuses on several areas of inequity and is meant to emphasize, rather than quantify, the digital divide as it relates to the psychosocial aspects of learning.

Gender Inequality Gender inequity during the pandemic is well described, which transcended into higher education and frequently presented as differences in mental health. This is partly due to unbalanced domestic responsibilities, with females carrying the burden in most cultures (Connor et al., 2020), and also been attributed to an absence of females in leadership during the pandemic (Meagher et al., 2020). Following this, female students who are normally more motivated, were less motivated during the pandemic (Abreu et al., 2021; Amerio et al., 2021; Ettman et al., 2020), resulting in higher mental strain (Abreu et al., 2021; Cockburn et al., 2022; Suleri, 2020). Students were also expected to resume cultural gender-roles when they returned home, which may affect the inclusivity of their learning environment (Abreu et al., 2021; Connor et al., 2020; Kodagoda & Samangika, 2019). Other psychosocial factors also contributed to gender experiences, particularly in disciplines with existing gender-bias (Osman & Keevy, 2021), all of which must be remedied.

Ethnic Diversity Evidence suggests that ethnicity was associated with different learning experiences during the pandemic (Cockburn et al., 2022; Ilangarathna et al., 2022). For example, some Sri Lankan students felt motivated by supportive families (Ilangarathna et al., 2022), whereas some Indonesian students were asked to carry out household duties that disrupted time management (Gustiani, 2020). Students in Malaysia reported cultural differences in communicating pandemic-concerns, which

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may reflect cultural perceptions of autonomy or power distance (Cockburn et al., 2022; Díaz-Noguera et al., 2022). Showing how it is helpful to apply the Hofstede model to interpret of these reactions (Díaz-Noguera et al., 2022). Cultural equity was also challenged when non-representative images emerged in modified digital materials (Ooi et al., 2021). Further, global inequities existing in low/middle-income countries and conflict-zones were intensified in education during the pandemic (Kirupainayagam & Sutha, 2022; Meagher et al., 2020). Awareness and cultural sensitivity are key to improving any disadvantages experienced by various cultural and ethnic communities (Azer, 2020; Bayne et al., 2020; Vieira et al., 2020).

Resource Disparity While use of virtual learning improves accessibility for those with spatial limitations, it remains a challenge to those with technical constraints (Batool & Liu, 2021). Roughly two-thirds of people 25 years-old and below do not have internet access at home, most in low-income countries (Pablo et al., 2020), and almost a quarter of students who do, have poor connectivity (Castelli & Sarvary, 2021; Selvanathan et al., 2020). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the burden of resource disparity extended into self-regulated learning by creating greater feelings of isolation and lower quality of communication, increasing the risk of mental stress and reduced motivation (Browning et al., 2021; Cleofas & Rocha, 2021; Cockburn et al., 2022; Section of Education Policy, 2020). Monetary stability was also a contributor to student worry for those with unstable part-time jobs and for those whose families lost income (Ilangarathna et al., 2022; Tsurugano et al., 2021; Wadsworth, 2021). Devices and allowances were offered to mitigate some of the socioeconomic disparity, but the availability of these were limited (Cleofas & Rocha, 2021). Ultimately, the reliance on technology had secondary consequences on learning for students with fewer resources.

6 Student-Centred Solutions Online education was a ubiquitous solution to continue higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many validated and effective online learning strategies, but there are fundamental differences between physical and virtual learning environments (Osman & Keevy, 2021; Surkhali & Garbuja, 2020). Major advantages to online learning exist, particularly for flexibility and accessibility, making it a crucial modality for higher education (Suleri, 2020). However, the virtual wall forces delivery towards direct instruction with reduced student involvement (Biju et al., 2022) and relies on self-regulated learning using personal resources. The pandemic highlighted inequities in higher education online, but also provided great insight to the need and ability to incorporate student motivation for the success of

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online learning (Giralt, 2020; Hansen-Thomas & Chennapragada, 2018; Krishnan et al., 2019; Villanueva Alarcón et al., 2021). Moving forward in this way, solutions should focus on restructuring programmes with inclusivity and accommodation in mind (Rajapuram et al., 2020; Sanderson et al., 2022). Diversity in the digital classroom must be addressed thoroughly and systematically, including student and faculty readiness. Unfortunately, most institutions lacked time or proficiency for inclusive delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic (Bartz, 2020; Khalil et al., 2020). Planning must include social supports alongside cognitive and affective materials to facilitate learning for all students (Schneider et al., 2022). Accepted frameworks should be used to guide the development of accommodating and inclusive educational resources, which highlight pre-emptively identifying diverse student needs for the purposes of delivering equitable programmes (Table .2). Educators should be aware of resources to help create or transition to online learning, for needs assessment, or to reach a certain outcome (Bayne et al., 2020; McTighe & Wiggins, 2012; van Vulpen, n.d.). It is also important to use frameworks that align social elements with curriculum components (Schneider et al., 2022). Educators should feel empowered to identify and contextualize validated frameworks, to meet the needs of their own student body, regardless of the strategy used.

7 Conclusion While the COVID-19 pandemic devastated higher education, it resulted in important lessons about diversity and inclusion in higher education. Understanding the psychosocial impacts from online learning makes it possible to identify the aspects of distance learning that are successful, like added flexibility, and those which need to be improved, like fostering relationships. Further, effects of the digital divide can be rectified if carefully addressed, so raising awareness of these issues and equipping educators will help to meet the needs of students returning with a range of pandemic experiences. Helping students transiting from online classes to physical classes may be useful, and the strategies to do this should be further researched. Continued monitoring and evaluation of the digital divide in a range of subpopulations will also ensure that the field is moving towards more equitable and effective educational practices in an increasingly digital world.

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Table 2 Inclusive education design resources Resource

Description

Guidance provided

Sources

Universal Design for Learning (Higher Education)

Three principles: multiple means of engagement, representation, action & expression

• Diverse student bodies • Existing knowledge of student needs

La et al. (2018)

Understanding by Design

A three-stage ‘backward’ design framework to develop educational programmes and materials

• Established outcomes • Flexible programming foundations

McTighe and Wiggins (2012)

Supporting Self-Regulated Learning

A systematic review of interventions to target independent learning in distance programmes

• Strategies to target Edisherashvili et al. motivation, emotion, (2022) cognition, or metacognition • Strategies to target appraisal, preparation, or performance

The Manifesto

20 statements to • Reviewing online consider for online programmes • Digital-specific education including: considerations context, aesthetic, and surveillance

Bayne et al. (2020)

Co-Creation

Six stages to include a • Students wanting to student in curricular contribute • Stakeholder design engagement at various stages

Nam and Lee (2021)

Needs assessment

Qualitative and quantitative strategies for determining educational needs

Mccawley (2009)

ADDIE

Five step process for • Integration of needs curriculum design and assessment • Comprehensive implementation design model

A Framework for the Stages for continuation and Day After improvement of higher education

• Existing stakeholder populations • Identify needs and resources

• Restructuring while continuing programmes • Politico-Structural guidance

van Vulpen (n.d)

Francesc et al. (2020)

(continued)

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Table 2 (continued) Resource

Description

Cultural Themes

Considers patterns of • Educational cultural-specific strategies that dimensionalities in the complement classroom perceived power structures, collectivism, gender beliefs, etc

Guidance provided

Liu et al. (2010)

CASTLE

Framework for integration of social cues in cognitive-affective domains of learning

Schneider et al. (2022)

• Determining how to use social cues effectively • Building a learning experience

Sources

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J. G. Cockburn et al. Dr. Jessica Cockburn earned a Ph.D. in Pathology and Molecular Medicine from Queen’s University, studying the RET protooncogene. This was followed by a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at McMaster University, designing predictive breast cancer gene signatures. During her time in cancer research, she recognized the importance of evidence-based medicine (EBM). She then completed a Bachelor of Education from the University of Calgary to focus on the role of education in EBM. She recently finished a Senior Lectureship in the Medical Education and Research Development Unit (MERDU) within the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, studying the development of EBM competencies. She is currently working at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre studying cancer genetics and health equity. Dr. Hong Wei-Han is a Senior Lecturer in the Medical Education and Research Development Unit (MERDU), Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her first degree and Master degree was in Science Education. Dr. Hong holds a Ph.D. in Medical Education from Universiti Malaya. She has been attached to the Medical Education unit since 2013 and is the Curriculum team lead for the undergraduate medical program. She also has special interests in research pertaining to students’ admission, curriculum development, metacognition and students’ motivation.

Professor Dr. Yang Faridah Binti Abdul Aziz is an academic professor and a consultant radiologist at the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. She received her MBBS Bachelor and Radiology Master training at Universiti Malaya. She underwent training in Cardiac Imaging in the United States in 2000/ 2001. She is an alumnus of the IDC programme organized by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) focusing on training academics on higher education and change management. In 2022, she completed a Master’s degree in Medical Education. As an academic, she is involved in developing, implementing, and ensuring quality improvement of the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. As a radiologist, she provides clinical services especially in cardiac imaging at the Universiti Malaya teaching hospital. She was the Deputy Dean of Undergraduate 98 (2015-2021) and is a member of the Malaysian Medical Council (since 2017). She is currently the chair of the Medical Education Committee for the Malaysian Medical Council (since 2020).

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Professor Dr. Jamuna Vadivelu graduated with a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom (UK) and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the University of Maryland, United States (US). Fellow of the Foundation of Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) under the auspices of ECFMG, USA. She followed a two-year programme to develop skills in leadership and implementation for undergraduate and postgraduate and medical education. Currently, entrusted with leading and managing the curriculum revision, implementation, and quality assurance of the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula at Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. Dr. Chan Choong Foong obtained his Ph.D. in Education from Universiti Malaya, Malaysia, and has been a faculty member at the same institution since 2013. He developed, and now becomes Programme Coordinator for Master of Medical Education. He is also Programme Quality Assurance Expert at the institution. At the Faculty of Medicine, he functions as the Lead for Programme Evaluation, and Personal and Professional Development theme coordinator for the undergraduate medical programme. He is a fellow of Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER).

Chapter 6

From Physical to Online Learning: The Digital Divide in Higher Vocational Education Yun Fah Chang and Zhongyan Hu

1 Background At the end of 2019, the sudden outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread rapidly around the world, causing a certain degree of crisis in human globalization. According to an estimate (Romer, 2020), more than 100 countries worldwide have imposed nationwide school closures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, affecting more than 1.5 billion students or 92.5% of the total enrolled students, and the epidemic has the potential to cause multiple disadvantages for more than 700 million people worldwide to obtain decent jobs. As the type of education most closely connected with the economy and society, higher vocational education has encountered unprecedented challenges in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic. Online teaching practices, post-epidemic industrial restructuring, and changes in the job market have all posed new requirements for higher vocational education to change. In recent years, the rise of digital technologies such as 5G network, big data, and artificial intelligence, has swept most of the fields of social development and has a profound impact on education and teaching pedagogy. With the interactive change of offline and online teaching, systematic changes have taken place in higher vocational education, from the initial simple use of multimedia technology in teaching, to the development of distance education, to the comprehensive popularization of “Internet + Teaching” during the epidemic period. Although the innovative online teaching in education is not new, it is the first time for most higher vocational colleges to conduct all courses online. Various problems emerged in large-scale online teaching: the influence of urban versus rural network conditions on learning outcomes, the gap Y. F. Chang (B) School of Accounting and Finance, Taylor’s University, Selangor, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] Z. Hu Yan’an University, Shaanxi, China © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_6

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between wealthy families and the poor in terms of equipment provided to students for online learning, the gap between top students and under-achievers in terms of online learning outcomes, the gap between different professionals in terms of online learning outcomes, and the gap between teachers in terms of online teaching management. The “digital divide” caused by information technology-led education and teaching changes has become a new problem for higher vocational colleges. As Jiang (2019) argues that the typological characteristics of vocational education determine the dual dimension of vocational education thinking, focusing on both education under the influence of occupation and occupation under the influence of education. In 2021, UNESCO pointed out that despite the great transformation potential of digital technology, there are still many risks in the process of digital transformation of higher education teaching, and the path to turn these potentials into reality has not yet been found (UNESCO, 2021). On the issue of whether online education can contribute to the development of vocational education, there are long-standing disagreements and debates in society about whether it touches on the real needs of vocational education, whether it is a complementary education or a regular education, and whether it can help students improve their skills. Scholars in the higher vocational education field have mainly conducted research focusing on policy supply and informatization development, thinking about the current situation of online teaching, international experience introduction, factors influencing teachers’ teaching since the outbreak of COVID19. However, few studies have been conducted on the “digital divide” in higher vocational education due to the transition from physical learning to online learning. This article analyses the value orientation of online education to grasp the development opportunity provided by online education and points out the “digital divide” caused by online learning to higher vocational education. It also aims to improve the top-level design of educational technology in vocational colleges and improve the implementation efficiency of teachers’ information-based teaching aids in online teaching–learning from three levels: the state, colleges, and teachers. The all-around prompting of education informatization drives the modernization of vocational education and aims to provide a strategic reference for the reform of online teaching in higher vocational education.

2 Literature Review From traditional physical learning to the emerging online learning, it is a product of the development and innovation of education teaching reform and informatization driven by information technology. Scholars at home and abroad have different opinions about online learning. The origin of online education is distance education, and Cai et al. (2015) believe that Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which provide online learning opportunities for mass students, are a product of the development of internet technology and a harmonious symbiosis of human and technology. Porter (2015) argues that online course is a giant and open course. Johnson (2013) states

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that an online course is a course that not only brings together students from all over the world and is free of charge and open to students in online learning, and also provides both learning materials such as videos, texts, practice exercises, and a great discussion forum. Wikipedia (2011) states that online teaching is not only a gathering of knowledge and students but also a teaching method that connects teachers and students through common topics. The president of Stanford University even compared online education to a “digital tsunami”, suggesting that traditional universities will disappear with the spread and use of online education (Skiba, 2012). With the development of online courses and the deepening of online teaching, the new learning method—online learning, has revealed many problems. People have reflected on online learning. Han et al. (2014) believe that it is necessary to take a dispassionate view of the online learning boom and rethink how higher education should use the internet and information technology. Du (2017) argues that online learning is too time-consuming and requires much pre-study knowledge before the learning course. The online courses design is monotonous, which is not conducive to the development of in-depth learning and communication. The online learning evaluation mechanism is inadequate and inefficient. Scholars have questioned the methods, processes, and effects of online learning, which illustrates from another perspective that the development of information technology in education is a doubleedged sword. In addition to the various problems caused by online learning pointed out by the above scholars, there is a new problem that everyone ignores, which is the “digital divide”. Research on the “digital divide” has been ongoing for more than 20 years. Cao (2003) notes that as early as 1995, the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) conducted a study focusing on the “digital divide” and defined it as the gap between those who have the best information technology in the information age and those who, for various reasons, do not. Pippa (2001) comprehensively deepened the meaning of the “digital divide” in the global, social, and democratic divides. Dong and He (2009) analysed the educational inequity caused by the “digital divide” from a few perspectives: the backward concepts of education informatization development, weak policy regulation and control of educational informatization, deviation from the value objectives of educational information technology, and lagging level of educational informatization construction. Then gave suggestions from the perspectives of updating the concept of educational change in the information age, overcoming the utilitarian tendency of information technology, sharing resources of educational informatization, and increasing the balanced development of informatization construction. Dutch scholars Van Deursen & Van Dijk (2011) argued that the traditional “digital divide” has developed in the difference in people’s skills using the internet. Van Dijk (2012) also pointed out that when the motivational access and physical access of the “digital divide” are solved, people start to focus on technical access and user access. From the scholars’ research and analysis on online learning and the “digital divide”, online learning solves the problem of students’ inability to go to physical classrooms to learn and reduces the unnecessary “digital divide” from the theoretical point of view. However, from the practical point of view, online learning depends

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on various informative teaching platforms, types of equipment and resources, and others, and any failure to meet the requirements of online learning, the new “digital divide” will occur anywhere and also widen the “digital divide” between higher vocational colleges.

3 Analysis of the Online Learning “Digital Divide” to Higher Vocational Education Online learning has broken the time and space limitation of traditional physical education and has solved the problem of “classes suspended, but learning continues” caused by the global health crisis and cross-regional learning. However, as online learning grows, this new teaching model is a complex system project and a big challenge for higher vocational colleges. Due to the technical and practical characteristics of vocational education, the new teaching mode has not only faced old problems such as shortage of teaching resources, complicated application of online teaching platforms, low teaching efficiency, and limited management of teachers, but also the new problem of “digital divide” caused by informatization and digital teaching.

The Impact of the Information Technology Gap on Online Education In the information age, both online learning and traditional teaching will become the choice of educators. Learners will increasingly acquire skills through online learning in the future. The technology foundations and public policy all impact the effectiveness of online learning (Downes, 1998). In the existing physical classroom, vocational college teachers were mainly responsible for transferring knowledge and skills, and the teachers’ instruction and students’ learning were less dependent on IT. However, online learning is different, as teachers and students rely heavily on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Besides, technological developments will also deepen the “digital divide” between countries, regions, and vocational colleges. People in developed countries with advanced technology and a high level of information technology are better at leveraging the advantages of educational informatization, and online learning will bring more educational resources and a better learning effect to vocational education. On the contrary, countries with a poor and low informatization level have a gap with developed countries, and even in some backward regions, due to the influence of “soft power” such as perceptions and usage skills, educational informatization cannot reach the same level as developed regions in accelerating education development, which may lead to a new “knowledge divide” (Wang, 2018).

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The “digital divide” in vocational education is an objective existence, given the long-standing and significant gap between urban and rural economic and social development in various countries and the deep-rooted inequality in education. With the deepening of ICT application in higher vocational education, the different quantity of ICT equipment resources, quality of ICT equipment, teachers’ ICT usage skills, and ICT construction funding may have an impact on the formation of “digital divide” among students in different higher vocational colleges. Various situations of ICT devices can affect students’ information needs satisfaction (Henderson, 2011), students’ information competence (Fraillon et al., 2014), and the urban–rural “digital divide”. Especially in the epidemic period, large-scale online teaching and learning reveal the true face of the “digital divide” in vocational education. While informatization aids bring digital benefits to vocational education, it also expands the digital development differences between urban and rural vocational education to a certain extent. The differences in the network between urban and rural areas, in family economics of urban and rural vocational students, and the difference in online learning devices in urban and rural vocational colleges lead to new educational inequities in the development of digital informatization in urban and rural vocational education.

The Change of Teaching Mode Cannot Fully Meet the Requirements of Higher Vocational Education Traditional physical learning is one of the oldest learning methods in human history, and the learning effect is self-evident. Online learning is a product of the development and innovation of education teaching reform and education informatization driven by information technology. Whether the new teaching model has more advantages when switching from physical learning to online learning is a fundamental question in the development of educational technology. It is also the focus of research and debate among scholars. Finch and Jacobs (2012) argued that online learning reduces travelling time and costs, increasing access to and collaboration opportunities with experts and professionals worldwide, providing students with study course flexibility and allowing for adjustments in the subject and content needs. According to Castro and Tumibay (2019), factors that affect the effectiveness of online learning include assessment, benefits, constraints, and design delivery methods. Students must have a high level of digital literacy and self-efficacy. Educators’ attitudes toward technology use and levels of digital literacy play a significant role in shaping the overall student learning experience. Analysis of the digital literacy requirements suggested by the scholars as essential for students and instructors clearly shows that such digital literacy will not be very high for students in higher vocational colleges, or at least not for most of the students. Therefore, the effectiveness of online learning needs further examination if the subject of teaching—students—do not yet have the required online learning

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quality. The live classroom has been ridiculed by teachers, students, and parents in its early implementation during the epidemic, both in terms of hardware facilities lagging and teaching quality and interaction, making live teaching perform unsatisfactorily in front of this big test. Vocational colleges have chosen to conduct online learning. Many vocational colleges have developed open digital teaching resources and designed more online teaching platforms and tools, yet to fully and effectively develop large-scale organized online teaching in vocational colleges because the teachers’ teaching concepts are not updated, the new teaching models are not deeply rooted. Most colleges are still in the state of teachers using online platforms to carry out simple teaching activities, and online education in vocational colleges has not effectively promoted the development of vocational education. The essential feature of vocational education aims to cultivate skilled talents who can adapt to front-line positions in production, management, and service. The application form of online learning in vocational colleges is more suitable for declarative knowledge transfer and verbal content learning in procedural knowledge. However, the teaching effect is often not evident in action skill training. It is more difficult to reach the “true pain points” of cultivating skilled talents in vocational colleges. Online learning itself is a process of implementing knowledge management, but not able to provide students with hands-on instruction from professionals in the virtual online classroom, and it is difficult for teachers to know whether students have mastered the skills taught through the online classroom. Online learning has more influence on the professional with a high level of practicality, and the “digital divide” between different professionals in vocational education becomes more apparent at this point. The reform of school education is a systematic rather than a single factor change, and it is a gradual rather than abrupt process (Cui et al., 2020). Thus, if the preparation for transforming physical learning into online learning on a large scale is inadequate, and if the higher vocational education cannot solve various online learning problems, the new teaching mode will lead to a “digital divide” in higher vocational education in all aspects.

Teachers’ Teaching Skills Are not in Line with the Development of Education Information Technology There are significant differences in teachers’ ICT useability and practices compared to students (Honan, 2008). The former positively affects the latter’s information competence, thus positively contributing to bridging the “digital divide”. Though online learning policies are well established in various countries during the rise of the COVID-19 epidemic, there is a lack of policy implementation and internalization in the application practices of local education authorities and higher vocational colleges, a lack of local adaptation in the selection and development of online learning programs, and inadequate training for both teachers and students (Jiao et al., 2020).

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Teachers and students cross over from traditional physical classrooms to online classrooms without any thought or action preparation. Even though all teachers went through teaching skills training, the objectives and methods of training, the acquisition of teaching skills before the epidemic, and the way to manage students were all geared towards physical teaching, and there was little training to deal with this large-scale online teaching. Therefore, as the main body of online teaching– learning, teachers cannot smoothly cross over in the transition. Older teachers, in particular, were less knowledgeable and familiar with new educational technologies than younger teachers, both in terms of perception and efficiency. There will be a big gap between the effectiveness of these two types of teachers teaching online and the efficiency of student learning. From the practice of online learning, except for a few teachers who can use the information technology to teach online smoothly, most teachers remain in the simple superposition of internet technology and teaching activities for online teaching. Teachers in many colleges are still copying offline teaching activities, which has caused more educational chaos in the online classroom and cannot guarantee the quality of online learning. For example, some teachers still use offline teaching methods when conducting online teaching, ask students to take and upload learning process pictures during teaching recorded courses, do not seem to care about the knowledge mastery of the student in the actual situation, and even suspend classes directly for technical curriculum courses with a high level of practicality. Thus, without breaking, the new “digital divide” problem is constructed. Finally, the key challenge for online teaching is whether teachers can build individualized management strategies to capture the performance of different students, motivate students, and achieve quality effectively equal to the substance of classroom teaching.

4 Suggestions to Narrow the “Digital Divide” in Higher Vocational Education With the promotion of education informatization, digital campus construction in higher vocational colleges and online teaching models are keeping up pace with times. The COVID-19 epidemic has impacted and challenged higher vocational education and has prompted every higher education educator to reflect deeply on this smokeless online teaching battlefield. However, educators cannot blindly rely upon the education dividend brought by technological progress. The “digital divide” and its social effects should be of great concern to society, especially the social impact of the “digital divide” on higher vocational education, which warrants indepth study by scholars. To narrow the “digital divide” in higher vocational colleges, teachers’ strength, technical means, teaching resources and management methods to maximize the quality of higher vocational education and cultivate vocational and technical talents for the society have become the most significant issue.

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National Level Increase the Funding of Information Technology Infrastructure The investment in education and the construction of teaching facilities are the material basis for the higher vocational education establishment and its talent cultivation. Wang & Yan (2013) pointed out that the factors influencing the “digital divide” in less developed areas include insufficient investment in education, which contains education informatization funding, uneven allocation of the resources of education digital, lack of IT talents, outdated education concepts of teachers, lack of college informatization development planning of education administration departments and organization and management of colleges, and others. The state should focus on social services and strengthen investment in infrastructure construction of higher education colleges in rural and remote areas where development is slow. It should establish a mechanism for sharing educational resources, make every effort to solve the problems of inequitable, unbalanced and insufficient development of education, and reduce the risk of increasing the “digital divide”. The Australian federal government subsidies budget amounted to A$320 billion or 16.4% of annual GDP in response (Coronavirus Information and Support for Business, 2020).

Establish a Wisdom Education Platform The state should seize the strategic opportunity of digital education development to lead education modernization with a high level of education informatization. It also should establish a digital public service system and a wisdom education platform for higher vocational education, continue to build and improve a professional teaching resource library for vocational education, and share in common the high-quality educational resources across the country through the wisdom education platform by breaking the boundaries of time, space and region. For example, the Australian federal government reorganized the My skills website to focus the population on providing more training and career opportunities in the new design website. China has formed an “Internet” education curriculum to construct and coordinate organization. At the Ministry of Education level, an “Open Education Resource Construction Coordination Working Group” was established to develop “Internet + “ education policies, norms and standards and vigorously promote the development of curriculum resources, the integration of online platforms, and the construction and sharing of resources. On the website of “China Vocational Education Micro-course and MOOC Consortium” (http://www.wkclm.com/web/app.pphp/), seven vocational education MOOC courses are available: Horticulture Plant Identification, Identification and Selection of Culinary Ingredients, Basic Welding Diagramming, Chemical Quality Inspection, Mechanical Parts Measurement, Structural Construction and Automotive Mechanisms and Overhaul. Educational platforms and resources aim to provide

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national public services, student learning and exchange, teacher teaching and education, college governance and cooperation and interchange, with the ultimate goal of personalized learning, lifelong learning and modernization of vocational education.

College Level Revise the Talent Training Program and Reconstruct the Course Content According to the World Bank analysis, China’s economic growth slowed to 2.3% in 2020 (World Bank, 2020), and the COVID-19 epidemic led to significant changes in sectors and industries and new demands in the job market. Therefore, the direction of talent cultivation in higher vocational colleges should change following the needs of society, and the goal of talent cultivation should shift from “craftsmen” to “highly skilled technical workers”. The talent cultivation model should change from “campus learning + enterprise practice” co-cultivation to “intelligent campus learning + virtual simulation practice + enterprise on-the-job”. The teaching model should be changed from “face to face, hand to hand” to “online + offline” hybrid teaching mode. The course content should expand from the traditional professional to the teaching content of artificial intelligence technology, big data technology and extension of reality technology.

Build a New Teaching Evaluation The online education of higher vocational colleges is different from the ordinary schools, which focuses on students’ mastery and proficiency of skills, and the development of vocational skills requires four steps: the situational process of perception, the standardization of imitation process, the post of practice process and the personalization of internalization process. Therefore, the starting point and destination of online teaching modal in response are students’ learning and skill acquisition, the merits of online learning should be evaluated by students’ learning effect. All higher vocational colleges should develop online teaching standards and quality evaluation methods according to the online teaching situations in the college, build studentcentred evaluation standards, pay attention to students’ learning status and emotional experience, and respect students’ personality traits and individual differences. It should develop a diversified evaluation system based on external evaluators (college leaders, enterprise personnel, teaching supervisors and peer teachers), teachers, and students to promote students’ overall development and carry out teaching evaluation to reflect the unity of diversified assessments and students’ development.

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Establish a Multi-Party Cooperation Mechanism The rapid development of intelligent technology directly affects the management style of higher vocational colleges. Due to the difficulties of putting technical courses with a high level of practicality into online learning, higher vocational colleges should establish a workable technical courses and skills teaching system, establish a full-media learning ecological environment, provide a standardised, virtualised, and simulated practical training platform environment, prepare all the case resources for students’ learning, break the limitation of technical conditions of online education platform, and guarantee skills and practical application teaching in higher vocational colleges. However, building learning platforms and a teaching resource pool requires a lot of human and material resources, so higher vocational colleges should join together to establish vocational education alliances and make joint efforts to build online learning platforms. Each college gives full play to their professional advantages to cooperate in completing the construction of course teaching resources, sharing teaching resources, and building into an online learning platform for vocational education with rich course resources, perfect functions, and influence. In developing teaching resources, each higher vocational college needs to consider designing certain accessibility facilities for special needs students, attracting groups with different learning styles and knowledge levels in various ways, and presenting text-based information that is easy for different types of students to understand, and others (Braund & Lelliott, 2017). Vocational education can cooperate with enterprises to create an online simulation platform where students and teachers can access the simulation environment and complete the experimental content. This kind of experimental platform can serve the particular needs of home learning and provide students with an online “internship base” during normal teaching activities. After completing classroom learning in the college laboratory, students can still go home with tasks to accomplish and simulate the work content of the company internship online.

Apply the Blended Teaching Model Even though online learning faces many challenges, it will become a significant part of vocational education in the context of educational changes in the information era, and higher vocational colleges should pay attention to the value proposition of online learning. In addition to the sensible application of online teaching modes such as flipped classroom learning, online courses, live online teaching and TV air classroom, higher vocational education should follow the wave of development, break the inertia of teaching, and actively carry out teaching reform. Wu (2020) organically combined online learning and traditional model to implement an online and offline hybrid teaching model. Blended learning is a mixture of face-to-face learning and online learning in terms of learning mode, a mixture of independent learning, collaborative learning and other learning methods in terms of learning

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strategy, a mixture of the physical classroom and online environment in terms of learning environment, and a mixture of online and offline communication methods between teachers and students in terms of teacher-student interaction (Zhang, 2015). It is the mainstream learning method in higher vocational education at present. For higher vocational education, online and offline teaching should integrate the best of both abilities. Choosing the most suitable teaching model according to the specialties, teaching content and students’ backgrounds can improve the quality of teaching in higher vocational education and narrow the “digital divide” caused by online learning.

Teacher Level The core of curriculum reform is the classroom, and the focus of classroom reform is on teachers. The classroom revolution is the call to action of curriculum reform, and teacher training in higher vocational colleges is the breakthrough of this “revolution”. Although the main subject of online learning is students, how teachers teach, actively guide, efficiently instruct, and patiently tutor is directly related to the students’ learning efficiency. In other words, the competency of higher vocational education teachers directly affects the effect of online teaching and determines the quality of higher vocational talents cultivation. Therefore, improving the teaching ability of teachers in higher vocational colleges may be the key to narrowing the “digital divide”.

Change the Teaching Thinking of Teachers In response to the sudden COVID-19 epidemic and the change from traditional faceto-face teaching to online teaching, higher vocational teachers should first determine their functional positioning and realize the changing role based on a comprehensive understanding of the “Internet + “ teaching concept. Second, change the thinking about teaching from being a traditional “preacher” to a transmitter, constructor, and servant of knowledge, and the participant, guide, and collaborator of learning (Fang, 2020). Finally, higher vocational teachers should take the initiative to learn using the data application tools on the online platform, adapt to the online teaching mode, and devote to online teaching in all aspects and processes. Prepare well, such as making a detailed online teaching plan and producing detailed electronic resources and electronic teaching materials before online classes. Provide students with rich learning resources and personalized guidance to improve students’ thinking about knowledge and skills during online teaching. Then provide students with generative assessments and personalized feedback after online learning to fully understand the actual state of students’ skill mastery.

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Improve the Information Literacy of Teachers Microscopically, online learning is a transformation way teachers teach, and students learn, and only when teachers’ teaching technology keeps up with the development and changes of informatization can the teaching level properly support students’ different learning paths and learning materials, and the effect of online learning can only become the ideal state. Therefore, teachers’ information literacy is the foundation of online teaching. Teachers’ mastery of new media teaching skills is the “booster” for the innovation and development of higher vocational colleges, the “power source” for teachers’ growth and progress, and the “new kinetic energy” for teaching connotation construction. It requires teachers to attend regular training in information technology and educational technology, to be able to master basic educational information technology in a short period and to comprehensively improve information literacy such as information technology concepts, professionalism, and online teaching skills.

Change the Teaching Methods of Teachers In the face of complex online learning contexts, teachers in vocational colleges need to innovate online teaching methods and apply diverse learning methods such as project-based, integrated and activity-based to regular online teaching. To use AR virtual reality technology for mutual support in online teaching, teachers can directly show the skill operation in front of students to improve their interest in learning skills. Teachers should broaden the online discussion channels between teachersstudents and students-students in online classrooms, organise online discussion and communication activities, guide students to carry out group learning discussions and solve the problem of passive learning. All teachers should pay attention to learning methods and abilities and utilise the high-quality teaching resources on the internet. As students in higher vocational have insufficient ability to handle and process information, teachers can delete pictures and audio in online teaching that are irrelevant to the teaching objectives to ensure that students spend their limited memory capacity on processing the core learning content. Mayer (2007) examined 14 studies that used the removal strategy and found that online teaching was significantly better with removing irrelevant content, compared with online instruction with the addition of irrelevant content, with a median effect size of 0.97, which is a large effect size. If the teacher takes the form of recording in online teaching, it can mean that the longer teaching videos are separated into several shorter clips and then played one by one to ensure that the memory of students has enough capacity and time to process the content of the video clips (Mayer, 2007). It is the segregation effect approach. A meta-analysis of the video segregation effect by Clark and Mayer (2016) showed that students who studied segregated instructional videos outperformed those who studied continuous instructional videos, with a median effect size of 0.79, among the large effect sizes. Teachers can ask students to take notes after watching a live or recorded video so that they can save the relevant online content on an external

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storage medium, thus reducing the burden on the memory of the brain to temporarily retain and process the information (Eggen & Kauchak, 2020).

Establish a New Type of Teacher-Student Relationship Unexpectedly and brutally, the COVID-19 epidemic has stripped away the accustomed physical forms of teaching and learning, leaving behind only students and teachers and the “core technology” of the college system—curriculum and teaching– learning. Thus, online education is ostensibly about resuming teaching and learning with a technological platform, is actually about how the student–teacher community engages in meaningful, non-realistic learning and educational interactions around curriculum and instruction in an asynchronous and diachronic space—what we often call the teacher-student relationship. It is the “concentration” of the classroom and the key to measuring the effectiveness of classroom teaching. In a face-to-face teacher-student relationship, students are directly under the power and authority of teachers who have to control, discipline, and monitor them. Over time, students’ bodies, minds, and will become accustomed to or subservient to this “taming” power (Foucault, 1995) and develop a sense of reverence for the teacher. However, in online teaching, the distance between teachers and students is separated by an unknown space and time, and with a feelingless electronic screen, it is difficult for teachers to manage and communicate with students through their existing skills. From the perspective of teachers, establishing a new type of teacher-student relationship requires paying close attention to students’ online learning status, continuously enhancing the adaptability of “student-centred” teaching, and forming a learning community with students in the teaching environment of new-generation information technology. The social and emotional integration factors are a significant foundation for students to receive and process information, stimulate interest and motivation, and generate deep learning (Mary Helen, 2015). Teachers need to refine the communication mode of online dialogue and integrate emotional communication into the online classroom, using emotionally rich and passionate words to communicate with students emotionally so that the cold electronic screen is covered with a warm human touch to narrow the emotional distance between teachers and students.

Build a High-Level Team of Teachers The above suggestions are from the teachers’ perspective, and of course, higher vocational colleges can also carry out policy reforms to solve the “digital divide” caused by the lack of faculty. In addition to their initiative to acquire teaching skills, teachers cannot do without the support services of online education. Effectual support services are the key to ensuring the quality of online education. Support services for online education include support services for teachers’ online teaching and support services

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for students’ online learning, embodied in policies, management, resources, technologies, facilities, and environment that provide positive promotion for teachers’ online teaching and students’ online learning in collaboration with government, colleges, enterprises, families, and society (Lee & Mcloughln, 2010). Higher vocational colleges can also take advantage of the “two-way approach” of the college-enterprise cooperation to promote the dual tutorial system in which college teachers and enterprise technical backbones, management elites and skilled craftsmen jointly undertake education and teaching tasks. Higher vocational colleges should establish teacher-enterprise practice and training bases with enterprises and industrial organizations. With this to carry out regular training for teachers to work in enterprises and industry organizations, understand the industrial structure and industry development trends, and learn new enterprises technologies, new processes and skills requirements and talents standards to improve the professional practice ability of teachers. Higher vocational colleges can also invite enterprise technicians to the campus and classroom, showing enterprises advanced production processes and technical achievements so that the students can be intuitively familiar with the production business and accumulate practical experience. Therefore, each country should learn from the German “dual system” vocational education model. Students first learn theoretical knowledge in college and then go to enterprises to learn hands-on skills. Students can learn theoretical knowledge online during the epidemic period and then practical teaching after resuming work and production.

5 Conclusion Although online education is not the whole spectrum of educational information technology and educational information technology applications go far beyond online learning, online education is one of the cornerstones of educational technology development in the information age. The “digital divide” seen through online learning is only one of the challenges that higher vocational education must face in the development process. The article points out that government participation and policy support, IT infrastructure, sharing and cooperation of online learning resources, teachers’ IT teaching skills, effective teacher-student interaction, and students’ adaptability to the differences in online learning are the factors that affect the smoothness and efficiency of online learning. At the same time, these are also the factors that determine the future direction of online learning in higher vocational education. The development of artificial intelligence and big data technology marks the emergence of the smart education era, and vocational education should also keep pace with the times, actively change the traditional teaching model and talent cultivation method and inject fresh blood into vocational education talent cultivation. The readiness of online learning in higher vocational education is essential to promote a better educational equity in the next global health crisis.

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Dr. Chang Yun Fah received the B. Arts in mathematics, M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in applied statistics from University of Malaya, Malaysia, in 1998, 2002, and 2012, respectively. He joined the School of Accounting and Finance, Taylor’s University, Malaysia in 2019 as an Associate Professor. He was appointed as Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Dezhou University, China since 2020 and Senior Research Associate at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia in 2022. He has published over 70 research articles, book chapters, and books. His research interests include statistics, financial mathematics, image analysis, medical analysis, social statistics, and vocational education. Dr. Chang is the director of Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, Panel of Assessor appointed by Malaysia Qualification Agency, and elected member of International Statistics Institute since 2012, 2016, and 2016, respectively. He serves as the member of editorial board, associate editor, guest editor and reviewer for various local and international journals.

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Hu Zhongyan received her B. Edu and M. Edu from the Yan’an University, China in 2013 and 2016, respectively. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D in Business with Taylor’s University, Malaysia. Her research area is on talents development in higher vocational institutions. She joined the Yan’an University, China in 2016 and appointed as the Section Chief of the President’s Office since 2020. She has published 8 academic papers and over 50 ancient and modern poems in periodicals, magazines, and newspapers. She received excellent awards in publicity and documentation services at university level in 2020 and Shaanxi Province level in 2019 and 2020.

Chapter 7

“Am I Ready for This Change?”: Challenges in Optimizing the Use of Online Learning in Medical and Health Professions Education During the Pandemic and Beyond Ardi Findyartini, Diantha Soemantri, Nadia Greviana, and AASA Santhi Sueningrum

1 Introduction Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity in Medical and Health Professions Education Medical and health professions education as a specific context in higher education have been striving to ensure the quality education for all professions and at all stages which should be able to overcome healthcare needs and disparities. The systembased medical and health professions education highlight the importance of always considering the health care needs in developing a curriculum (Frenk et al., 2010). This includes consideration of diversity, inclusivity, and equity issues. Since these concepts should be addressed in the healthcare, it is only proper for medical and health professions education to also incorporate them in creating the learning environment and actualizing the teaching learning processes. Diversity incorporates inclusiveness, respect and multiple perspectives which might be derived from human differences such as socio-economic statuses, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, gender, geography, religion, disability, age and so on (AAMC, 2015). The representation of diverse characteristics of medical and A. Findyartini (B) · D. Soemantri · N. Greviana Department of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia e-mail: [email protected] A. Findyartini · D. Soemantri · N. Greviana · A. S. Sueningrum Faculty of Medicine, Medical Education Center, Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_7

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health profession students and teachers within schools actually reflect the societies for whom the graduates will serve. It should be underlined that regardless of the different backgrounds of the students, becoming competent health professionals is a must (Chiavaroli et al., 2020). Diversity in medical and health professions education is a value position which evolves around educational values. It is not merely composition, but is more critical to put the diversity into daily practice; for example, through student selection policy recognizing diverse characteristics of students and arrangement of learning outcome progressions considering personal conditions, etc. Furthermore, inclusivity can be considered as enactment of diversity notion as well as a core element to achieve the diversity within an educational context successfully. An inclusive environment in medical and health professions education context leads to ‘feelings of belonging’ from those (i.e., students, teachers, staff, patients, etc.) coming from different backgrounds when they are in a certain learning environment (Chiavaroli et al., 2020). The nurture of culture of diversity, equity and inclusivity therefore is highly significant in the education institutions through education, role modelling, professional development, policy, and practice. The interactivity of all components within an institution is expected to create the respectful climate fostering sense of belonging, engagement, and connectivity among the members of the community (Nivet et al., 2016). All of these factors should also be considered in an online learning environment.

Curriculum Adaptation in Medical and Health Professions Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic The disruption in medical and health professions curriculum is inevitable during the COVID-19 pandemic. All face-to-face classes had to move to online format and some learning activities such as basic laboratory class and clinical clerkship were postponed (Kim et al., 2020). This disruption requires every medical and health professions institution to rapidly adapt their curriculum in order to facilitate students in achieving the intended learning outcomes. Clinical clerkship as workplace-based learning is a vital experience in medical and health professions education. This learning gave students opportunity to engage and shape their knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs. It is quite challenging for teachers to replicate the activities of clinical encounter to online formats. The possibility of students of not achieving their competencies in the given timeframe rose concern in many countries (Castro et al., 2021; Cleland et al., 2020). Therefore, many institutions still apply offline learning for clinical clerkship during the pandemic era, but with certain restriction to minimize students’ exposure to COVID-19 infection. Despite the importance of rapid curriculum adaptation, first, it should be considered that each institution might have different needs and resources. Those differences should take into consideration to develop a feasible curriculum for students and teachers. The Kern’s 6-step approach to curriculum development can be utilized to

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break down the needs and resources having by the institution in detail. These 6 steps are problem identification and general assessment, targeted need assessment, goals and objective, educational strategies, implementation, and evaluation and feedback (Castro et al., 2021), which can be further contextualized for curriculum adaptation during the pandemic. The safety of patients, teachers, and students should be a priority in the pandemic era. Consequently, when adapting a novel curriculum as response to the pandemic, it is crucial to consider all necessary factors to optimize the effectiveness of online learning to encourage students achieving their competencies.

Online Learning in Medical and Health Professions Education The use of technology to enhance learning involved any online facility or system supporting learning and its processes. The key principle to technology-enhanced learning is that technology should provide added values to the learning process and support health professions students’ self-regulated learning (Bullock & de Jong, 2014). e-Learning platform, web tools, applications, simulations, gamification, and massive open online courses (MOOCs) are examples of technology-enhanced learning platforms and are widely used in medical and health professions education to enhance students’ learning. As the pandemic accelerated the use of technology in learning in medical education (Daniel et al., 2021), medical teachers’ ability to select the suitable platforms became prominent, especially aiming to support learning and obtain the learning outcomes as well as to enable health professions students to reflect on their educational experiences are essentials (Goh, 2016). Online learning or e-learning, which is part of technology-enhanced learning platform, is defined as “learning and teaching that is mediated by web-based or internetbased computer technologies”. In the spectrum between face-to-face teaching and learning and online learning, there is blended learning which refers to a learning process that combines both face-to-face and interactions through technology between teachers, students and learning resources available (Bliuc et al., 2007). Key learning theories such as behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism are as relevant for online learning as in offline learning. For example, provision of feedback to develop students’ learning relates to behaviourism, learning in small groups via online platforms corresponds to cognitivism, and active and contextual learning is one of the features of constructivism. As technologies serve as tools and not teachers, implementing technologies and conducting online learning require three essential components, known as Community of Inquiry (CoI). CoI emphasized on collaboration between learners and teachers in understanding the concepts being learned, which involved: teaching presence, cognitive presence, and social presence (Garrison et al., 2000). Teaching presence relates to the roles of teachers in organizing learning resources and facilitating students’ social and cognitive presence, which are students’ involvement and interaction within the community of learners and their cognitive contribution to the learning process respectively.

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Given the existence of many learning theories and frameworks to support online learning design and practices, challenges persist, including in health professions education setting. One of which comes from the teachers’ side as identified by Elshami et al. (2022) is the need for faculty members to improve their technological skills to enhance their pedagogical skills. Although the use of technology is undoubtedly potential for the current student generations, effectiveness of online learning in competency attainment remains questionable as online learning are unlikely to cover all aspects related to skills acquisition and teacher-students interactivity compared to offline learning. Baczek et al. (2021) and Brombacher-Steiert et al. (2021) concluded that online learning is less effective to teach clinical skills but serves as a useful platform to enhance health professions students’ knowledge about the skills and prepare them for the skills teaching. Hence, contexts, teachers and students’ characteristics, and expected learning outcomes should be considered in implementing online learning in health professions education setting (Pei & Wu, 2019).

2 Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity in Online Learning: Students’ Perspectives Characteristics of Current Generation and Their Conceptions of Learning The generation Z or iGen who were born from 1995 to 2012 makes up the majority of current medical and health professions education students and are digital natives. They are also identified by their capabilities for problem solving, independent learning and advocacy for social justice, fairness, and the environment. Their relationships with their parents are very close and trustful hence despite their independence they still expect authoritative figures and close mentoring in their learning journey (Hopkins et al., 2018). They sometimes are very pragmatic and expect direct feedback from their surroundings (Isaacs et al., 2020). With regards to their learning, this generation expects up-to-date technology as well as creative and flexible ways to use it in their direct interactions with teachers, fellow students, and patients (EckleberryHunt et al., 2018). They can be anxious to communicate with their teachers including when online due to fear of misinterpretation (Elshami et al., 2021) and this might be due to their minimum experience of interfacing formal and professional written communication (Lerchenfeldt et al., 2021). Table 1 elaborates key characteristics of millennial (i.e., the current teachers) and iGen, to give further insights. Studies in medical education context show that iGen students prefers learning spaces that enable them to adapt intuitively according to their needs. Their preference towards collaboration and mentoring is also prominent hence this should be incorporated into the online learning environment (Plochocki, 2019). The iGen has great expectation on the optimal use of technology and social media in learning and daily interaction. Despite this, they appreciate the use of blended learning which

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Table 1 Key differences of millennials and generation Z Theme

Millennials

Generation Z

Learning style

Collaborative

Independent

Teaching preference Blended learning

Less lecturing with more kinesthetic and visual representation; aim for convenience

Communication

Diverse in-person and electronically Underdeveloped in-person social skills due to reliance on technology

Feedback

Desire positive, immediate feedback Desire honest, immediate feedback

Technology

Technologically savvy

Digital natives; deficient information literacy

Social media

Connected

Connected, but cautious with privacy

Risk/financial views Idealistic; risk-taker

Pragmatic; cautious; entrepreneurial

Source Adapted from Isaacs et al. (2020)

allow them to explore learning resources beyond the ones being provided by their teachers (Plochocki, 2019). The iGen should be well supported in managing their time, multitasks, and overloaded information (Lerchenfeldt et al., 2021). Their rather short attention span due to a lot of instant occurrences in their life given by technology and social media lead to limited ability to digest big chunks of information. This is also related to their preference towards visual and dynamic learning resources such as video and immediate discussion on the applications of what they learn in daily life or for their future practice as health professionals (Lerchenfeldt et al., 2021). A study of a first-year medical students in an Asian context posits that the iGen attributes should be considered in supporting the college adjustment. The adjustments are required in academic, social, and personal-emotional aspects, which call for further transition and transformation processes. The study also highlights that students’ demographics, mentality, prior educational experience, and social supports can be supportive for the adjustment. In addition, the technology, learning system and well-being are interestingly underscored in this study as novel supporting factors towards college adjustment. This study strengthens previous notions of the need of this generation to use technology in their learning. Attentions should also be addressed to their rather ‘hyper-connectivity’ through social media which can be supportive or rather distractive towards their study and adjustment (Zhuhra et al., 2022). Understanding generational variety and differences of students as well as teachers is a part of diversity and inclusivity practice. Developing online learning in medical and health profession education should incorporate such an understanding to nurture iGen in online learning according to their needs and the targets of competence they should achieve as health professionals. Teachers coming from different generations may also seek the insights to better communicate and engage with iGen in the teaching–learning encounters. In medical and health professions education context,

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teaching effectiveness in different platforms both online and offline should consider a careful examination of the iGen attributes. This raises the need to equip the teachers through a systematic faculty development program (Attardi et al., 2021).

Online Learning and Students’ Sociodemographic Backgrounds Online education opened more avenues to include students from diverse backgrounds including the non-traditional students such as part-time students, those aged over 30 years old, students with dependents, and fully employed students. While the nature of online learning is inclusive as it can be accessed anytime and anywhere, the nontraditional students can be at risk of discontinuing from the program due to several reasons namely interactions among factors of female gender, full-employment, and migrant students (Stoessel et al., 2015). Studies also showed that sociodemographic background of students could foster or hinder their engagement in online learning in higher education and medical and health professions education contexts. Students enrolling in online education have been increasing lately (Stoessel et al., 2015) especially following the COVID-19 pandemic. Students’ sociodemographic backgrounds influenced their engagement in online learning. Studies in limited resource settings show that engaging in online learning environment can be encouraged by clear expectations of the course which plays partly as a students’ external motivation (Findyartini et al., 2021). Prior experience of enrolling in an online learning environment also helped students to navigate their motivation and online engagement in a self-paced or instruction-based online courses (Findyartini et al., 2021; Muflih et al., 2021). Besides, a study conducted in a limited resource settings during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that female participants of online learning and heavy workload were also recognized as factors modifying participants’ ability to manage their time and to regulate their online learning (Greviana et al., 2022). Students’ living area, circumstances, and internet connections were factors that should be considered further. Due to problems in internet connections, students’ utilization of learning resources and in maintaining their engagement in the online learning may be limited (Olum et al., 2020). A study in a limited resource setting highlights that students’ living in urban area have more advantages for online learning compared to those living in rural area—this partly can be attributed to the internet connection issue (Muflih et al., 2021). Attention towards students’ skills to actively participate in the online learning community calls for proper technical supports and well-suited design of interactivity and learning resources. In medical and health professions education where professional and skill competence attainments are critical, the use of online learning should

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always consider students’ level of development, technology literacy, and sociodemographic backgrounds so that online learning could foster students’ self-regulated learning and promote wellbeing (Findyartini et al., 2021).

Online Learning and Students’ Self-regulated Learning Skills Engaging students in online learning emphasizes the need to support students’ selfregulated learning (SRL) ability. SRL ability, which consists of students’ ability to regulate their own thought, act, emotions within the learning cycles (before, during, and after learning) play important roles in successful online learning (Panadero, 2017). Moreover, in medical and health professions education, of which the massive development of medical knowledge occurred rapidly, SRL promoted medical students’ ability for lifelong learning. Given the dynamic of SRL across learning contexts and educational experiences (Barnard et al., 2009), medical teachers should consider when designing and implementing online learning. Supporting medical and health professions students SRL in online learning can be conducted through offering engagements and dynamic scaffolding, increasing participation, and developing deeper learning as well as collaboration skills (Bullock & de Jong, 2014). Online learning provides convenience in content selection and chunking information to be learned systematically and to highlight expected key learning outcomes, which were crucial to support students’ SRL (Rice & McKendree, 2014). Indicators and metrics of students SRL ability may also be incorporated in the online learning platform using validated online SRL questionnaire, i.e.: OSLQ (Barnard et al., 2009); SOL-Qr (Jansen et al., 2017) may be useful for students to conduct self-reflection on their own SRL ability as well as for teachers and course administrators to conduct continuous improvement and provide further supports to increase students’ SRL (Greviana et al., 2022; Sandars & Patel, 2020). Teachers should also provide efforts to facilitate interactions among peers using online forum discussions and synchronous learning in small groups using breakout rooms, as peer support are one of the important aspects of SRL (Holbeck & Hartman, 2018; Panadero, 2017).

Online Learning and Students’ Adaptation and Well-Being Adequacy in physical, psychological, and social resources of an individual in facing challenges affected by positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments is the popular definition of wellbeing (Dodge et al., 2012; Seligman, 2011). The use of online learning was known to interfere with students’ wellbeing and contributed to higher distress among students (Lyons et al., 2020; Wiederhold, 2020). A study conducted on current iGen students’ wellbeing in online learning environment shows that students’ wellbeing is associated with various aspects related to

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online learning. Online learning factors associated with wellbeing were computer usage, teacher support, student interaction and collaboration, authentic learning, student autonomy, equity, synchronicity, enjoyment, design interface, online learning tools, with personal relevance and evaluation, and assessment factors as the most prominent aspect contributed to students’ wellbeing. Although the study reports that students enjoyed online learning despite its challenges, the study also revealed moderate levels of negative emotions during online learning period, which are associated with loneliness, anxiety, anger, and sadness (Mustika et al., 2021). Therefore, a comprehensive approach allowing students to interact with each other not only in formal session during online learning, but also informal opportunities, as well as teachers’ roles as feedback provider and mentor is emphasized in incorporating online learning to support students’ wellbeing.

3 Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity in Online Learning: Teachers’ Perspectives Teachers’ Conceptions of Online Teaching and Learning Teachers’ conceptions of teaching are basically what teaching means to them, some of the conceptions may be explicitly expressed, but there can be some that are implicit even for the teachers themselves (Ross, 2017). Not only do teachers’ conceptions are something meaningful for teachers, but they will influence how the teachers teach to some extent and eventually will lead to how students learn and perform (Jacobs et al., 2016). Various studies have examined medical teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning, one of which is the study by Jacobs et al. (2014) that categorized teachers’ conceptions of teaching into five teacher profiles, namely transmitter, organizer, intermediate, facilitator, and conceptual change agent. These profiles correspond to the extent of teacher vs student-cantered approaches that the teachers apply in their teaching. If the conception of teaching and learning is transmitter, then medical teachers prefer to transmit knowledge to students. On the other hand, if it is conceptual change agent, then medical teachers will focus on stimulating students’ deep learning (Jacobs et al., 2020). Teachers’ conceptions of teaching are relatively well understood, however given the extensive use of online learning nowadays, it is important to understand teachers’ conceptions of online teaching. Online learning poses several advantages such as flexibility of learning and can be tailored to fit various students’ learning styles (Caravias, 2018). However, these advantages will likely depend on how teachers design the online learning and the development of online learning will be influenced by what online learning means for teachers. These conceptions then will, partly determine what roles the teachers take in the online learning environment. There are a number of studies exploring the conceptions of teaching in the online learning environment. Each study resulted in different terms for the categories of

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conception, but they are comparable (Table 2) and also relate to the conceptions of teaching in general (from transmitter to conceptual change agent) as described above. In summary, it can be concluded that the conceptions of online teaching are as follow: 1. Online learning as a medium to transmit information to students. 2. Online learning as a line of communication with students related to the learning. 3. Online learning as an approach and support to involve students in online group discussion and knowledge construction. What do these conceptions imply? When teachers believe that online learning is a medium of transmitting information, then simply put, they will only deposit learning materials in the eLearning Management System for students to access and read. When they perceive online learning as a line of communication, there will be some forms of communication, for example questions asked and answered, learning tasks submitted into the system and feedback is provided by teachers. Lastly, if the conception is knowledge construction, then teachers will use the online learning platform to facilitate dialogue and discussion between students as one of the ways to construct Table 2 Different conceptions of online teaching based on different studies Authors

Roberts (2003)

Gonzalez (2009)

Conceptions As a source For individual of online of access to teaching information learning materials and information, and for individual assessment For individual and independent self-paced learning

Lameras et al. (2008)

Ellis et al. (2006)

Information transfer

Providing To provide students with information to information students Replacing part of a teacher’s responsibilities

For learning-related communication (asynchronous/ synchronous)

Gonzalez (2010)

For ‘occasional’ online communication

Understanding Developing For engaging concepts student students in online understanding discussions through aligning media to intended learning outcomes For group analysis, decision making and dialogue

For networked learning

Developing the concept

Helping students develop and apply new concepts

To support knowledge-building tasks

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knowledge and understanding. This is when community of inquiry occurs. Gonzalez (2009) succinctly summarized that teachers with content-centred conception will be “informative-individual learning focused”, whereas those with learner-centred one will be “communicative-networked learning focused”. To the best of our knowledge, there are not yet studies studying medical teachers’ conceptions of online learning specifically. However, recent studies during the COVID-19 pandemic in medical education setting show that it is even more important for medical teachers to transform their conceptions of teaching from teacher-centred (content-centred) to student-centred (learner-centred) in the online learning environment (Seymour-Walsh et al., 2020; Zalat et al., 2021). For example, Seymour-Walsh et al. (2020) highlighted the need for medical teachers to provide information in chunks to anticipate the reduction of cognitive load of students in online learning and also to arrange for peer interaction and group learning to maintain students’ cognitive resources. In other words, medical teacher conceptions of online learning should be about how to support medical students in learning and constructing knowledge through social interaction. Not only do teachers have to be aware of their conceptions of online teaching, but their roles are also changing. There are five characteristics important for teachers to be able to optimize the use of online learning, i.e., understanding of the online environment, technical skills in using the technology, online communication skills, content expertise, and personal attributes such as confidence and adaptability (Salmon, 2000). All of these characteristics are translated into many roles of teachers in the online environment, which include process facilitator, advisor/counsellor, assessor, researcher, content facilitator, designer, technologist, and manager/administrator (Goodyear et al., 2001). Some of the roles above may already be familiar for teachers, however certain roles such as a technologist may not be required in the era before online learning. Indeed, teachers now are expected to master learning technology to some extent, but more importantly they need to be able to communicate and converse with information technology specialist in deciding the most appropriate technology that can be used and working on it. A few studies have examined the factors influencing teachers’ decision to adopt certain online teaching approaches. Institutional policies, curriculum structure and characteristics of students are among the factors identified by Gonzalez (2009). For example, when teachers feel that the institution fully supports the implementation of online learning and appropriate support and reward are provided, they are more likely to approach online learning positively. Another factor is teachers’ academic background. Jelfs et al. (2009) identified that science teachers are more studentcentred, while arts teachers are more content-centred. More studies, of course, are necessary to explore these factors further. The various conceptions of online teaching, changing roles of teachers in the online environment, and the many factors, both internal and external to the teachers, that influence teachers’ approaches to online learning, show the complexity of the online environment. Therefore, it is essential for teachers to be supported in order to select the right online teaching methods, based on the proper conception, and apply the required roles.

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Supporting Teachers in Online Teaching and Learning Online learning has been massively adopted in higher education, but the recent pandemic has pushed all teachers to deliver their classes online. However, many teachers still lack the pedagogical principles and technical aspect of teaching online. Thus, they might have more workloads and subsequently experience more stress (Rapanta et al., 2020). The continuous exposure to work-related stresses might cause teachers to experience burnout syndrome, no exception for the medical teachers. Burnout experienced by the medical teachers should be a concern as it might lead to detrimental effect in medical education (Alves et al., 2019; Yu et al., 2019). When teachers are having burnout, it could lead to the decreased effectiveness of their work. It is in contrast to the vitality which is believed to be essential for teachers to respond constructively to any changes. Having vitality could help teachers to have positive feelings and excitement toward their works. Moreover, a teacher who has vitality shows motivation and commitment to professional and personal growth (Pololi et al., 2015). Therefore, in facing the accelerated movement to online teaching and learning, fostering teachers’ vitality can be one of the strategies to support teachers through this transition. It might also prevent or minimize the negative effects of burnout. To do so, it is important to first understand what factors might influence teachers’ vitality. Shah et al. (2018) proposed a model which consists of three sets of equally important contextual factors, such as individual, leadership, and institutional factors. The individual factors are related to teacher’s self-quality; for examples, motivation, self-efficacy, personal goals, expectation, collegiality, and life-long learning. It is believed that these individual factors could be strengthened through faculty development program. On the other hand, institutional factors encompass the purpose, mission, culture, and values of an institution. Meanwhile the leadership factors are related to the expected characteristics and behaviours of leaders at every level which could influence teachers’ vitality. It is said that these three factors should be actively align and consistent over time to ensure the sustainability of strong teachers’ vitality. Recognizing personal values as teachers could be the first step teachers can do to fostering their vitality as teacher. Being able to recognize personal values is a form of self-realization which is believed as one key to feel that the work someone’s do is worth doing and meaningful (Martaela & Pessi, 2018). Teachers should also analyse whether their personal values align with the institutional values. It is important for institution to recognize and support what the teachers value most to fulfil their growth, especially in professional context. If teachers value professional development the most, then institution should also commit to provide faculty development regularly to support their professional growth. For example, many teachers might not be ready to teach online as they lack the principal knowledge of online teaching and learning. Therefore, institution should facilitate the faculty development program to enhance teachers’ knowledge on online teaching. The alignment of faculty development program with what teachers’ need could make teachers feel included and belong to the institution. Pololi et al. (2015) identified the feeling of included and

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sense of belonging to the organization as the strongest predictor of teachers’ vitality. The alignment of personal and institutional values, and institutional support are other strong predictors. Often, a faculty development program in online teaching merely limited to the technology training. The fact is, it should be beyond that, as online teaching also needs good understanding of pedagogies and the teaching content. Course design and implementation are two important aspects in online teaching and learning. Thus, it is important to facilitate teachers through faculty development program to understand what should be considered when designing an online course, such as the learning outcomes, the contents or syllabus, the tools and resources used, the concrete tasks, and the assessment. It should also be noted that although the teaching and learning delivered in online format, still it is a social cognitive process. Teachers should understand the importance of teacher and students’ presence in online teaching and learning. When teaching online, teachers should always take into consideration their students’ preparedness to online learning. Teachers’ communication skills are also important to enhance the interaction between teacher-student and/or student–student which are often neglected in online learning (Frass et al., 2017; Rapanta et al., 2020). In the context of faculty development program, it is important to understand the needs of teachers related to online teaching. Teachers’ prior knowledge about teaching and learning, especially in online format, should also be examined carefully in order to develop a more effective faculty development program. Another important component in such program is giving teachers opportunity to reflect on their teaching experience. Reflection can help teachers recognize their changes in teaching, either through their beliefs or practices (McQuiggan, 2012). Providing teachers with the principle of knowledge of online teaching and learning is crucial to support teachers through their transition from conventional face-to-face teaching to online teaching. Preparing teachers to teach online properly could also help teachers in delivering high quality courses and creating a conducive environment for students’ learning.

4 Conclusions Implementation of online learning in medical and health professions education as a specific context in higher education, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighted the importance of continuously constructing and deconstructing process of curriculum development, considering attempt to provide diverse, inclusive, and equal education, as well as students’ competency attainment and safety of patients, teachers, and students. Although the use of online learning and technology is undoubtedly potential for the current student generations, challenges in applying online learning are inevitable. There are also generation gap issues between the current students and teachers which requires further faculty development program. Therefore, being aware of these challenges should be seen as a critical step in the adaptation process.

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As the main objective of implementing technologies and conducting online learning is to support learning as tools, not as teachers, consideration of the current digital native students especially regarding their attention span, communication style, and information chunking should be considered. Students’ sociodemographic backgrounds, personal learning needs, and familiarity with online learning environment were known to affect students’ self-regulated learning ability and wellbeing during online learning implementation. Hence, the ability of teachers to facilitate medical students in practicing self-regulated learning during online learning and to promote wellbeing is useful. Teachers’ conceptions of teaching especially in the online learning context and their adaptability in their changing roles and continuously improving their technology literacy and fostering the community of inquiry also affected teachers’ ability to create conducive online learning environment. It is also important to understand the need for nurturing teachers’ vitality so they could work effectively. As teachers’ knowledge of online learning might be lacking, it could cause teachers burnout and lead to negative effect on teachers’ working performance. Thus, it is encouraged to support teachers through faculty development program based on their needs, not only about the technology training. Giving teachers’ chance to reflect on their teaching experience could be helpful for teachers to recognize more about their beliefs or practice in teaching. Therefore, designing diverse, inclusive, and equal curricula in online learning context require not only curriculum design systematic approach and enhancement of technology literacy for students and teachers, but also comprehensive supports to facilitate teachers and students to engage in collaborative processes and dialogues of which enabling them to reflect and understand each other’s personal learning needs, perceptions towards online learning, and co-creation of meaningful online learning environment. This understanding can be applied generally in well and limited resource settings. Further recommendations to design a diverse and inclusive system that addresses the challenges to optimize online learning in medical and health professions education consisted of, but not limited to: 1. Implementing online learning according to the context, students’ and teachers’ characteristics, and expected learning outcomes. The psychomotor skills domain of learning outcomes requires incorporation of educational approaches beyond online learning. 2. Understanding current student generation’s characteristics and sociodemographic backgrounds and recognizing the generational gap in order to immerse with both students and teachers needs in engaging with online learning. 3. Appropriately selecting platforms and chunking topics and materials to support medical students’ self-regulated learning ability and wellbeing while obtaining the expected learning outcomes. 4. Facilitating students and teachers to interact and collaborate to promote meaningful online learning environment

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5. Designing a faculty development program that recognize and support teachers’ needs of online learning in order to nurture teachers’ sense of belonging to the institution which important for teachers’ vitality. It is also helpful for teachers to fulfil their professional growth.

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Dr. Ardi Findyartini is a Professor in medical education in the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia (FMUI). She graduated as a medical doctor from FMUI in 2002 and completed her Ph.D. in medical education from the University of Melbourne in 2012. She is currently the Coordinator of Community Service, Department of Medical Education; the Chair of Medical Education Center Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute (IMERI); and the Chair of Medical Education Unit FMUI. Her research interests are professionalism, faculty development, interprofessional education, curriculum development, clinical teaching and assessment, and cultural aspects in medical and health professions education. She has widely published in national and international peer-reviewed journals, national and international books and book chapters, and has served as a peer reviewer and editorial board member in international journals. She is an active member of international medical education association and has received national and international research grants in this field. Dr. Diantha Soemantri is an professor in medical education in the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia (FMUI). She graduated as a medical doctor from FMUI in 2005, acquired Master of Medical Education from University of Dundee in 2007 and Ph.D. in the same field from University of Melbourne in 2013. She is the head of Master of Medical Education Program in Universitas Indonesia and also responsible for the interprofessional education of Health Sciences Cluster. Since 2018, she is appointed as the vice director of medical education of the Indonesian Medical Education and Research Institute (IMERI) FMUI. Her research interests are student assessment, reflection and feedback, interprofessional education and collaborative practice, and professionalism development. She has published more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals, actively serves as a peer reviewer for various high-impact journals and received both international and national research grants throughout her 13 years of career in medical education.

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A. Findyartini et al. Nadia Greviana is a lecturer in medical education in Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia (FMUI). She graduated as a dentist from Faculty of Dentistry Universitas Padjadjaran in 2014 and acquired her Master’s degree in medical education from FMUI in 2019. She is an academic staff at Department of Medical Education and a core researcher at Medical Education Center, Indonesian Medical Education and Research Institute (IMERI), Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia. Her research interests are studies related to professional development and assessment, student supports and wellbeing, self-regulated learning, and technology-enhanced learning. She also actively participates in conducting faculty development programs for both medical and dental teachers throughout Indonesia and has actively been publishing her work in national and international peer-reviewed journals. Dr. AASA Santhi Sueningrum is a research collaborator in Medical Education Center Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute (IMERI), Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia. She graduated as a medical doctor from Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Universitas Warmadewa in 2015 and acquired her Master’s degree in medical education from Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia (FMUI) in 2020. Her research interests are studies related to professionalism development, community of practice, teaching and learning in clinical education, and student supports and wellbeing. She actively participates in conducting curriculum development and faculty development program for medical teachers in her previous institution.

Chapter 8

Opportunities and Challenges of Postgraduate Entrance Examination Preparation Within an Inclusive Education Context in China An Bao Guo and Chua Kah Heng

1 Research Background As soon as it was proposed, inclusive education received attention from various countries, thus far, it has become an essential motivation in the sustainable improvement of education, particularly in the perspective of equality of education, and dramatically influences educational theory and practice. In Mainland China, the development of inclusive education resembles that in many western countries, but there are also unique features within the Chinese context. Among the several forms and definition, Learning in Regular Classes (LRC) is the Chinese version of inclusive education (Zhou & Yang, 2016). Therefore, in Mainland China, inclusive education may be achieved when students, regardless of their year, are taught by the same teachers with the same competence according to the same materials, schedule, and facilities. Given that the principles of inclusive education may provide an essential theoretical basis for accomplishing educational justice and equality at both special and mainstream schools, the government of Mainland China has published several policies to promote this educational concept (Zhou & Yang, 2016). However, the target groups of these policies are primarily students and teachers in grades K-12, while students in higher education face challenges in both further education and employment, prompting the government to propose more policies that fit their needs, thus achieving inclusive education in society as a whole and also laying an essential prerequisite for better social equity. Taking the above understanding as a starting B. G. An School of Marxism, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, China K. H. Chua (B) Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Faculty of Education, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_8

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point, this chapter will focus on candidates preparing for the Chinese Postgraduate Entrance Examinations (PEE) and then explore the phenomenon of inclusive education in higher education. It is turning now to present PEE and why it is popular among undergraduate students. In the new global economy, knowledge and scientific technology has become the foremost two driving force for the sustainable development of a country (Geldenhuys & Oosthuizen, 2015). As result, high-level intellectuals have begun to play an increasingly important role in the development of a country and its society. However, in Mainland China, the increase in the number of undergraduates, intense employment competition, and the growth of employment pressure have prompted most undergraduates to choose to pursue the further degree, namely, the master’s degree, in order to obtain a higher qualification and thus get a better job after they get their bachelor’s degree. This means that more and more graduates who have obtained a bachelor’s degree are joining the groups of PEE. It can be possible to conclude that attending PEE is becoming increasingly popular among undergraduates. As can be observed in Fig. 1, there is an overall upward trend in the number of students enrolling in the PEE from 2012 to 2022. Using 2015 as the cut-off year, the number of students enrolled in the PEE for the four years (2012–2015) showed a choppy pattern, presumably because the official abolition of the publicly funded postgraduate policy in 2015 led to a decrease in the number of students enrolling in the PEE that year. However, the numbers began to show a linear upward trend each year after 2015, with an average increase of 15.8% over the following seven years. Since 2016, the number of people enrolling for the PEE has maintained a high growth trend, and in 2017, the number of applicants broke the 2 million mark for the first time, reaching 2.01 million, nearly doubling the number of applicants for the PEE in the last five years. Figure 1 also presents a very interesting phenomenon, namely that the number of students enrolling in PEE has not decreased, but rather has increased significantly in the three years from 2020 to 2022, when countries around the world have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the education sector was hit hard (An & Razak, 2022). Therefore, compared to the period affected by the pandemic, the preparation environment for 2022 PEE examiners has undoubtedly changed due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the influence of the geographical spread of the pandemic will make the examination preparation environment different for those in different regions. This means that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an inclusive PEE preparation environment. Exploring the main reasons for the emergence of the rising number of PEE candidates despite the inclusive circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is the premise and the main issues to be achieved in this study. More specifically, the study aims to summarise the impact of COVID-19 on candidates taking the PEE and, in particular, to explore the extent to which national lockdown policy and emergency online homeschooling was adopted in order to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on candidates’ preparation for PEE. Furthermore, the authors will conclude opportunities and challenges faced by PEE candidates during

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500

457

450 377

400

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250 200 165.6 176 172 164.9 177 150

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100 50 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Fig. 1 The number of students enrolled in PEE (million). Source Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China

the COVID-19 pandemic and their living experience in using digital tools to overcome the challenges. In order to achieve the research purpose, this study was organised as follows: the research background outlines the prerequisite of conducting the current research and explains what goal this study may achieve, the literature review section reviewed related academic publications on “COVID-19” and “examination”, the methodology section describes the research design, respondents, in addition to the data collection and analytical approach used in the study. The final two sections present the findings of the study, followed by a discussion of the findings, and conclusions that may be drawn, in addition to providing recommendations for future research based on the limitations of the study.

2 Literature Review In this section, relevant research on “COVID-19” and “examination” were reviewed in order to identify the research gap. More specifically, in order to achieve the purpose of this study, researchers conducted a scoping review of academic publications in the Web of Science database using “COVID-19” and “examination” as the primary search terms. The researchers concluded that compared to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, online examinations have not received much attention from researchers, even though it is a topical issue and has great social impact (Tiejun, 2021). The detailed conclusions based on literature review are described as followed.

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The following researchers have given their views on how to conduct examinations more smoothly under the influence of COVID-19 pandemic. Giving advice alongside the challenges based on a national examination (Postgraduate Orthopaedic Exam) in which they were personally involved, Mohamed-Haflah et al. (2021) mentioned that conducting the examination during the COVID-19 pandemic required considerations pertaining venue, equipment, questionnaire of the health status of candidates, and examiners. Motilal et al. (2021) concluded that the challenge of administering the Family Medicine qualifying examinations during the COVID-19 pandemic was the heavy reliance on technology and IT supports. However, through innovative approaches involving the appropriate use of technology, this examination can still be administered. Rao et al. (2021) mentioned that a new hybrid approach with realtime simultaneous assessment by on-site and off-site examiners could be a viable and successful model to conduct summative assessments during the COVID-19 sessions. Similarly, Ellis et al. (2021) proposed strategies for UK candidates and examiners to optimize their online examinations based on the changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike the four aforementioned studies, which were all based on specific examination projects, Alshurideh et al. (2021) concluded that policymakers and educational developers should consider mobile examination platforms as a new assessment platform and a possible technological solution, especially when considering the concept of distance learning, as reported through a questionnaire from 566 university students. As can be seen, not many scholars have studied examinations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this research gap is also a prerequisite for this study. Hence, based on the research gap and the background, the subsequent section will present research methodology applied by this study.

3 Methodology In order to answer the research question, a qualitative method was employed to design this research. Among the six qualitative research design defined by Merriam (2009), this study applied qualitative narrative analysis, which may be an effective and most appropriate qualitative method, especially when the number of respondents is small and the focus of the research is on the relationship between respondent-self and their studying or working setting (Weatherhead, 2011). In this section, the research methodology was explained by describing the research design, respondents, data collection, and analyses methods.

Respondents The number of respondents in a narrative study design needs to be determined based on the research topic, and this research design is not appropriate for research

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Table 1 Profile of respondents Respondent

Gender

Age

Major of PEE

School of PEE

Respondent 1

Female

21

Animal science

Shanxi University

Respondent 2

Female

22

Biological and pharmaceutical

Shaanxi Normal University

Respondent 3

Male

21

Animal science

South China Normal University

Respondent 4

Female

22

Marine biology and biotechnology

Jinan University

Respondent 5

Male

23

Biological

Northeast Normal University

conducted with a large number of respondents (Esin, 2011). Therefore based on the purposive sampling strategy defined by Merriam (2009), five biology major students who enrolled in PEE 2022 were selected as respondents to address the research question. Table 1 presents the profile of each respondent. Five respondents were from the same university, in the same class, and three of the female respondents were from the same dormitory. The first four participants have already passed all rounds of PEE (None of the four entertained the idea of giving up), and will start their master’s studies in September 2022, while R5 gave up PEE one month before it was conducted. All the five respondents were from Biology-related majors during their undergraduate study.

Data Collection As interviews are an important data collection method for various narrative researchers in the social sciences (Esin, 2011), all data for this study were obtained with the assistance of semi-structured interviews through the VOOV meeting computer software. The details of the interviews employed in this study are: Before interviewing—Detailed information about the study, its purpose, the rights of the interviewees, and the time at which the researcher conducted the interviews, as well as the use of the data, were communicated to each respondent. In addition, all respondents were also informed that they could refuse to answer any questions that made them feel uncomfortable and could also withdraw from the interview at any time. During interviewing—The researchers asked each respondent ten topic-oriented, open-ended, and straightforward interview questions, such as, “why did you enrol in the PEE and what role did digital device play in your PEE preparation?” “What words would you use to summarise your journey in preparation for the PEE?” It is essential to point out, however, that not all respondents were required to answer all ten questions, and the researchers listened carefully in order to decide what to ask

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and what not to ask. Furthermore, the researcher constantly encouraged respondents to be bold in their sharing. After interviewing—Each interviewing ended with the question, “what else do you want to add?” A total of five video recordings were obtained and saved for data analysis.

Data Analysis Thematic data analysis approach outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006) was implemented. Given the interview was conducted in Mandarin Chinese, data analysis began by transcribing and translating the five video recordings, and this was accompanied by multiple reading, in order to identify themes within data. The following are detailed descriptions of data analysis in this study. To ensure the trustworthiness of the data collected, the corresponding transcribed data were passed to each respondent for member checking and expert debriefing was also employed. The corresponding author was requested to act as expert to critically examine the criteria of respondent selection and interview questions. Familiarisation with data. During this process, five video semi-structured interview recordings were transcribed, which was followed by data translation because the interviews were conducted in Mandarin Chinese. After that, repeated careful reading was performed in order to thoroughly immerse the researchers in the data and familiarise them with it, and to also ensure that the themes could progressively emerge (Friese et al., 2018). Generating codes. After getting an overall understanding of the interview data, the initial coding commenced. In the first round of coding, open word-by-word and lineby-line manual coding were conducted in order to explore possible themes within the data. In the second round of coding, the researchers continuously moved back and forth between reading the data and rereading emerging codes within the first round of coding with the aim of determining the final programme of codes (Table 2). Determining themes. In this process, by comparing code frequencies, the researchers determined the themes, and their corresponding codes were presented on Table 2. Defining themes. In this process, guided by the research purpose, researchers interpreted all the determined themes, which were presented in the Table 3.

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Table 2 Themes and their codes Theme

Codes

Driving force Self-dissatisfaction; Employment pressures; Achievement; Off-campus exchanges; Excellent family members; More working opportunities; Self-wish Assistance power

PEE preparation study room; Separate endorsement rooms; Family support; Roommates cheering each other on; Preparation Mindset; Blibli; Online class; Platform; PEE experiences sharing

Hindering force

English learning; Not wanting to learn; Excessive preparation time; Time arrangement

Personal experiences

Fulfilment; State of continuous learning; Take your time to learn; Self-confidence; Pain with pleasure

Table 3 Themes and their definition Theme

Definition

Driving force

Internal and external factors (personal or Web information) that motivate participants to know and enrol in PEE

Assistance power

Material or moral support from university, family, roommates, internet or individuals in respondents’ PEE preparing; Determination

Hindering force The obstacles that respondents encounter in PEE preparing that may cause them to abandon Personal experiences

The respondents have made relatively large and even unexpected gains in their PEE preparation; Repeat study

4 Findings The current chapter aims to explore the implications of COVID-19 on candidates’ PEE preparation by applying the qualitative narrative analysis design. More specifically, this chapter explores PEE candidates’ personal living experiences in their PEE preparation and how digital or other technological software may help overcome their daily challenges from the inclusive learning environment caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the findings concluded from five semi-structured interviews was reported in this section.

Reasons to Participate in PEE The five respondents formed a consensus on their reasons for enrolling in the PEE, namely that the university they attended was less helpful in their job searching compared to other universities of the same type, and they wanted to pass the PEE to pursue the master’s degree to enhance their future employment opportunities. As Respondent 4 shared:

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Respondent 4: What can I do if I don’t take the PEE? A bachelor’s degree is not enough to go to a biology company… apply for a teacher in government schools, but I haven’t got my teaching qualification yet, and I don’t have enough time to prepare for the teaching exam after I get it. So, at this stage, preparing for the PEE is the most appropriate and sufficient time, almost half a year.

Not only to enhance their competitiveness for employment, respondents felt that their family environment also contributed to their choice to take the PEE. In particular, the family encouraged them psychologically to the extent that they were able to prepare fully for PEE without much mental burden and eventually succeeded For Respondent 3, it was more his intrinsic motivation that drove him to take the PEE. Respondent 3: During my undergraduate studies, I had many opportunities to interact with students from other universities. During these exchanges, I realised that my university was not well-equipped and that some institutions outside were better equipped for students to conduct experimental investigations. ....Also, the region I stay has seen some development in recent years, but for my major, it is difficult to develop further than being a biology teacher, so I thought it would be better to pursue a master’s degree in a big city in the south part of China in order to seek a career other than teaching.

For R3, his undergraduate school may have been relatively weak, but this starting point may have given him greater motivation to continue to progress and it also was the most direct reason for him to apply for the PEE. If the other four respondents were determined to participate in PEE due to the pressure of future employment, R5’s reasons for taking it were interesting, as he shared: his main reason for taking the PEE was that his family wanted him to pursue his master’s degree and he did not want to enter the workforce (Respondent 5). It was for this reason that he did not have enough knowledge of PEE and often slacked off in his studies during the preparation process. He gave up on continuing his preparation under multiple pressures from himself and other classmates.

Supportive Conditions for PEE Preparation As the five respondents shared, PEE preparation is a long-term and continuous process in which, in addition to the students themselves, external circumstances such as family and school play an equally important role and can even be a decisive factor in their success. From the perspective of the supportive condition provided by the university, Respondent 3 said the undergraduate school provided him with a platform to get more opportunities to attend off-campus competitions, and these opportunities have directly contributed to his PEE preparation, and the university has inspired him to do more worthwhile things. In addition to the virtual support the respondent received from the school, the physical support provided by the school received a unified response from the 5 respondents.

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These physical supportive conditions provided by the university including sharing session with their seniors about PEE preparation, and fixed study rooms for exam preparation. In addition, in the view of Respondent 1: Respondent 1: The greatest benefit given by the university is that the classes period arranged for senior students are particularly few, which gives us ample time to prepare for PEE. The hardware facilities of the university library are also particularly good, and this year the seventh floor of the library also provides a special place for PEE students to recite, if this place is not provided, we may only recite in the hallway in a low voice, which, in my opinion, will reduce the effectiveness of memorization.

From the perspective of the supportive conditions provided by family, whose spiritual and financial support is very important for respondents in their preparation for PEE. For Respondent 3, his sister and brother-in-law are both postgraduate students at prestigious universities and their role models supported him in maintaining constant motivation in his PEE preparation. R4 also received similar support from her family: Respondent 4: My brother also graduated from a normal undergraduate school like mine, but instead of giving up on his studies, he appreciated what he had and kept working hard, eventually getting his master’s degree, and now he is in the final stages of his PhD abroad. My brother’s spirit has always inspired me to keep moving forward.

In this regard, R1 and R2 were fortunate that throughout their preparation, their families did not put any pressure on them, but instead encouraged them to try and even if they did not get good results this year, they could still try again next year. It was stress-free support from their families that helped them succeed. From the perspective of the supportive conditions provided by roommates, compared to the two male respondents, the three female respondents may have had more profound experiences, which included R2’s mention of monitoring each other with her two PEE housemates, R1’s mention of talking to her roommates to relieve stress and keep her motivated to study, and in R4’s case, her roommates became a key factor in regulating her negative PEE preparation mindset, as she shared: Respondent 4: If I do badly in English, I will doubt myself, lose confidence and even become bored with studying. At this point, I will quietly look at my roommates and see that they are all studying hard, so I feel that I do not have to be in such a negative mood all the time, which will only reduce my learning efficiency. I would remind myself that we are all on the same level and what I can’t do, they probably can’t do either, so if I study hard and keep studying, I will get good grades.

The last supportive condition mentioned by the respondents came from electronic devices and their applications. More specifically, these electronic devices have become the main medium through which the respondents may obtain more information about PEE and relieve the stress of PEE preparation. As Respondent 3 shared: Respondent 3: Most of what I used during my PEE preparation were the tablet and mobile phone, and then the laptop used occasionally. In addition to the software used for online learning, I would browse Bilibili, which has many videos of PEE. I also like to visit Zhihu ( 知乎) and get to know some seniors to get more information about PEE and the university I would enrol, I also spend 10–20 minutes a day watching anime, shopping on Taobao if I need to buy something, and using communication software like QQ and WeChat.

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Compared to other applications, Bilibili seems to be very popular with the five respondents selected for this study, and they all made a habit of using Bilibili during the period of their PEE preparation, regardless of whether they were ultimately successful or not. Respondent 4 even uninstalled all the entertainment applications, apart from Blibli. In addition to watching PEE-related videos on Bilibili, Respondent 2 recalled that she would also screen videos of cooking and science to broaden her horizons and relieve the stress of PEE preparation.

Feeling of PEE Preparation During the COVID-19 Pandemic From 2020, most countries around the world still experience the negative effects of COVID-19, especially in the field of education, yet for the respondents in this study, not only did COVID-19 not have a negative impact on their PEE preparation, they were also even grateful to be able to prepare for the PEE amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. As Respondent 4 shared: Respondent 4: I think the negative impact of COVID-19 on my PEE preparation is negligible, because even if there was no COVID-19 at all, I would still be at school all day preparing for PEE. Now, if there are new cases of COVID-19 around, the university will organise a nucleic acid test and it may waste a bit of time preparing for the PEE. I think if there was no epidemic, other students who are not studying on Saturdays and Sundays might go offcampus to relax, while those of us preparing for PEE would have less time to relax and may envy them, which in turn would have an impact on our own mindset for the PEE preparation. Therefore, I can say that I was able to prepare for PEE at school without worrying about the epidemic.

The other two female respondents also felt that there were no impacts of COVID19 on their PEE preparation, however, Respondent 3 said that the pandemic prevented him from returning to school to prepare for the second round of PEE and he feels less effective at home. When asked about their online learning experience in the context of the epidemic, four respondents who were ultimately successful in their PEE were equally positive in their assessment of online teaching. Respondent 3 even said that if he were to enrol the PEE again, he would probably choose online classes again, as it suited him better and allowed him more freedom to organise his own preparation schedule. Respondent 2 also preferred to attend online class due to its flexibility and more opportunities to attend classes given by famous teachers known to students. In addition, Respondent 1 shared that there were no differences between online and physical classes, she explained: Respondent 1: In my opinion, the possible benefit of face-to-face lessons is that there is a teacher to supervise you, but if the candidate does not do well on their own, such as copying someone else’s work, then the preparation candidate being supervised by more people may end up with the same result. In contrast, if I don’t understand what the teacher is saying the first time, I may go back and consolidate my revision and listen to it a few more times.

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Besides the benefits of repeatability of online classes, R1 also shared that online class is more selective than physical classes. She recalled that: Respondent 1: At the beginning of my PEE preparation, I enrolled in an English class at a certain institution, and this institution was popular within others. But I was completely unable to follow the content taught by the teacher, so I decided to switch to another institute, and after a few lessons, I felt that the teacher was not bad, so I decided to continue following her steps to learn, and my reading scores are gradually improving.

In this regard, Respondent 4 shared that most of the candidates around her still go for online classes. Personally, she said: Respondent 4: A few of the subjects I had already been studied in my undergraduate degree, I already had a basic body of their knowledge system and then online classes were perfectly adequate for me, then there was no need for face-to-face lectures. And the price of face-to-face lectures is around RMB ¥ 30,000, which are expected to be very expensive for me.

Till now, the findings of this study have been reported. The discussions of these findings with the related literature will be presented in the following section.

5 Discussion and Conclusion This study aimed to summarise the impact of COVID-19 on biology candidates taking the PEE based on the qualitative narrative analysis design and four themes, namely, driving force, assistance power, hindering force, and personal experience emerged. Based on the qualitative findings from this study, it is obvious that not only did COVID-19 not become a deterrent to candidates’ preparation for the PEE, but it also provided more powerful conditions for their preparation. More specifically, before COVID-19, all the educational activities were conducted in the physical space, and in this case, only those PEE candidates located in big cities (Beijing, Shanghai) had the opportunity to attend the courses provided by the great teachers that the PEE candidates recognized, however, second and third-tier candidates could only learn with the help of these teachers’ pre-recorded courses. In 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 occurred without warning. It required all the face-to-face teaching to transfer to online teaching, in which the gap, including geographic location and family financial resources faced by PEE candidates, were broken. This means that all PEE candidates, no matter where they are located, whether they are rich or not, solely attended pre-recorded courses, and the difference in the way they participated in teachers’ courses also disappeared. Taken together, the results of this chapter indicate that the popularized online courses required by the COVID-19 pandemic enabled PEE candidates to obtain PEE preparation courses more equitably. The findings of this study suggest that electronic devices or high-tech software can be a powerful enabler of inclusive education, especially in breaking the challenges posed by geographic location or unequal distribution of educational resources. The above findings differ from the large number of relevant

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studies that has described the negative impact of COVID-19 on the education sector. This might become a new paradigm of how candidate prepare their PEE examination, where flexibility would be the key concern for the candidate. On top of that, under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to online classes being commonly used, a mobile phone application called Blibli was used from time to time during their preparation. Not only is this mobile phone application seen as a supplement to online classes, the various video resources about food and documentaries available on this application are a powerful aid to stress relief for the PEE preparers. The rise of virtual materials and the usage of virtual classes in preparation of examination become the new trend for future students. First-hand resources might be available and easy to assess by candidates and it would be helpful for them in terms of examination preparation. Not forgetting, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual classes growing like mushrooms after rain. Such situation might be beneficial for candidates as they do not have to travel to attend classes they intend to and this might save travelling costs, time, and energy as they can attend the virtual classes anytime, anywhere. Furthermore, candidates may need more emotional support in their PEE preparation under the influence of COVID-19 pandemic, with family and housemates playing a more important role. As preparation for the PEE is tough, the vast majority of the time spent in completing this task will be on the candidate’s own, and with the negative impact of the pandemic, emotional support is even more essential as candidates are prohibited from participating in more off-campus activities to relieve stress in order to reduce the spread of infection. Based on the above discussions, future related in-depth studies could be conducted with different respondents and research methodology, as the respondents in this study were selected from the same class in the same university with science background, which means that the results of this study cannot be extended. Furthermore, in 2021, the situation of COVID-19 in China was relatively optimistic compared to other countries, so in order to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on candidate’s preparation for PEE, it would be useful to select respondents from regions that face lockdowns by the government due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which may lead to different study results. Selecting more respondents with different disciplinary backgrounds, such as social science, might also yield different results. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank five respondents for sharing their experience of PEE preparation during the COVID-19 in order for this research to be completed.

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References Alshurideh, M. T., Kurdi, B. A., AlHamad, A. Q., Salloum, S. A., Alkurdi, S., Dehghan, A., & Masa’deh, R. E. (2021). Factors affecting the use of smart mobile examination platforms by universities’ postgraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic: An empirical study. Informatics, 8(2). An, B. G., & Razak, A. Z. (2022). A scoping review of teacher training during COVID-19 pandemic. International Education Studies, 15(2), 102–112. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. Ellis, R., Oeppen, R. S., & Brennan, P. A. (2021). Virtual postgraduate exams and assessments : The challenges of online delivery and optimising performance. British Journal of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, 59(2), 233–237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjoms.2020.12.011 Esin, C. (2011). Narrative analysis approaches. In N. Frost (Ed.), Qualitative research methods in psychology: Combining core approaches (pp. 92–118). Open University Press. Friese, S., Soratto, J., & Pires, D. (2018). Carrying out a computer-aided thematic content analysis with ATLAS.ti. Geldenhuys, J. L., & Oosthuizen, L. C. (2015). Challenges influencing teachers’ involvement in continuous professional development: A South African perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 51, 203–212. Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass Publishers. Mohamed-Haflah, N. H., Abdullah, S., & Abdul-Rani, R. (2021). Coordinating a postgraduate orthopaedic exam during the covid-19 pandemic. Malaysian Orthopaedic Journal, 15(1), 16–20. https://doi.org/10.5704/MOJ.2103.003 Motilal, S., Paul-Charles, J., Asnani, M., Khan, R., Ricketts-Roomes, T., Pinder-Butler, S., & Maharaj, R. G. (2021). 2020 family medicine postgraduate examinations at the University of the West Indies: Successes and challenges in the time of COVID-19 pandemic. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 97(1149), 423–426. https://doi.org/10.1136/postgradmedj-2021-140242 Rao, S., Chowdhury, N., Naithani, M., Singh, A., Singh, N., Gupta, A. K., & Kathrotia, R. (2021). Alternative strategy adopted in practical assessment for pathology postgraduate certification examination amidst covid-19 nationwide lockdown: An indian experience with a novel hybrid method of assessment. Advances in Medical Education and Practice, 12(1), 1–9. Tiejun, Z. (2021). Implementation status and development thinking on “Cloud National Examination” in China under the situation of “Online Anti-COVID-19 Epidemic.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 162(August 2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020. 120322 Weatherhead, S. (2011). Narrative analysis: An often overlooked approach. Clinical Psychology Forum, 218, 47–52. Zhou, Q., & Yang, J. (2016). Literacy education in China within an inclusive education context. Per Linguam: A Journal of Language Learning, 32(1), 88–101. https://doi.org/10.5785/32-1-679

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An B. G. and Chua K. H. Dr. Chua Kah Heng is a senior lecturer from the Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Faculty of Education, Universiti Malaya. Before joining the university as a lecturer, Dr. Chua served as a high school teacher with the Ministry of Education Malaysia. His research interests mainly focus on chemistry and science education, teaching pedagogy, mixedmethod research, and nanoscience in education.

Dr. An Bao Guo is now a lecturer from the School of Marxism, Wenzhou University, and he completed his doctorate studies in May of 2022 in the Faculty of Education at Universiti Malaya. His research interests mainly focus on teaching pedagogy and curriculum reform in secondary school, educational reform in China, and qualitative education research.

Chapter 9

Exploring the Inclusivity of Assessment ePortfolio for Multimodal Literacy During the Pandemic: A Case Study in Malaysian Higher Education Sue Ann Ching Yee Tan, Lee Sze Seau Jill, Shirley Tan, and Raheleh AkhaviZadegan

1 Introduction In early 2020, people worldwide faced a new reality, one not many have imagined or foreseen. As Funk (2021) elaborated, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised new challenges in higher education institutions, such as financing, issues related to learning logistics, and inequality. The challenge lies specifically in the inclusivity of the learning; how to ensure that “distance, digital, and blended learning are inclusive and responsive to learners’ needs, especially when new technologies are introduced” (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2021, p. 7). One may argue that the issue of inclusivity is not new, so why has the discussion become more relevant than ever? Online learning is most likely linked to the popular myth that the internet is a “Great Equaliser” (Wolf, 1998) which advocates that the internet is an inclusive and democratic platform because it allows equal access to information available online. However, various studies (Margolis, 2008; Srinivasan, 2017; Wolf, 1998) have demonstrated how technologies predominantly serve “Western consumers” and create virtual segregation. Thus, with the rapid migration to digital learning, inclusive education requires some serious consideration, particularly regarding how S. A. C. Y. Tan · L. S. S. Jill (B) UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] S. Tan Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The Netherlands R. AkhaviZadegan University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_9

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to embrace this new practice without creating a further digital divide among the students (Anderson, 2011). Malaysians were unwarned of the lockdown when the Movement Control Order was put in force on the 18th of March, 2020 (Soo, 2020), which led to the shift to online teaching and learning. Suddenly, stakeholders, instructors, and students of higher education institutions had to switch to online distance learning (ODL) and were expected to cope with many complex elements of ODL: the technical and pedagogical aspects. The second element has attracted much discussion in the educational field, as these factors play a decisive role in ensuring the quality of education delivered online (Devkota, 2021). It is evident that regardless of how education is provided, instructors are expected to identify and address gaps in students’ knowledge, different levels of skills development, strengths, and needs (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2021). One means of doing so is through assessment. The challenge now lies in designing an online assessment which can perform the functions of (1) gathering relevant information about student performance or progress and (2) facilitating the space needed for learning to be multi-dimensional, intentional, and critical” (Columbia Centre for Teaching & Learning, 2020). Decristan et al. (2017) argued that inclusive assessment would require instructors to adapt their teaching to new requirements. There is always the question of how instructors could be trained to design inclusive education and successfully implement inclusive assessment in a classroom setting. Loreman (2017), for instance, has identified different approaches to implement inclusive education through the Universal Design for Learning and the Differentiated Instruction. Yet, as promising as some of these efforts are, there is still a growing sense that they are usually formed without the voice they affect the most—the students (Gentilucci, 2004). Nieminen’s (2022) principles for assessment for inclusion such as celebration of human diversity and student partnership, although targeted at disabled people in higher education, can be integrated in the design of inclusive assessment practices for any community and any situation including the digital divide caused by the pandemic. Without such valuing and highlighting of student experiences, it is deemed implausible to create inclusive learning interventions based on sound theoretical and empirical evidence. With this in mind, this chapter aims to explore the inclusivity of assessment ePortfolios for multimodal literacy (MML) by investigating the affordances and constraints of the assessment ePortfolio. Particularly, since an earlier publication incorporated the lecturer’s justifications for using the ePortfolio as a pedagogical tool (Lee, 2021), this chapter focuses more on students’ voices as we hope to “allow students to speak for and about themselves, thereby revealing firsthand the subjective meanings they attach to learning-related behaviour” (Gentilucci, 2004, p. 134). This is critical since we cannot presume that students are unanimously digital natives (Licastro, 2016). Despite the recommendation of the ePortfolio as a pedagogical approach which could encourage reflection, multimodal engagement, and student ownership by researchers (Chittum, 2018; Gulzar & Barrett, 2019), its implementation is highly unpredictable due to the open selection of the software as a hosting platform (Bryant & Chittum, 2013) and unequal internet access (Gulzar & Barrett, 2019). At its core, the problem

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encompassing this study is this: the ePortfolio as a form of assessment is reported to be successfully implemented in developed countries, but we are uncertain about its effectiveness and inclusivity in Malaysian higher education, especially when previous studies have pointed out the influences of contextual factors. The following are the research questions: 1. What are the affordances of the assessment ePortfolio for MML? 2. What are the constraints of the assessment ePortfolio for MML? 3. What do the affordances and constraints of the assessment ePortfolio for MML inform us about its inclusivity? We would first address the first and second research questions concurrently before using the findings to address the third research question.

2 Literature Review Assessment ePortfolio Adopting the views of Lorenzo and Ittelson (2005) and Jaekel (2020), the assessment ePortfolio is conceptualised as a digitised and illustrative collection of students’ work that includes audio, text-based graphics, video screencasts stored online and any other digital tool used to assess students’ academic growth and competency. With ePortfolio being one of the high-impact practices in the United States (Kuh, 2008), ample research has been conducted on students’ perspectives on using ePortfolio. Several clear affordances of assessment ePortfolio were reported in previous research. Convenience and ease of use were the most often reported affordance (Devarajoo, 2020; Douglas et al., 2019; Madden et al., 2019). Students even perceived that the benefits of ePortfolio could be sustained beyond academic coursework into the future workplace (Ciesielkiewicz et al., 2019). Some perceived the technological aspects of ePortfolio so strongly that they gained confidence in the ePortfolio as a formative assessment that contributes to learning (Deneen et al., 2017). However, despite the common presumption of Generation Z as digital natives, the constraints of the assessment ePortfolio which may affect its inclusivity could be technological-related aspects such as digital anxiety (Fullerton, 2017) and problems with hardware or the internet (Abd-Wahab et al., 2016; Devarajoo, 2020). The other constraints leaned towards the socio-emotional aspects, such as perceiving ePortfolios as time-consuming (Devarajoo, 2020; Douglas et al., 2019) and feelings of self-doubt among students without experiences with the self-reflection that is usually required (Gavaldon, 2019). The number of research on assessment ePortfolio in Malaysian higher institutions is scarce, with one study highlighting plagiarism as an issue and students’ unwillingness to participate (Abd-Wahab et al., 2016). Previous studies have elaborated how the course instructor or lecturer could enhance the affordances of ePortfolio while minimising its constraints to extend its

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inclusivity. It is recommended for the lecturer to provide scaffolding (Bourelle et al., 2018; Licastro, 2016), but the type and extent of scaffolding require careful negotiation. At the University of Texas, an online survey observed that problems such as low confidence and average motivation among students as ePortfolio creators could be mediated by experiential learning (Douglas et al., 2019). However, providing samples of ePortfolios could undermine creativity (Devarajoo, 2020). Based on existing studies conducted before the pandemic, the issue of whether the assessment ePortfolios would provide more affordances or constraints is far from conclusive. For this study, we took note of suggestions of examining data specific to particular courses rather than relying on cross-course data (Douglas et al., 2019) and addressing the variability of student experiences (Madden et al., 2019) since the pandemic could produce much more unpredictable and varied responses. We also believe that quantitative surveys, while stronger than qualitative studies for generalisation, may have overlooked unique contextual factors that could have contributed to these perspectives (Abd-Wahab et al., 2016; Ciesielkiewicz et al., 2019; Douglas et al., 2019).

Assessment ePortfolio and Multimodal Literacy In this study, we define MML as involving the skills, knowledge, and sensitivity to the semiotic choices in the interpretation and creation of multimodal compositions (Lim, 2018). In the context of English language learning in Singapore, Lim (2018) showed enhanced multimodal awareness and critical ability in the discussion of films due to an intervention based on MML. Later, in a critical review, Tan et al. (2020) concluded that in the area of English as a Second Language, the implementation of tasks involving multimodal compositions “offers non-linguistic modes that can influence, engage and in some cases enhance students’ multimodal communicative competence” (p. 97). A study conducted in Sweden by the department of Computer and Systems Sciences, which investigated students’ MML development while selfstudying, suggested that students are becoming active designers of learning due to access to new modes and media that can be tailored to their needs in varying degrees (Nouri, 2019). Several studies explicitly connected ePortfolios with MML. Researchers have proposed that ePortfolio could be a catalyst for multimodal communication (Gavaldon, 2019; Silver, 2019), with even the students who did not value the multimodal affordances of ePortfolio participating in rhetorical design (Silver, 2019). Bourelle et al. (2018) proposed that MML could be developed in an online classroom provided that the instructor effectively scaffolded the assignments. However, providing a predetermined template for hosting ePortfolios could undermine the affordances for identity (Bourelle et al., 2018). The implementation of ePortfolios in formal education has progressed so significantly in the United States of America that an integrated space with a specialised centre to develop student skills in MML has been set up in a university in Kentucky (Carpenter et al., 2012). It was the hope

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of the lecturer in the context of this study that the assessment ePortfolio would lead to the development of MML (Lee, 2021). Drawing from the literature on ePortfolio and MML, there is limited insight into the implications of ePortfolio assessment on the development of MML amongst students in higher institutions, with none conducted in Malaysia. The authors, thus, aimed to address this gap by exploring the affordances and constraints of ePortfolio assessment for the development of MML amongst students of higher education in Malaysia while assessing the inclusivity of ePortfolios as an assessment method. According to proponents of MML, educational justice could be served through the development of MML: “Attention to MML paves the way toward educational justice in making explicit to some students what may be intuitive and tacit for others” (Lim et al., 2022).

3 Research Design Methodology We employed an exploratory case study as it is deemed to be an appropriate methodological approach to meet the research aim to investigate distinct phenomena characterised by a lack of detailed preliminary research and aims to explore the hitherto unknown for developing consecutive studies (Streb, 2010). Moreover, as our study did not have clear predicted hypotheses, it aligns with an exploratory case study principle, whereby a single clear set of outcomes cannot be obtained on the intervention being explored (Yin, 2003). In addition, by deriving benefits from the small sample sizes advocated in the case study approach (Creswell & Poth, 2018), we aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of a phenomenon in its unique natural context: the affordances and constraints of assessment ePortfolios as multimodal compositions that develop multimodal literacy in a Commonwealth Literature course in the Malaysian higher education context during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

The Context The challenge of sustaining engagement in learning while developing multimodal literacy inclusively was the prime focus of the lecturer in this case study when she decided to use the ePortfolio as a pedagogical tool that utilised multimodal texts to increase the awareness of multimodality in communication in a Commonwealth Literature course during the pandemic (Lee, 2021). The lecturer subscribes to the belief that educational justice could be served through the development of multimodal literacy (Lim et al., 2022). The initial course design before the pandemic listed journal writing as the assessment method. Since the pandemic has moved

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the conduct of lessons and assessments online, the lecturer decided to implement a digital form of assessment which is an ePortfolio of five journal entries. Within an academic semester of 14 weeks, the students wrote five journal entries progressively in Weeks 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 on the novel titled A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul (2016). To provide constructive feedback when necessary to scaffold cognitive learning (Gulzar & Barrett, 2019), the lecturer provided explicit prompts for the first four journal entries while each student independently decided what to write in Week 7. The ePortfolios were only assessed in Week 10.

Data Collection This study draws on data collected from the assessment ePortfolios, and the interviews of undergraduate students enrolled in the Commonwealth Literature course. The rationale behind targeting undergraduate students is the lack of publications that report students’ voices on the use of ePortfolio assessments as a multimodal composition that develops multimodal literacy in the Malaysian tertiary scene. Given the familiarity with the subject of the study, the first author, who was an undergraduate enrolled in the said course and the second author, who was the lecturer, we were able to access the research participants and assessment ePortfolios. Particularly, ten research participants were selected based on the purposive sampling method, which is understood as the deliberate selection of a participant from the population size that possesses a set of qualities set by the researcher (Etikan et al., 2016). While we are aware that the findings from purposive sampling cannot be generalised to a wider population, in-depth collection of data from information-rich participants who are exposed to the investigated issue could be achieved (Patton, 2014). We deemed this sampling method the most suitable for this study as it could identify and select information-rich cases while assuring the most effective use of limited resources (Patton, 2014). To help us identify and select the research participants, we adhered to two main principles of purposive sampling (Creswell & Poth, 2018): 1. Individuals must be knowledgeable about or have experience with a phenomenon. 2. Individuals must be willing and available to participate in the research. The first principle was achieved by determining a set of selection criteria, namely: 1. Participants must be above 18 years of age. 2. Participants are currently enrolled in the B.A. (Hons) English Language and Communication program of the selected university. 3. The assessment ePortfolios must be created by the participants themselves and are original pieces of work. After identifying potential participants who fulfilled the criteria, the first author approached them to learn about their availability and willingness to participate in the

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study. This step is coherent with the second principle outlined above. As a result, we selected six female and four male participants. Next, we conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews to develop in-depth accounts of experiences and perceptions with individuals (Patton, 2014). The interview, which was held after completing the course in February 2022, consisted of eight open-ended questions related to the topic of students’ perspectives on assessment ePortfolios for the development of multimodal literacy. There were also questions specific to the student’s ePortfolio. The interview process occupied two months through Zoom, the video conferencing software, and all the interviews were audio-recorded using the built-in recorder. The second data source was the participants’ assessment ePortfolios. The first author was given access to the ePortfolios, hosted on various platforms, where she could view them using the URL links.

Data Analysis The data obtained through the one-to-one interview sessions were transcribed into 190 min and 25,913 words approximately. Then, a primary-cycle and secondarycycle coding (Tracy, 2020) was conducted to identify categories or themes. We conducted a primary-cycle coding by examining the interview transcripts and identifying repeated or significant words or phrases that aided the exploration of the research questions. Later, the data was put through secondary-cycle coding, which critically examined the codes identified during the primary-cycle coding stage to synthesise and categorise said codes into interpretive concepts (ibid). In this study, the possible interpretive concepts were the different views on using assessment ePortfolios as multimodal compositions that develop MML. As a result, seven codes were identified. Following the coding of the interview transcripts, we conducted a Multimodal Content Analysis (MMCA) on the participants’ assessment ePortfolios. We adapted MMCA procedures from research on wine labels as a multimodal text (Serafini & Reid, 2019). Figure 1 illustrates the procedures of MMCA, which consist of eight steps. This is because assessment ePortfolios are multimodal texts, as they comprise more than one mode of meaning-making; digital, audio, and visual (Shipka, 2011, as cited in Licastro, 2016). Besides, MMCA goes beyond the traditional content analysis and qualitative data to consider the ways multiple modes such as illustrations, photography, written language, and design elements can all bring meaning to texts (Serafini & Reid, 2019). We added the audio element as a code as it was present in the participants’ assessment ePortfolios. The audio element involved the use of background music and/or voiceovers. We adapted the components of the visual elements to be selection and creation because the participants either selected visuals from available designs on the internet or created original visuals. To assess the validity and reliability of the analytical template, we conducted a pilot test on one assessment ePortfolio using the

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Fig. 1 Steps in multimodal content analysis (Serafini & Reid, 2019)

initial analytical template. We altered the analytical template to include more textual elements such as ‘About the novel’, ‘About the author’ and ‘Personal biodata’ as new sub-codes. Figure 2 illustrates all the codes in summary, with the added ones indicated in red frames. The final step included constructing potential themes from the analysis of the assessment ePortfolios. The inferred findings through MMCA were compared with the interview data before the themes were finalised.

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Fig. 2 Adapted codes from multimodal content analysis (Serafini & Reid, 2019)

4 Affordances and Constraints of ePortfolios for Multimodal Literacy Affordances Awareness of Intermodal Relations During the interviews, there was no direct question on the affordances of assessment ePortfolios for MML. However, participants who favoured the assessment ePortfolio stated that the ability to create something of their own through more than one mode of meaning-making made it an enjoyable process that was “fun” and “interesting”. Most of the participants created ePortfolios based on visual-textual relations, except for George, who combined text with visuals and his voiceover and Ivan, who used visuals to complement his audio narration. The findings suggest that the assessment ePortfolios has developed student awareness of the importance of establishing

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the intermodal relations between at least two modalities, such as the visual-textual relation and the audio-textual relation, corroborating the suggestion that students are becoming active designers of their learning through the use of multiple modes (Nouri, 2019). Echoing the findings by Nagy (2020), participants generally established that the visuals they selected for their assessment ePortfolios should complement the textual content. Amelia explained that while constructing an entry titled “Pastoral”, she recalled a musical composition by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed based on the countryside. Hence, she decided to use the images of nature for the background of that entry. George, who chose a video platform to present his ePortfolio, expressed his awareness of the visual-textual relation by explaining that the “different designs” “need to relate to the content itself” instead of being “separate” from each other. Figure 3 from George’s ePortfolio features an image of a house and a crumpled piece of paper. He wanted to evoke the sense of a journal that is written on paper through his background choice. George justified his visual choices by explaining that the content is the house that the main character aspires for. The awareness of the impact of the visual-textual relation was not limited to selecting the most appropriate images for the content but involved representing the interpretation of the content with original illustrations. As a fan of hand-drawn illustrations, Fiona illustrated the “tragic and lonely” main character with pastel colours that evoked her sentiments about the content (Fig. 4). In other words, the assessment ePortfolios offered students the opportunity to showcase their abilities and skills (Abd-Wahab et al., 2016).

Fig. 3 Visual element complementing textual element

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Fig. 4 Illustration as a visual element to evoke the mood of the content

Moreover, Fiona’s portfolio demonstrated consistent applications of design elements that reinforced her intended content (Fig. 5). Fiona’s awareness of design elements could be observed through the colour palette, font choices, size/position of said fonts, and which parts of the text are more salient than others (Serafini & Reid, 2019). When asked about her choice of the brown palette and fancy-free fonts, Fiona stated that she tried to align the design with the classical connotations of the novel. The awareness on the importance of the audio-textual relation to create meaning is shown by George and Ivan, who chose the video platform for their ePortfolio. They both shared distinct thought processes about their choices of background music. George chose a more traditional Western instrumental music to complement the seriousness of the ePortfolio as a formal assignment. Ivan’s negotiations with his interpretation of the novel’s content when selecting the background music reinforces the idea that ePortfolios provide the opportunity to reflect through multiple modes (Gavaldon, 2019; Lee, 2021). The following is a quotation of Ivan’s rationale for choosing less depressing background music to accompany his reflections: ... you know, the story, it actually has a good ending, I feel, but the story itself, it seems to have a lot of sad, sad sad events in the middle. So, I tried, I tried not to put in a sad music but to put in uh, more emphatic or more joyful music.

Encouraging Creativity The affordance of assessment ePortfolios for MML did not stop at the level of awareness. Our study concurs with the suggestion that assessment ePortfolios afforded opportunities for students to employ written, visual, and electronic communication

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Fig. 5 Awareness of design elements through font, colour palette, and salience

(Carpenter et al., 2012), which then encouraged creativity to result from the affordances of MML. This finding is congruent with the lecturer’s point of view that “the ability to create something original and different from the rest” is a multimodal affordance of the assessment ePortfolio (Lee, 2021).

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Fig. 6 Example of the intermodal relations between visual and textual elements

Hong’s view that the affordance for MML is “unique for every individual” is depicted through his intricate and surprising orchestration of the intermodal relations between the visual and textual elements. Hong showed an image of Nicki Minaj to complement his journal entry titled, ‘Is Naipaul More Approving of Tradition or Modernism?’ (Fig. 6). Our initial instinct was that the visual was irrelevant to the title. However, upon reading the content of the journal entry, it was found that Hong ended his journal entry with a question: ‘She has the house, the money, the children, the SUCCESS. What fault can still be found in Dorothy embracing Modernity?’. Thus, the image of Nicki Minaj was used as a contemporary representation of Hong’s interpretation of Dorothy as a successful female character in the novel who owns worldly possessions. The view that the affordance of assessment ePortfolio for MML leads to creativity is also shared by participants who do not favour assessment ePortfolios. Even Eng, who unenthusiastically described the assessment ePortfolio as “an assignment that needs to be done”, suggested that creativity is a unique affordance which the traditional assignments do not offer: But I think the portfolio has its unique elements such as it’s very creative, like you can combine in ways. Not just textual words like in a traditional essay, but instead you can combine it with your own, like little pictures or uh... short videos.

The myriad of affordances of the assessment ePortfolio is a significant factor contributing to its inclusivity. The participants’ awareness of multimodal communication was raised through the opportunities to select, create, and orchestrate the intermodal relations of multimodal modes to curate creative ePortfolios. The possibilities were so manifold that the ePortfolios in this study demonstrated the composition and complementarity of intermodal relations in audio-textual, visual-textual, design-textual, and even audio-textual-visual elements.

Retainment of Textual Elements The affordance of the assessment ePortfolio for MML could be achieved without undermining textual elements, which based on Serafini and Reid (2019), could relate

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to content and expressions. It is observed that participants who perceived the assessment ePortfolio as a way for them to express themselves authentically in a creative manner developed their content to express their identities. This reinforces ePortfolios as something beyond an instrument used to develop students’ MML but rather as a tool for establishing identities (Bourelle et al., 2018). Diana included a short introductory paragraph that highlighted herself as a second-year student in the degree of English Language and Communication. Hong, who also perceived authenticity as one of the assessments ePortfolio’s affordances, did not include a personal biodata but dedicated a section to his personal thoughts about the novel, which clearly expressed how the novel has affected his identity amid the local and global COVID-19 predicaments: A House for Mr Biswas certainly lived up to its Nobel Prize standard. V.S. Naipaul has presented a story that rewired all my perceptions of a novel. The stress invoked by a global COVID-19 pandemic and the endless movement restriction orders in Malaysia were not remedied by its introduction but instead, presented another strenuous wave of social isolation. Nonetheless, A House for Mr Biswas has bestowed me an opportunity to admire the magnificence of literature and the formidability of an author in projecting his voice through writing. My worldview and knowledge have expanded manifold; the journey was worthwhile!

Constraints Multimodal Design Deneen et al. (2017) reported that the affordances of ePortfolios go hand in hand with the constraints it presents. The inherent need to orchestrate several modes concurrently and make the assessment ePortfolio more interesting came as a challenge or unnecessary for some. To rationalise her font choice, Cindy stated, “I don’t know why people bold their texts, because usually in assignments, you don’t see that happening”. This suggests that Cindy considers the assessment ePortfolio a monomodal written assignment rather than a multimodal composition. In contrast, although Eng claimed to recognise the impact of expressing himself through visual-textual relations, Eng made a self-contradictory statement when asked about a specific image in his ePortfolio: “The map? Oh, I think that’s…not very intentionally to, like get a map to convey a certain point, so maybe I just can’t find a really suitable picture, so I use it as a decoration”. It is evident that Eng did not consciously choose visuals to complement what he had written. Figure 7 shows the dissonance between the visual and textual elements in Eng’s ePortfolio. While creativity resulted from the multimodal affordance of assessment ePortfolios to some students, it was seen as a challenge by Fiona and Cindy. This contests previous suggestions that the ePortfolio is constructive for creativity (Devarajoo, 2020; Lee, 2021). Cindy said that the creativity part “was the most difficult,” and as a result, she perceived her ePortfolio as being “lacking” and “quite bland”. The MMCA on Cindy’s assessment ePortfolio found it lacking in the unique application of design elements. Figure 8 shows Cindy’s assessment ePortfolio home page, which had a predictable selection of images and no expression of unique identity.

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Fig. 7 Dissonance in visual-textual relation

Technical Manipulation For those with no prior experience of creating assessment ePortfolios before this one, the significant challenges were related to the technical skills needed while creating the assessment ePortfolio. This perspective is congruent with researchers who found that students perceive the technologies necessary to be too new and unfamiliar (Devarajoo, 2020; Douglas et al., 2019; Lee, 2021). Such findings further emphasise that when it comes to the assessment ePortfolio, the ‘assessment’ can never be separated from the ‘technology’ aspect (Deneen et al., 2017). Table 1 depicts the digital platforms that participants chose to host their ePortfolios. For participants who decided on using the Wix website as a platform to create and store their assessment ePortfolios, manoeuvring the cloud-based web development portal was a challenge. The challenges stemmed from the fact that these participants did not have prior experience in website creation, specifically creating an assessment ePortfolio using web-based technology. Amelia and Cindy specified that the challenge for them was not in the writing but in the process of creating it through a website. Hong pointed out a specific challenge that he faced when creating his assessment ePortfolio through Wix for the first time. It was that the contents and organisation of his webpage would reshuffle or scatter although he was under the impression that the organization had been completed. Another aspect which was listed above as an affordance of assessment ePortfolio which will be reiterated as constraint is finding ways to ensure that the assessment ePortfolio is interesting and unique. Balqish, who was an avid presentation slide maker, admitted the challenge of “making [the] assessment ePortfolio interesting,

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Fig. 8 Examples of predictable images

rather than making it look just like a presentation”. The contents of the assessment ePortfolio were five different journal entries. For Balqish, making all these entries coherent, but at the same time not “repetitive” and “boring” was an aspect she had to consider.

Effective Feedback Participants subscribed to the belief that the course instructor plays a major role in carefully scaffolding the assessment ePortfolio (Bourelle et al., 2018; Devarajoo,

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Table 1 Digital platforms for hosting assessment ePortfolios Participant (Pseudonym)

Digital platforms for assessment ePortfolios

Amelia

Wix

Balqish

Google slides

Cindy

Wix

Diana

Wix

Eng

Wix

Fiona

Wix

George

Video

Hong

Wix

Ivan

Video

Jamaliah

Tumblr

2020; Licastro, 2016), but there was no unanimous response from the participants on whether the feedback received from their lecturer was sufficient or effective. Eng wanted more “step-by-step” guidance from the lecturer as he deemed step-by-step instructions necessary as many participants did not have prior experience creating ePortfolios. On the other hand, Hong desired more feedback from the lecturer and his peers. However, Diana stated that the lecturer provided insights so she could improve on her work before submission. The motley of responses from participants made it challenging for the lecturer to decide on the type and amount of feedback that would be effective for all the participants.

Inclusivity of Assessment ePortfolios for Multimodal Literacy The inclusivity of assessment ePortfolios was imbued in its affordance for multiple modes of communication to be valued instead of having assessment being weighed only by the monomodal ability in written literacy. Ivan pointed out that the assessment ePortfolio would provide a competitive edge to those who would like to exercise creativity and could not effectively express themselves through written language: And also, the use of multiple modes will also give an opportunity to people who are more creative, so that they can actually put their talents or such skills into good use. Or else [if] all assignments should all be written then, some people maybe their writing skills are not as good as others, but maybe their skills in such multimodality and multimedia could compensate for the lack of writing skills.

The findings on affordances and constraints of assessment ePortfolios for MML suggest that while the MML evidenced in the ePortfolios of some participants were complemented by their views, there were also a significant number of participants who showed dissonance between how they viewed their ePortfolios and what they managed to achieve. For example, Eng viewed that visual-textual relations could

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strengthen the presentation of his understanding but failed to showcase that skill in his ePortfolio. One possible constraint that assessment ePortfolios posed to inclusivity was that it was a new assessment experience for all the participants. All the participants stated that they have had no prior experience directly related to assessment ePortfolios. Ivan specified that it was the only course in the programme that demanded the creation of an assessment ePortfolio. However, the participants had prior experiences with multimodal compositions, such as presentation slides and posters which could have eased their anxieties and transition into the design of ePortfolios. The question of whether prior experience with ePortfolios would guarantee students’ demonstration of their MML needs deliberation. Existing literature proposes that students with prior experiences with ePortfolios demonstrated higher levels of confidence (Douglas et al., 2019) and calls for more specific courses that solely focus on the development of MML (Carpenter et al., 2012; Tucker, 2018). This study, however, contests the unquestioned assumption that prior experience with multimodal compositions would assure the execution of MML. As one would expect, Cindy, who lacked prior experience and only viewed the ePortfolio as a monomodal assignment, showed limited awareness of intermodal relations in her ePortfolio. In comparison, Jamaliah claimed that creating the assessment ePortfolio using Tumblr was “not much of a challenge” and “nothing new”, but upon closer analysis, her assessment ePortfolio did not show a strong awareness of MML. In comparison, participants such as Ivan, George, Fiona, Amelia, Hong, and Diana demonstrated the effective management of intermodal relations without previous lessons. Still, they had positive perceptions of the ePortfolio and expressed a strong sense of ownership. Creativity was unevenly demonstrated among the participants, but it was not determined by prior experience. Based on this study, the assessment ePortfolio thus could only be inclusive in terms of MML if the participants who were aware of the multimodal skills, they were developing made the conscious choice to exploit the affordances. The development of MML in this study was hence shown to be implicit instead of explicit (Nagy, 2020). Regarding the inclusivity of assessment ePortfolios, the greater determinant of the extent of its affordance for MML thus lies more in students’ perceptions (Deneen et al., 2017; Silver, 2019) and their sense of ownership instead of their prior experiences. The divide caused by the access to the internet never surfaced in this study while anxieties about new technologies did not undermine the performances of participants who were negotiating with their abilities in these new technologies. One strategy that the lecturer applied for inclusivity was to allow participants to choose the digital platforms they were most familiar and comfortable with to host their assessment ePortfolios. For instance, Balqish created her assessment ePortfolio in the form of presentation slides for more controlled manipulation, while Diana chose Wix due to familiarity. In comparison, George, who had knowledge of creating videos, avoided websites like Wix.

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5 Conclusion It is concluded that there is a motley of affordances and constraints of the assessment ePortfolio for MML, while the inclusivity for the development of MML is quite democratic and sustainable. The assessment ePortfolios raised the participants’ awareness of multimodal communication and provided opportunities for the participants to select, create and orchestrate the intermodal relations of multimodal modes to achieve creative results. The participants faced constraints in the areas of multimodal design, technical manipulation, and effective teacher feedback but all these constraints could be minimised with improved pedagogical designs. The assessment ePortfolio has shown to be quite a democratic platform since participants could express themselves with more modalities instead of being limited to monomodal assignments. More importantly, prior experiences did not guarantee the multimodal impact of their ePortfolios but the participants’ socio-emotional investment and sense of ownership did. We acknowledge that the small sample size of this case study cannot be generalised to represent all higher education institutions in Malaysia. Therefore, future research can consider Malaysian students’ perspectives on a larger scale. There also needs to be an examination of the reliability of the assessment ePortfolio as a method of assessment to ensure inclusivity, especially pertaining to designing assessment rubrics. From the pedagogical perspective, the type and extent of feedback from the lecturer need to be further explored in different contexts to be inclusive of student needs. Finally, it is hoped that the findings from this study contribute to the development of student-centred pedagogies to facilitate learning since students may not have the awareness or prior experience related to assessment ePortfolios and MML. Although the motivation for implementing the assessment ePortfolio which is reported in this case study was spurred by the pandemic, the true pedagogical value of this intervention lies in the fact that the assessment ePortfolio can be continuously explored for inclusivity beyond the pandemic.

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S. A. C. Y. Tan et al. Sue Ann Ching Yee Tan was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2000. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Language and Communication at UCSI University Kuala Lumpur. Her first work as an undergraduate was her Final Year Project; Exploring the Assessment E-Portfolio as a Multimodal Composition for Multimodal Literacy in a Malaysian Tertiary Institution: A Case Study, completed and now published under the supervision of Dr. Lee Sze Seau. Sue Ann is interested in the areas of multimodality. Outside of research, she’s an avid copywriter, musician, and volunteer.

Dr. Lee Sze Seau Jill is known to her colleagues by the name Jill. Jill trained as a secondary school teacher for subjects such as English language and Literature in English but has been teaching non-native speakers of English at the higher education level since 2008. Although Jill is currently working in a Malaysian private university, she has taught students from various countries such as Botswana, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Jill’s unwavering interest in research has been improving pedagogy so that her students can realise their fullest potential in the English language. She believes that teachers can professionally spearhead the desired changes in the education system.

Shirley Tan is a research associate at the International Centre for Lesson Studies, Nagoya University, Japan and a postdoctoral researcher at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands. Her research focuses on classroom research, particularly on the visualisation of students’ thinking and classroom cultures. As a scholarship recipient from the government of Japan, she is involved in numerous lesson planning and observations in Japanese schools. Besides that, Shirley has fulfilled roles in various fields, including teaching in universities, coordinating reading programmes for disadvantaged students, and assuming the role of Editorial Assistant for the International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies.

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Raheleh AkhaviZadegan is a lecturer at Imam Khomeini International University since 2008 teaching English literature and language courses. Her interest is teaching English through literature and preparing students for international exams. She has been involved in teaching and training across a wide range of cultures, ages, and levels, face to face and online. Currently, she is teaching English at International American School of Cancun in Mexico.

Chapter 10

Enhancing Inclusivity in Online Learning Resources for B40 University Students—A Malaysian Experience Beh Chun Chee, Cynthia Pui-Shan Lau, and Nurul Ezzati Aisya Mohd Zaki

1 Introduction The Movement Control Order (MCO) was first imposed in March 2020 and the country has since been through various stages of lockdown. Since the first few cases detected on January 25th 2020, the wave of infections has been increasing while the country grappled to curb the spread of the virus. In summary, the MCO was categorized into MCO 1.0 and MCO 2.0. In MCO 1.0, the government hoped to curb infection as the first wave of infections hit the country where national and interstate borders were closed. Economic functions were also closed, and workers were forced to work-from-home. The Rakyat’s (People’s) movement was restricted to only being able to travel within a 10-km radius of their homes for essential goods. As cases continued to rise, a state of emergency was proclaimed by the Yang diPertuan Agong (His Majesty the King) of Malaysia and hence the implementation of MCO 2.0. However, during the second MCO, economic sectors began to open, and restrictions were loosened. The unexpected implementation of the MCO caused panic in all economic sectors as well as the education sector. On 27th May 2020, the Ministry of Higher Education instructed all teaching and learning to be done online (Al-Kumaim et al., 2021). Within a span of less than a month, teachers and students in both schools and institutions of higher education were forced to move their teaching and learnings onto the online platform (Chung et al., 2020). Teaching plans, assessments, learning materials were now required to be prepared to be delivered and executed online. Institutions of higher learning adapted to the “new norm” within weeks (Othman, 2021) as students began adjusting C. C. Beh (B) · C. P.-S. Lau Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kajang, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] N. E. A. Mohd Zaki Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_10

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to life from studying at home to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 infection. As the Ministry of Higher Education issued instructions to conduct teaching and learning online, it is then regarded as the best option for institutions of higher education to continue providing quality education without being overly disruptive. In adapting to online teaching and learning (OTL) practices, Malaysia’s higher education institutions were forced to transform more abruptly than desired and that is without conciliating the students’ courses learning outcomes attainment. From the students’ perspective, to then be able to fulfill course requirements would involve them to have a well-defined technology proficiency and means, such as internet access and computing devices. According to Anderson’s Online Learning Model (Anderson, 2011), online learning can be categorized into two modes, namely synchronous and asynchronous learning. In asynchronous learning mode, learning does not happen in real time, but it is done at the students’ pace and time. Synchronous mode of learning however takes place in real time when both lecturer and student are present in an online environment together at the same time (Chen et al., 2020). This shift from physical setting to online learning has also forced institutions of higher learning to identify the needs of the students. Various factors needed to be considered such as devices, technological accessibility, and Internet connectivity. And for the past two years, the lack of good internet access and resources democratization in many parts of Malaysia have been a stumbling block to the implementation and accomplishment of remote learning. According to the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), as of the fourth quarter of 2021, the internet connectivity in Malaysia shows a disparaging gap between urban and rural areas at 75.6 and 24.4%, respectively. Encouraged by the online adoption in many aspects of life including education, there was a double hike on internet usage among 20−24 years old individuals; from 15.6% in 2018 to 34.1% in 2020 (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, 2020). This significant increase of internet usage demonstrates the importance of the internet as a mode of instruction for tertiary education students and the necessity to democratize access to education in all parts of Malaysia. In addition, guidelines needed to be developed for online teaching and assessments to ensure a non-disruptive transition (Rasit et al., 2021). However, the shift to online learning received diverse feedback from different stakeholders ranging from poor internet connection and unstable online platforms. Despite the advantages of online learning during the pandemic to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus, limited resources have posed certain challenges to students under the B40 (bottom 40% of income earners) group (Zainol et al., 2021).

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2 Online Teaching and Learning (OTL) Experience in Malaysia The COVID-19 outbreak forced higher education institutions around the world to adopt an immediate shift to online instruction, thus disrupting legions of students’ learning avenue from face-to-face to face-to-screen in a matter of weeks. The succinct conversion as discussed by Hodges et al. (2020), Karakaya (2021), and Navarro and McGrath (2022) is correctly termed as an “emergency remote teaching” (ERT) and indeed different to a well-designed OTL. Different from OTL, ERT is seen as a shortterm solution to an immediate crisis such as that of a pandemic. With urgency in mind, the OTL implemented by higher education institutions in Malaysia was carried out with a multitude of challenges for both the instructors and learners. Throughout the first year of ERT, many higher education institutions took the opportunity to refine the courses offered to be more vigorous with learners’ successful adoption to online learning as the key objective (Navarro & McGrath, 2022). The next section will examine the OTL implementations in three higher education institutions in different parts of Malaysia.

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) Located in East Malaysia’s biggest state of the Borneo Island, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak or UNIMAS was officially incorporated in 1992. Being one of the small collections of public higher education institutions in East Malaysia, UNIMAS students are predominantly from Sarawak, with 58% of them from B40 households. A study done on OTL during MCO by UNIMAS researchers discovered that the students can be segmented into three groups: (1) students with good internet access and own device for online learning, (2) students with devices but have poor or no access to the internet, and lastly (3) students with no device and internet access (Rasit et al., 2021). The identification of these groups in relation to student’s OTL affordance both in device and access, has allowed the affected lecturers to cater to the students’ need to better move forward. UNIMAS introduced their existing online learning platform, eLEAP from a faceto-face complementary teaching and learning platform to become the university official learning management system (LMS) in light of the MCO in early 2020. Stands for e-Learning Enrichment and Advancement Platform, eLEAP is widely utilized by both teachers and learners as the OTL platform provides tools for resources, discussion, gamification, video, screen recording etc. An example of these systematic adjustments to the pre-pandemic physical teaching and learning methods, assessment, and engagement for an inclusive online setting was done on a group of architecture students enrolled in a design studio course. As the new norm OTL practice in UNIMAS, the design studio course was conducted synchronous and asynchronous to complement the students learning style and accessibility. Taking the pandemic

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as an advantageous opportunity to digitalize the teaching and learning conduct, the whiteboard application and drawing tablet were utilized as opposed to the physical drafting board typically used in the architecture studio on campus. The study also suggested that despite the challenges associated with OTL, the students are responding positively to eLEAP as the platform employed to access class materials, engage in discussion, and submit their assessments (Koesmeri et al., 2022).

Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Established in 1956 by the Rural and Industrial Development Authority (RIDA) as a training center, now Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) is Malaysia’s biggest public university with 34 branches across the nation. In response to the MCO in March 2020, the university shifted to the open and distance learning (ODL) mode effective on 13th April 2020 for all its campuses. The ODL mode was conducted blended with synchronous and asynchronous online learning on the university learning platform UFuture and other compatible supplementary platforms (Institute of Quality and Knowledge Advancement, 2020). To cater to the diverse ranges of internet connectivity amongst students, faculties also took into consideration to utilize other low bandwidth platforms and are flexible in utilizing the many online communication and conference tools such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Google Meet, Hangout, Google Classroom, Ilearn and UFuture (Musa et al., 2020). The university caters 185,400 students collectively with 70% of them from the B40 socio-economic background (Yusoff Bakri, 2022). In tandem with that prospect, the university has been taking a rather flexible approach in order to preserve ODL inclusivity for all students. Having to attend classes online in real time is not always straightforward for some students as their homes are not conducive learning spaces. Studies done at the university’s Machang and Puncak Alam campuses showed that the non-conducive learning space is one of many deterrents faced by students in achieving decent ODL experiences (Azmi & Lai, 2021; Kamarul Azlan et al., 2021). Another primary challenge for students was the ability for students to be fully motivated in maneuvering online classes. The lack of direct engagement and various connectivity issues from both lecturer and students also heighten the disruptiveness of the ODL experience. The university as a physical learning space proved to be conducive for students with its many physical facilities and resources. However, when it came to adopting online learning, “most students were not ready physically and mentally in ODL classes” (Kamarul Azlan et al., 2021).

Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) is a not-for-profit private university founded in 2002. With its two campuses; Kampar main campus in the northern

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state of Perak and Sg. Long campus in Selangor, the university offers 129 academic programmes to more than 20,000 students. For the past two years, the university has adopted both OTL and hybrid mode on intervals throughout the pandemic to support students’ education needs and professional accreditation requirements. As a not-forprofit private university, UTAR’s student pool is mostly from B40 households. To ensure the continuity of inclusive education, UTAR provision of assistance during the pandemic for B40 students include free loan of laptop, free prepaid SIM card for mobile data and other sponsored resources subscriptions such as Coursera, The New York Times, and The Star. As of July 2021, the university has equipped 51 students with PCs, webcams, and headsets for their OTL use (UTAR Office of the Registrar, 2021). UTAR e-Learning Environment utilizes the existing university platforms; WBLE and WBLE2 which stands for Web-Based Learning Environment, and Microsoft Teams. All three platforms are used by lecturers and students for all OTL matters including synchronous and asynchronous classes, quizzes, assignment submission, engagement, final assessment etc. (UTAR e-Learning, n.d.). Similar to many online learners, in the early days of OTL, UTAR students were largely affected by connectivity issues. Furthermore, another concern was that without being physically able to engage with fellow students, they struggled to manage online group assignments with their course mates. Despite the initial readjustment to OTL, students also recognized the benefit of online learning which includes flexible learning style, extensive resources especially recorded lectures and the ever-popular reduction on traveling cost and commuting related stress (New Experience with OTL, 2020).

3 B40 Student Population and Challenges The Malaysian Government divided the income population into three categories namely Top 20% (T20) where monthly income is above RM13,148; Middle 40% (M40) where the average monthly income is between RM3860−RM8319; and Bottom 40% (B40) with an average monthly income of RM3900 a month or less (Ooi, 2017). In 2018, the B40 group was one of the largest in the country at 4.1 million of Malaysians belonging to this category. Therefore, with this in view, the Malaysian government is determined to increase the accessibility of these students to institutions of higher learning with hope to improve the existing socioeconomic gap. Under the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (2021–2025), the government targets to prioritize the B40 student population to be accepted into institutions of higher learning. In terms of education, The Twelfth Malaysian Plan will also see improvement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The plan also looks to improve outcomes in raising the quality of education in local institutions of higher learning. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning was introduced and this has posed a major challenge to B40 students. As their parents begin to grapple with the economic downturn, retrenchment and loss of job opportunities continue to rise,

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their children’s education remains constant, and families have to make ends meet with what little resource they have. On the news front, the News Straits Times (Hassan, 2021) reported that caregivers were known to travel for miles to get adequate internet coverage for their children, students were forced to perch on treetops to get internet connection, siblings sharing one device—all this while juggling between house chores and poor domestic environments. A survey conducted by the United Nations in 2020 suggests that the unemployment rate in Malaysia during the pandemic was at 5.3% (United Nations Malaysia, 2020). The report also states that families had insufficient food and were unable to pay for their utility bills and rent. In this poor economic condition, the effect of the pandemic is far-reaching. Families from lower income were seen to face difficulty in providing the adequate support for online learning such as internet connectivity and technological devices. As Malaysia is made up of states with various economic infrastructure with a significant divide between rural and urban, states such as Sabah, Sarawak, Pahang, and Kelantan have limited internet access (Zainol, et al., 2021). Availability of internet access aside, the penetration rate for rural areas especially in Sabah and Sarawak was also reported to be low according to the reports from the MCMC. The digital infrastructure unfortunately is not evenly divided between the rural and urban area and is focused on city centers. In addition, the work-from-home condition faced by the nation was also a contributing factor to the slow internet connection. Internet connection in residential areas was faced with congestion as one household has multiple devices being connected to the internet. Telekom Malaysia recorded an increase of 15% in internet usage since January 2020 (Hassan, 2021). As online learning requires an acceptable level of internet connection, unfortunately a slow internet speed has proved challenging to the students as online learning platforms require a higher level of connectivity. While simple platforms such as WhatsApp require low bandwidth, when it comes to downloading materials, a higher level of connectivity is required. Institutions of higher learning have been opting for interactive online platforms to conduct these online learning sessions with the hopes that an integrated platform where cloud storage, interactive applications, presentation capabilities are all conveniently rolled into one. Therefore, platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, and Zoom were the preferred platforms for OTL. These were preferred platforms as they are able to support multi-devices and can be used via smartphone, laptop or personal computer making it easily accessible for students. These platforms however use higher bandwidth, and this posed numerous challenges for students within the B40 category. Overnight, faculty members were also seen to adapt and consider alternative teaching platforms such as Facebook and Telegram, and development of teaching materials such as videos and PowerPoint presentations to be uploaded for the purpose of asynchronous teaching for the benefit of students who are unable to obtain stable internet connection.

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4 Improving Inclusivity Since March 2020 until currently, most of the higher educational institutions are still conducting OTL fully or in hybrid mode, which rendered the instructors and learners heavily dependent on the high-speed internet bandwidth as well as learning devices such as laptop, tablet, or smartphone to attend online classes, conduct discussions, and collaborate in assignments etc. The worrying percentage of workers who lost their job due to the impact of COVID-19 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2020) further complicated the issues already faced by the financially constrained lower income households, who would probably prioritize basic survival needs over educational needs. B40 students with limited resources needed immediate help, or risk disrupting the progress of their study. Due to their parents losing jobs also put these B40 students under pressure to help earn incomes to support the family, hence dropping out from study. Addressing the needs of disadvantaged students from the B40 households to own compatible learning devices and stable internet connectivity, several initiatives by the government and private sectors to promote inclusivity and equality were observed. MCMC announced on 27 March 2020, four major telecommunications service providers (namely Maxis, Celcom, Digi, and U Mobile) collectively offered a total of RM1 billion to provide free daily 1 GB high-speed internet data to their customers from 1 April 2020 until the MCO was lifted (to be utilized daily from 8am to 6 pm, and later changed to 24 h in 2021), and to invest in increasing coverage and network capabilities. The free daily data usage was restricted to online learning and information-related services, which means students could utilize this free data for checking emails, attending online synchronous classes via video conferencing platforms, as well as accessing e-learning platforms for teaching and learning material. It came in useful for students from lower income households, whom before MCO did not need bigger bandwidth attending physical classes, but after the sudden shift to online learning finding their subscribed data plan became insufficient to support the higher demand of bandwidth for various online learning activities, including downloading of pre-recorded lecture videos. Throughout the multiple MCOs, the free daily data aid was extended several times. Under the National People’s WellBeing and Economic Recovery Package (Pemulih) of 2021 Budget (Belanjawan, ), RM500 million was allocated to extend the free daily data for the final time until 31 December 2021. While the free 1 GB daily data benefited 44 million users for their daily work-from-home or online learning, the Vice President of Amanah, Salahuddin Ayub mentioned that many B40 families and students still faced financial difficulties to purchase costly gadgets and data plans (Halim, 2021). The free daily 1 GB data was also inadequate to support heavy video streaming and class teleconferencing which put the B40 students in disadvantage as they cannot afford to top up data more frequently (Abdul Hamid & Khalidi, 2020). Telcos’ investment to improve coverage was aligned with the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP) implemented from 2019 to 2023 to improve digital connectivity and infrastructure especially in the rural areas, bridging the digital

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divide between the rural and urban areas therefore promoting equal opportunities for all citizens. The Cabinet approved the RM21.6 billion NFCP implementation on 28 August 2019, which was funded by the Universal Service Provision (USP) Fund and under the stewardship of MCMC, aimed to improve fixed and mobile broadband quality, upgrading of fiber optic broadband, and providing connectivity to rural areas including 151 Orang Asli’s settlements. What started off as an ambitious plan was unfortunately affected by the frequent change in government and subsequent change of ministers resulting in delayed implementation of some development projects (Yee, 2021). NFCP was also later renamed to National Digital Network Plan (Jendela) on 29 August 2020 with the similar initiative to provide high-speed fixed broadband services and ensure that 100% of populated areas can access 4G service. The Communication and Multimedia Minister, Tan Seri Annuar Musa, announced that as at the fourth quarter of 2021, 1131 (out of 3205 planned) new towers have been constructed, 30,180 (out of 30,810 planned) transmitter stations have been upgraded, 1.89 million (out of 2.53 million) premises have been upgraded to fibre optic access, and 4G coverage has increased to 95.40% from 91.8% before the implementation of Jendela in the second quarter of 2020 (Jalil, 2022). In October 2020, the Ministry of Higher Education, in collaboration with telecommunication companies, YTL Foundation and Lembaga Tabung Haji (Pilgrimage Management and Fund Board), launched a data plan package and device assistance for higher education students who are in the B40 category. The allocation worth RM24 million in aiding 320,396 higher education students from B40 households in the form of free SIM cards, free laptops, cash assistance, and financial loan assistance to own laptop at a special price are efforts to alleviate the financial burden of B40 students and families following the lockdown and the inevitable shifting of classes to online platforms. To ensure the continuity in enabling a conducive online learning environment, Ministry of Higher Education also collaborated with Yayasan Sukarelawan Siswa (YSS) (Student Volunteers Foundation) to set up a crowdfunding initiative through Tabung Prihatin Siswa to encourage public’s contribution. On top of that, Ministry of Finance collaborated with 12 telcos (Celcom, Digi, Maxis, Mcalls, redONE, speakOUT, Tune Talk, U Mobile, Unifi Mobile, XOX Mobile, YES, and Yoodo) in the Jaringan Prihatin programme to provide the B40 families or individuals for either a monthly data plan subsidy or a one-off subsidy for the purchase of mobile devices. This programme was announced in the 2021 Budget with an allocation of RM1.5 billion to assist 8.4 million recipients of Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat (BPR) (Belanjawan 2021a, 2021b). A similar initiative, namely PerantiSiswa Keluarga Malaysia (PRSIS) under the 2022 Budget, is set to provide free mobile devices with internet connectivity starting June 2022 to about 350,000 full time B40 students from public and private higher educational institutions listed under the Ministry of Higher Education (Ministry of Finance, 2022). The free devices are tablets of high specifications that include a minimum of 4 GB RAM, a keyboard, and a stylus pen. This will help B40 students to gain digital access through tablet devices in their online learning activities including conducting research and to keep contact with families and friends. It is interesting to note that the tablets are registered as government’s

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property and given to the students on a loan basis, the students are to return the gadgets to the higher educational institutions after the completion of their studies.

5 Conclusion The Malaysian government for the past decade has prioritized resolving inequalities affecting the disadvantaged and marginalized communities, including the B40 households. The Tenth Malaysia Plan (2011–2015) aimed to achieve a prosperous and equitable society and address the issue of poverty among B40 households; while the Eleventh Malaysia Plan (2016–2020) focused on tackling this issue by increasing the share of B40 households with tertiary educational attainment from 9% in 2014 to 20% by 2020 (Sirat et al., 2021). These national policies propelled and accelerated a few flexible learning strategies such as Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL), Open Distance Learning (ODL), Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and micro credentials that could benefit the disadvantaged groups including B40 households. The low interest student loan provided by the Student Loan Fund Corporation (PTPTN) also supports the B40 students’ access to higher education. The COVID-19 outbreak has profoundly affected the world and its impacts are more prevalent toward the less privileged and underserved communities. Malaysia is an upper-middle income nation with 4.1 million of its Rakyat falling under the B40 category. The country was in lockdown initially for two weeks in March of 2020 which eventually had to be prolonged due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the country. In accordance with the nationwide lockdown, all sectors including the higher education institutions had to follow suit, pushing faculties and students to shift to an unprecedented ERT, where Malaysia quickly adopted OTL as a temporary solution at the time. Now more than two years since the first MCO, the higher education institutions are finessing their courses, resources, faculty members and facilities to better equip the OTL practices for the long run. However, as highlighted in the earlier parts of this article, the absence of physicality in teaching and learning in the higher education institutions posed two main complications for the B40 students—access and device. Aggravating the already extant lacking in inclusive education opportunities in Malaysia, the pandemic has shown swift actions taken by the higher education institutions, the government, and the private sectors to provide equal affordance both in access and device for their students.

References Abdul Hamid, H., & Khalidi, J. R. (2020). Covid-19 and unequal learning. Khazanah Research Institute. Al-Kumaim, N. H., Alhazmi, A. K., Mohammed, F., Gazem, N. A., Shabbir, M. S., & Fazea, Y. (2021). Exploring the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on university students’ learning

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Research on Future of Work and Education: Implications for Curriculum Delivery and Work Design, 495–510. New Experience with OTL. (2020). https://news.utar.edu.my/news/2020/June/29/02/02.html Ooi, C. S. (2017). The T20, M40 and B40 income classifications in Malaysia. https://www.compar ehero.my/blog/t20-m40-b40-malaysia Othman, I. W. (2021). Shifting the national higher education landscape in facing current challenges and marketability strategies of Covid-19 pandemic era graduates. Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Environment Management, 6(25), 139–156. https://doi.org/10.35631/JTHEM.625011 Rasit, A. H., Ujir, H., Chen, C. J., Sapawi, R., & Hipiny, I. (2021). Wide survey on online teaching and learning during movement control order in Malaysia due to Covid-19 pandemic. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(14), 285–300. https://doi. org/10.6007/ijarbss/v11-i14/8574 Sirat, M. et al. (2021). Flexible learning pathways in Malaysian higher education: Balancing human resource development and equity policies. Report for the IIEP-UNESCO research SDG4: Planning for flexible learning pathways in higher education. Commonwealth Tertiary Education Facility (CTEF). https://www.ctef.com.my/images/Publications_2020/FLP_2020.pdf United Nations Malaysia. (n.d.) Supporting Malaysia in a time of pandemic UN country results report Malaysia 2020. https://malaysia.un.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/UN%20in%20M alaysia%20Country%20Results%20Report%202020%20FINAL%20hi-res%20April%2021% 202021_0.pdf UTAR e-Learning. (n.d.). https://e-learning.utar.edu.my/ UTAR Office of the Registrar. (2021). Commitment and challenges of UTAR during COVID-19 pandemic [PDF]. https://dccpr.utar.edu.my/covid-19-advisory/announcements/Commitmentand-Challenges-of-UTAR-During-COVID-19-Pandemic%20.pdf Yee, X. Y. (2021). Change in government affected some projects. https://www.thestar.com.my/ metro/metro-news/2021/11/23/change-in-government-affected-some-projects Yusoff Bakri, M. H. (2022). 129,780 pelajar UiTM B40. https://www.utusan.com.my/berita/2022/ 04/129780-pelajar-uitm-b40/ Zainol, S. S., Hussin, S. M., Othman, M. S., & Mohd Zahari, N. H. (2021). Challenges of online learning faced by the B40 income parents in Malaysia. International Journal of Education and Pedagogy (IJEAP), 3(2), 45–52. https://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijeap/article/view/ 13767

Chun Chee Beh is a lecturer from Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. He has experience working in the film and advertising industry before embarking on teaching in the university. His interests include documentary filmmaking, video production, film studies, and media awareness for the underprivileged. Beh is currently the head of programme for the university’s master’s degrees in communication.

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C. C. Beh et al. Cynthia Pui-Shan Lau is an Assistant Professor with Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. She also has background in advertising and public relations and have worked in international advertising agencies such as Leu Burnette Advertising and Tequila ISC under the TBWA group. Her area of expertise and interest is in media communication and health communication particularly for the marginalized community. At present she is an active researcher with internal and external grants as well as actively collaborating with various external industry partners and universities to promote research collaboration. Cynthia is also part of the international board of editors for the Media and Communication Review Pakistan journal publication.

Nurul Ezzati Aisya Mohd Zaki is a doctoral candidate at University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her current research is on documentary film production and the film form employment in social issue advocacy. Prior to her adventure in Auckland, she taught video production, media and culture, radio broadcasting, and audio design in Malaysia. Ezzati previously was a broadcast journalist for TV documentaries. Her research interests include production studies, documentary film, social change, film studies, art intervention, semiotics, and political economy.

Chapter 11

Leaving No One Behind: Educating Refugees During the Pandemic Daria Morozova, Norani Abu Bakar, and Kwan Hoong Ng

1 Introduction Circular migration in Southeast Asia, voluntary or forced, is not a new phenomenon. In the nineteenth century, around 20 million people from China and 30 million Indians immigrated to the growing cities and plantations in Southeast Asia (Amrith, 2014). In the twentieth century, with the establishment of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), those who fled persecution in their country of origin have the opportunity to seek asylum in a host country and resettle in the second country of asylum, repatriate, or naturalise. With the establishment of UNHCR in Malaysia in 1975, Malaysia became the first temporary home or country of asylum for a bit more than 250,000 Vietnamese who came through boats in the 1970s (UNHCR, 2005). Since then, thousands have sought asylum in this country, coming individually or in groups via flights or dangerous inland and sea journeys. 2015 saw tens of thousands of Rohingyas traveling in rickety boats through the rough Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, and thousands drowned. D. Morozova (B) Centre for Languages, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] N. A. Bakar Southeast Asian Studies, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Regional Centre of Expertise Greater Kuala Lumpur, Education for Sustainable Development, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia The Blue Ribbon Global, Singapore, Singapore DL2GO, Singapore K. H. Ng Department of Biomedical Imaging, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UCSI University, Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_11

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According to a recent report from the Department of Statistics of Malaysia, almost 10% or 3.2 million of Malaysia’s residents are non-citizens (DOSM, 2020), and it is estimated that among the undocumented migrants, around 40,000 to 100,000 are unregistered refugees (Sayed & Choi, 2018). Despite the country being nonsignatory to UNHCR 1951 convention and its 1967 protocol, in May 2022, Malaysia hosted 182,960 UNHCR registered refugees and asylum seekers. Around 85% of them are from Myanmar, with the majority being Rohingyas (57%), and the rest coming from another 50 countries (UNHCR Malaysia, 2022a). The official number of People of Concern (POC) of the UNHCR in East Malaysia, primarily in Sabah, of either stateless or have irregular status, or disputed nationality, is undetermined. Nevertheless, it was reported in 2016 that the estimated number of stateless children under 18 years old in Malaysia was almost 300,000 (Azizan, 2018). Most UNHCRregistered refugees and asylum seekers self-settled in the cities due to the varied opportunities available as compared to the remote areas. Consequently, most of the refugee Alternative Learning Centres (ALCs) are in urban settings in West Malaysia, primarily in Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley.

2 The Evolution and the Complexity of Definitions: Global and Local Perspectives Today, besides the widely accepted international definition of the UNHCR 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, regional definitions such as the Cartagena Convention 1984, and 1969 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and definitions by various states exist. In Malaysia, there is a wide spectrum of differential perceptions and treatment on refugees. From the legal perspective, Malaysia’s Immigration Act 1959/1963 states that the presence of asylum seekers and refugees, just like undocumented migrants or irregular migrants, is an offence of irregular entry (The Commissioner of Law, Revision Malaysia, 2006). As stated by an undisclosed interviewee, My boss asked me not to come to work anymore since I’m a refugee and he said the police will come and find me which will cause him problems (IOM, 2021).

The outlawing of forced migrant status causes the act of providing basic needs to forced migrants, including their need for education, and protection against abuses, exploitation, and crimes, a dichotomy between a humanitarian act versus a wrongdoing. Despite this dilemma, the country acknowledges UNHCR’s role in processing Residential Determination Status (RSD) for asylum seekers, as well as the International Human Rights Law on non-refoulement. Being a signatory to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, Malaysia does acknowledge the importance of Civil Society Organisations’ work on refugee education. With the complexity of this backdrop, especially its indistinctive legal status between forced migrants and irregular migrants, the topics of forced migrants’ accessibility to Malaysia’s national

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education system and mainstreaming of refugee education continue to linger in the high-level political and policy makers’ discourse.

3 Refugees and Education Malaysia is a supporter of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Agenda 2030, including SDG 4 “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. The country acknowledges the importance of providing education to the refugees, consistent with SDGs’ theme, “Leaving no one behind”. The support can be guided by UNHCR’s document on ‘Refugee Education for Agenda 2030—A Strategy for Refugee Inclusion’ which objectives are: to promote equitable and sustainable inclusion in national education systems; to foster safe, enabling environments that support their learning; and to enable learners to apply their education toward sustainable futures (UNHCR, 2019). The complexity of Malaysia’s context, by default, creates hurdles and resistance to achieving the above-mentioned objectives, especially refugee inclusion in the national education system. Hence, mainstreaming, and curating refugee education requires consideration of their varied demographic profile, migration experience, and the amount of their missing education. UNHCR, upon its consultation with the children and youth of concern, proposed the following range of education programmes: accelerated education programmes for those that missed a significant amount of schooling; use of digital technology to enhance quality education; technical and vocational training; and basic literacy and life skills courses (UNHCR Malaysia, 2022b).

Global Perspective: Challenges Facing Refugee Education Quality education enhances social inclusion, economic growth, and innovation (Koehler & Schneider, 2019). With increasing global crisis in forced migration, education becomes an urgent need for restoring forced migrant children and young adult well-being, as well as facilitating social integration. This task entails shortterm and mid- and long-term actions. The former includes provision of physiological needs, such as food and accommodation, and preparedness for entering a formal or informal education system, for instance in acquiring languages used in the learning medium of instruction. The latter refers to social and structural integration. These provisions can only be made possible through strong institution and sound inter-agencies collaboration, and such establishment is often unrealised by some forced migrant host countries. Many receiving countries are also inexperienced in integrating big groups of refugee learners from diverse language backgrounds and education systems. Refugees experience physical and psychological effects of trauma as they are forced to flee and stay in refugee camps or self-settle in cramped residences that have

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poor living conditions and lack basic needs. The discontinuities in their schooling during the pre-migration and migration period affected their learning. In Australia, for example, Sudanese refugees with acceptable levels of literacy that are attending the same number of years of education as their local peers find the demand of the local mainstream curricula and its language requirements difficult (Brown et al., 2006). Education challenges when living in the country of asylum also vary. African refugee students in Canada, for instance, were reported to face an absence of academic support at home; separation from academic role models; and cultural dissonance translated academically through the difference in academic expectations between the origin and host country (Kanu, 2008). Among the three education levels, barriers of entry for the refugees are tougher for tertiary education as compared to the secondary and primary levels. The tertiary education enrolment rate is now at 5% versus 34% and 68% respectively (UNHCR, 2022). For 2030 Agenda, UNHCR targets to increase tertiary education enrolment to 15%, and this includes technical and vocational education, and training. Key challenges are the lack of academic certification, long distance travel to campuses and movement restrictions, high tuition fees, and the demands to support families financially (UNHCR, 2019). Two key solutions proposed are: a more systematic management in connecting education programmes in first asylum and the third countries, and equitable gender representation across tertiary enrolments (UNHCR, 2019).

Refugee Education in Malaysia In East Malaysia, around 30% of 23,823 school-aged refugees and asylum seekers are currently attending 145 Alternative Learning Centres (ALCs) (UNHCR Malaysia, 2022c). The ALCs that met the UNHCR July 2022 Guidelines included 36 secondary education ALCs and 130 ALCs for primary education located in Malaysia (UNHCR Malaysia, 2022d). Currently, only 48 young adult refugees are attending high learning institutions (UNHCR Malaysia, 2022c). This number is still very small despite UNHCR’s initiative in increasing accessibility for tertiary education with 6 universities in Malaysia. Other two examples that support greater enrolment in tertiary education are: Connecting and Equipping Refugees for Tertiary Education or known as CERTE, launched in 2016, and a white paper, titled “Towards Inclusion of Refugees in Higher Education in Malaysia”. The latter proposed recognition of the UNHCR Refugee Card as an identity document for application to enrolment in private learning institutions (Sani, 2020). Malaysia is one of the favoured destinations for forced migrants in the region. However, besides hosting, other multifaceted responsibilities can be further leveraged among all ASEAN countries. When it comes to providing education, the steep learning curve in using digital technology as a learning medium during the COVID-19 pandemic surfaces partnership opportunities for education providers from the nonhosting refugee countries. In fact, hybrid of virtual or/and physical education modes, such as by Coursera for Refugees, had existed since 2016, some years before the

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COVID-19 pandemic. The programme has served 94,000 refugee learners (Coursera, 2022). At the macro level, national thrives towards refugee education can be catalysed by the country’s greater awareness of the spill over of its benefits towards domestic economic and social growth. This win–win notion is backed by several reports. For example, the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, a national think tank, estimated that refugees in Malaysia can contribute over RM3 billion to annual GDP through higher spending by 2024 if they are allowed to work (Tod et al., 2019). A report from Malaysia Economic Monitor Refugee 2015 stated that refugee employment can complement Malaysian workers, resulting in between 2,500 and 4,300 jobs creation for Malaysians nationwide (World Bank, 2015). Increase in refugee household income leads to financial independence, greater self-sufficiency, and therefore, improved holistic well-being which long term outcomes benefit the refugee co-ethnic communities in Malaysia as well as in their country of origin, and the host communities.

Fundamental Challenges in Refugee Education in Malaysia The challenges in advancing refugee education in Malaysia can be dissected into three levels: institutional, communal, and personal. They differ from the pre-COVID19 pandemic and during the pandemic, however, the fundamental challenges such as inaccessibility to the national education system and the pricey private school fees remain the same. This segment presents the fundamental challenges facing refugee education first, and later the challenges relevant to the pandemic context. Fundamentally, at the institutional level, social and economic factors that hamper SDG 4 implementation for the refugees include the following: “inaccessibility to formal public education and examinations; lack of certification; high turnover of teachers and minimal compensation; safety issues; lack of data on out of school children” (UNHCR Malaysia, 2022c). One key challenging social factor to enrol refugee students into the formal education system is the different life experiences and the living context of refugee children and youth compared to the national and international students. For example, among the refugees from Myanmar, an International Rescue Committee survey indicated that almost all of them fled the country to escape some type of persecution or severe oppressions related to ethnicity, religion, and politics; violence against individuals, their families, and communities, and 45% stated that they owned nothing in Myanmar and 54% abandoned their assets (IRC, 2012). Dryden-Peterson’s (2016) thematic analysis of the global pattern of refugee educational experiences in countries of first asylum, including Malaysia, identified three empirical themes of challenges to school-aged refugees at pre-settlement host countries: language barriers; teacher-centred pedagogy; and discrimination in school settings. In her research, the Rohingya interviewees from Myanmar that live in Malaysia also revealed their worries of being harassed when walking to school.

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These experiences, the traumatic pre-migration experiences, diversity in culture and past education systems, the readiness of the national school management in managing challenges outside their norms, as well as in preparing Malaysian students to embrace refugee youths need to be carefully considered prior to enrolling them into the mainstream national education. The national education system’s preparedness in anticipating and preparing them for naturalisation, resettlement, or repatriation needs to be evaluated. At the communal level, there are two probing questions on mainstreaming refugee education: first, the priority in the life of every refugee household or unaccompanied youth, and second, the dichotomy of the opportunity cost between earning and schooling. This need profile was nuanced through the COVID-19 pandemic experience when many non-citizen community members lost their jobs and were evicted from their rented rooms or houses. Consequently, the pursuit of financial stability superseded the need for education. This forced every family to opt for this difficult choice, i.e., allowing their under-age children to join the workforce to support their families (Loganathan et. al., 2021). Data however indicated that dropping out of school is common in Myanmar, the country where most refugees in Malaysia come from, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, a report in 2011 revealed that only 54% of Myanmar children completed their primary school and 28% of children from the poorest households attended secondary school (UNICEF, 2016). The same report also indicated that in Rakhine and Chin states, where almost 90% of Myanmar refugees in Malaysia come from, primary school-aged students stopped schooling to help their families at home and at the farm. Recent news on economic necessity being the driving factor for many Myanmar male refugee students to drop out, and for the female students, being married off (Muslim & Arshad, 2022) are evidence that the pre-migration norm and life priority among the Myanmar refugees are still deeply ingrained despite the change in the locality. Therefore, the matters at hand are not only the changes in policy and implementation, but also the refugee communities’ views and rationale on the economic benefits of education and their readiness to embrace the opportunity cost of long-term investment for greater education. At the personal level, refugee children often receive minimal guidance for their education from their parents as many of them too were deprived of such opportunity, and/or stay in a separate location close to their workplaces, such as a company’s dormitory or shared accommodation. Other challenges include the nonconducive and cramped home environment for studying (IRC, 2012) and the affordability to pay education expenses. This living environment, which often comes with improper amenities and unsanitary conditions, affects their general health, mental and emotional well-being, and hence their capacity to cope with their studies at ALCs. This situation worsened during the COVID-19 lockdown.

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4 Challenges to Provide Education for Refugees During the Pandemic It is argued that the pandemic disrupted the education system to the same extent as the Second World War did. UNESCO estimates that more than 1.5 billion learners have been affected by the closure of their schools or university since the start of the pandemic (UNHCR, 2021a). Rapid school closures affected 90% of learners around the globe causing the most vulnerable to lose access to basic services as well as a sense of hope and opportunity. UNHCR report, “Connected Education for Refugees: Addressing the Digital Divide” revealed that 78% of refugee children and youth had limited to no access to learning opportunities during pandemic-related school closures (UNHCR, 2021b). As reported in 57% of cases, there were no digital or home-based learning programmes to support refugee students who were attending classes before worldwide school closures. The COVID-19 crisis also showed that the measures taken by some governments to reach refugee learners, such as radio and TV broadcasting, were inefficient due to underdeveloped infrastructure, poor internet access, lack of financial means to purchase the devices as well as a low level of digital competencies among learners (UNHCR, 2021b). For tertiary education students, the hyperbolic growth of innovative online courses during the pandemic expanded great opportunities for participation in education programmes offered by institutions abroad. Some kindly offered scholarships for the refugees. Regrettably, among the refugees, the same challenge of lack of sufficient documents to certify their qualifications for online programme enrolment remains (UNHCR, 2021b). For refugees that have financial difficulties, the lack of connectivity and access to devices too became the hurdle to seize this opportunity. The socioeconomic background among the refugees not only limited their learning opportunities but also divided these young refugees to the haves and haves not. In overcoming these problems and in mainstreaming education for refugees, governments, educational institutions, and communities need to reconsider improving infrastructure, making connectivity and devices available for learners, upskilling educators, and ensuring the digital literacy of learners and parents.

Malaysia’s Context: Challenges Facing Refugee Education During the Pandemic In Malaysia, the COVID-19 controlled movement was first announced on 18 March 2020 and ended on 1 April 2022. Most refugees lost their informal jobs during the lockdown. A Community Feedback Survey 2020 by Health Equity Initiative reported that almost 95% of the 100 Rohingya refugees voiced out that they were not paid for the month of March 2020, and about 90% of Afghan workers in Afghan refugee families lost their jobs (Verghis et al., 2021). IOM reported that during this period, 41% of 420 refugee respondents of its in-depth interviews faced eviction

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threats for late payment of rent. 72% of them indicated anxiousness from these four challenges: financial struggles, shortage of food, loss of work, and hence, difficulty to pay rent (2021). The first challenge highlighted the competing opportunity cost between schooling and working. This point plus the vulnerabilities experienced due to xenophobia and scapegoating, including large-scale immigration raids and arrests among the refugee neighbourhoods that were identified as COVID-19 clusters (IOM, 2021), forced refugees to prioritise income earning and personal safety over education. Many ALCs were closed because of unforeseen changes in funding received and management such as loss of school fees, prioritising funds for food assistance, and purchase of devices to enable distance learning (Loganathan et al., 2021). As shared by an undisclosed interviewee, I’m scared of being detained by the authorities if I take the vaccine because of my status as a refugee (IOM, 2021).

At the social level, the pandemic strains revolved not only among the students but also with their peers, teachers, and parents. For example, the reduced support and engagement between the students and their classmates, and teachers were reported to impact their emotional well-being. At home, most refugee parents or caregivers were unable to oversee and provide guidance on online learning causing a lack of engagement from the students during virtual classes.

5 Educating Refugees in Malaysia During the Pandemic Some scholars estimated that around 200 million people will be at risk of climate calamity by 2050 (Biermann & Boas, 2010). Climate disasters will threaten human health and psychology and disrupt food stability. The findings from a survey among 759 Malaysian respondents indicated that food insecurity negatively impacted the Quality of Life during lockdown (Ahmad et al., 2022). Such information and the recent pandemic experience urged the human population to re-evaluate the existing education system to find its relevance and adaptability to today’s threatening climate crisis. This rethinking process questions the applicability of the traditional education system that is teacher-centred and emphasises greatly on theoretical knowledge, exam centric, and has little emphasis on the interconnectedness between humans and nature. As admitted by an undisclosed interviewee, I don’t know how I’m going to find food to eat as of tomorrow (IOM, 2021).

Among the refugees, including school-aged children and young adults, physiological needs, such as food and shelter, and household income needed for attaining basic needs, and healthy emotional well-being were of utmost priority during COVID-19 pandemic. The importance of food security was evidenced when most of the refugee community centres and NGOs shifted their operations primarily to the distribution of food aid, with only a few of the services accompanied by the delivery of education

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or training materials (Loganathan et al., 2021). Food insecurity provided opportunities for adult refugees to help improve food supply among the co-ethnic and cohost communities through edible gardening. 59% of the Myanmar respondents that worked as farmers in their country (IRC, 2012), for example, had the opportunity to transfer their farming skills to others, especially the younger refugees who lack such exposure when growing up in Malaysia. Such talent can be channelled and benefit emerging edible community gardens in Klang Valley (Chalil, 2020). Volunteerism of students of Mon Refugee Education Centre at Kebun-Kebun Bangsar or Bangsar Farm, and Kachin Refugee Learning Centre at The Garden Spring community garden are some good examples of cross-generations and diverse backgrounds collaborative experiential learning in a garden space. This embodied shared experience also constructed hope and trust, as well as social integration among the refugees and the citizens (Figs. 1 and 2). Enhancement of resiliency in physical, mental, and emotional well-being among the refuge learners requires timely curation of relevant and accessible online programmes. The learning can be complemented with remote practical exercises or projects, and the use of social media such as Facebook and Instagram as means for sharing information. Two examples of such programmes are ‘Garden to Table’ by UCSI University’s culinary school and The Blue Ribbon’s (TBR) Climate Action Incubator Programme (CAIP). These extra-curricular programmes are offered to all ALC secondary education students and their alumni, and they heightened their awareness of SDG 3 Good Health and Well-Being, and SDG 13 Climate Action. The teaching–learning sessions also motivated them to improve their diet and to start edible gardens within their community residential area. The ALC alumni that have

Fig. 1 Some of CAIP participants, refugee families, and Malaysians gardening together (own photo)

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Fig. 2 Refugee youths volunteering at the garden spring, Cheras (own photo)

completed CAIP programme are invited to intern as programme coordinators and module co-facilitators. These extra-curricular online programmes also created opportunities for refugee students from faith-based or homogenous ethnic group secondary education ALCs to mingle with their peers of different nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. CAIP also connected refugee teens with their peers from national and international schools through an annual soil painting national competition run in conjunction with World Soil Day (Fig. 3). In addition to enhancing social integration, this interaction facilitated collaborative learning and enrichment of their emotional and mental health after months of lockdown. This need was even more prevalent among the refugee learners as many of them were confined in tiny residences. Virtual physical exercise activities by ‘Be My Virtual Buddies’, a UCSI University student programme, is another excellent example of how youths, refugees, and non-refugees, support each other for their physical and emotional wellness during lock-down. Another workshop, ‘Brushing Your Emotions Daily’, that was conducted physically among refugee teens, adults, and staff in various ALCs and refugee community centres to create awareness on attending and caring for their thriving and surviving emotions, was also valuable to support recovery from the pandemic. Besides these programmes, working workshops for adult refugees to learn or use their existing skills while earning and contributing to the community, e.g., sewing protective suits for the front liners, is an example of an excellent education programme that shapes a positive narrative on refugee life during pandemic (Fig. 4). ALCs and refugee community centres certainly played a key role in uplifting the refugee learners’ well-being during the pandemic. An online survey, participated by 109 students from 6 secondary education refugee ALCs in Peninsular Malaysia indicated an overall result of positive views on their Social Well-Being (SWB) during the pandemic (Abu Bakar & Subramaniam, 2022). The survey was carried out in

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Fig. 3 CAIP students doing “Soil Painting” for 2021 World Soil Day National Competition (own photo)

Fig. 4 Two ALC students presented their group’s findings on “Thriving Emotions” (own photo)

2021, and the indicators: Social Acceptance, Social Integration; Social Contribution; Social Actualisation; and Social Anticipation, were adopted from Keyes 5 SWB Dimensions.

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Teachers and educators certainly play critical roles in supporting refugees in the recovery phase in post-conflict emergencies, and with their practices, they can promote security, safety, and peace (Alrawashdeh & Kunt, 2022). For instance, facilitated virtual teaching–learning sessions can be used to create safe spaces for students to express their emotions and thoughts. Online tools such as Mentimeter, Padlet and Kahoot, and innovative ice-breaker activities can be utilised to encourage interaction and verbal communication between learners from different cultures and backgrounds. An example of the latter activity is personal profiling test where students are required to select their favourite shape: triangle, rectangle, square, circle, and squiggle. Participants were then grouped according to their preferred choice and given characteristics of their personality type. In groups, they prepared a short presentation not only describing the strengths and weaknesses but also giving suggestions on how to work better among their diverse group members. In such diverse classrooms, educators must go an extra mile in conducting culturally sensitive instruction using varied communication strategies as well as advocating cooperative living in a diverse world (Morris & Mims, 2012). This cross-cultural experiential learning is fundamental to prepare youth refugees living in diverse community in Malaysia or in the third countries in the years to come. As elaborated earlier, many refugee youths were pressured to join workforce due to their life circumstances. The need for this livelihood preparedness and continuous learning can be supported through internship and vocational training programmes. Integration into labour markets or education and training in destination countries is often problematic due to its complexity (Aerne & Bonoli, 2021). However, there are agencies that have successfully launched new programmes to address this challenge. An example of such initiative was Vocational Internship Programme (VIP), a 3-month residential programme that was run by UCSI’s “Leave No One Behind” Education project and TBR Global just before the pandemic. The learning outcomes are mapped to four areas: holistic well-being, working skills, climate resilience skills, and social integration. During lockdown, the programme evolved to CAIP and was ran virtually with remote practical. When sharing feedback on CAIP, one of its participants from Myanmar mentioned that: It is not racist; it is not biased. Everyone is welcome to join. All kinds of people can come together and be part of this project. I’m happy to learn how to work as a team as I work with different types of people.

CAIP offers various modules such as Peace and Unity Education, Permaculture, Sustainable Living, ICT, E-commerce, Garden to Table Culinary, Mind Your English and Malay Language (Fig. 5). A few of the modules adopted UNESCO’s learning objectives for Education for Sustainable Development. Those who completed this programme are eligible for internship programme while pursuing their tertiary education or vocations. As shared by the young CAIP coordinator from Yemen who completed VIP the year before, In the beginning, I hoped to learn new skills but the more I was involved with the projects, the more I learned things that I never expected to learn, and the more I contributed to the community.

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Fig. 5 “Mind Your English” Course participants (own photo)

6 Conclusion As the famous American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once said: “The secret in education lies in respecting the student”. Providing quality, inclusive, and equitable education for refugees is truly an essence of respecting their rights, and an act that demonstrates the UN SDGs motto, “Leaving No One Behind”. Beyond this, is the sensitivity to co-curate and co-organise education and life-long learning programmes that anticipate the changing need and life priorities, and precarious context of the POC. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia, the need for a formal education curriculum was primarily leaning towards learning for earning livelihood and for meeting physiological needs (Loganathan et al., 2021). This shift was also significantly influenced by the multi-dimensional limitations for online learning among the refugees and related parties. The understanding and adaptability to co-organise refugee educational programmes are only possible through meaningful engagement with the refugee communities. Such flexibility demonstrates an approach that sensitises respect and care for the POC. In normal circumstances, lessons on developing impactful results in refugee education through inter-agencies partnerships can be learned from the extensive experiences of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey (Zakharia & Menashy, 2020), and other nonsignatory countries of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The unprecedented pandemic experience however unveils the need for all parties to look beyond this normality, and to rethink and re-evaluate SDG 4 implementation for refugee context under all circumstances. An inclusive refugee education needs to also consider harnessing refugees’ existing skills and cultural norms that were inculcated within their co-ethnic communities and made them resilient throughout the different stages of migration. Refugee education should not only be designed to enhance their life and working skills, and academic capacity, but also the growth of their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

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In a country where refugees self-settled in major cities, such as Malaysia, engaging philanthropic corporations that have championed global education and impacted education policy during humanitarian crises such as IKEA and Hewlett Foundations (Menashy & Zakharia, 2019) can create shared economic values that can address refugees’ prevalent needs and priorities for learning and earning. Social causes can result in a new way to achieve economic success (Porter & Kramer, 2020). Both are relatable to all UN SDGs, including its SDG 17 that focuses on Partnership. Hence, the success in mainstreaming refugee education cannot be separated from the success of inter-agencies collaboration. As argued by Gordon Brown, the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, “inside the humanitarian tent, we need charities, philanthropists, businesses and social enterprises as well as governments and international agencies” (Brown, 2017).

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UNHCR. (2022d). Malaysia. Education. https://refugeemalaysia.org/support/education/ UNHCR/United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2019). Refugee education for agenda 2030—A strategy for refugee inclusion. https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/71213 UNICEF/United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. (2016). Quality basic education programme July 2012−June 2016, Final Report September 2016. https://reliefweb.int/rep ort/myanmar/myanmar-quality-basic-education-programme-final-report-and-executive-sum mary-enmy Verghis, S., Pereira, X., Kumar, A.G., Koh, A., & Singh-Lim, A. (2021). COVID-19 and refugees in Malaysia: An NGO response. Intervention [serial online];19:15–20. https://www.intervent ionjournal.org/text.asp?2021/19/1/15/312713 Zakharia, Z., & Menashy, F. (2020). The emerging role of corporate actors as policymakers in education in emergencies: Evidence from the Syria Refugee Crisis. Journal on Education in Emergencies, 5(2), 40–70. https://doi.org/10.33682/pcbg-2fu2

Daria Morozova M.Ed., completed her postgraduate degree at the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia in 2014. She has an extensive background in teaching, programme development, curriculum design, project management and in the implementation of education and community-based training models. As a Director of Centre for Languages at UCSI University in Malaysia, Daria has been supporting UN SDG initiatives by organising national competitions and developing specialised programmes for various groups of learners including those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. She has successfully facilitated specialised courses for refugee learners that promote positive character values, relevant competencies and overall wellbeing. Daria believes that educators and learning institutions play an important role in supporting unprivileged learners by providing access to quality education programmes as no one should be left behind. Her area of interest includes intensive foreign language training, educational technology, project management, community service as well as refugee education. Norani Abu Bakar is the Chairperson of the Regional Center of Expertise Greater Kuala Lumpur for Education for Sustainable Development. After ending her career as a Senior Process Engineer at Siemens Power Generation, Germany, she established a Shanghai-based social enterprise that runs a holistic intervention program for the differently abled and unsheltered above-age orphans in China. Then onwards, Norani pursued her graduate studies at Yale University and became a fellow at its Center for Faith and Culture. She advocates harmonious and peaceful living among people and with nature through The Blue Ribbon Global, an NGO that she founded in 2013. Norani practices permaculture and provides consultation on food security for refugees for Potato Productions, Singapore, and has been a host parent and mentor to a few teen refugees since 2017. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, University of Malaya, and her research focuses on refugee youth social well-being and education.

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Prof. Kwan Hoong Ng, PhD, FInstP, DABMP is a professor at the Department of Biomedical Imaging, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was the recipient of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Award in 2018 given by the International Organization of Medical Physics for his excellent contribution to research, education and leadership. He has been teaching and researching for over 35 years with special interest in nurturing early career scientists instilling in them virtues to live by. He has initiated a number of impactful interdisciplinary research globally. Prof Ng has published extensively in journals, proceedings and books.

Chapter 12

The Need for Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education for the Specially-Abled—An Essay Seena Biju and Vinod Pallath

1 The Dimensions of Universal Design for Learning To ensure that all students, including those with disabilities, can benefit from education, the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) movement has taken the lead in recent years. “Universal” in UDL does not indicate “one best option for everybody” but instead, emphasizes the necessity of being adaptable (King-Sears, 2009). A UDL curriculum encompasses having clear objectives that keep students on their toes and at the edge of their seats, transformative media, and content representations to promote student learning made possible by materials that follow a flexible format usable by all students (Hitchcock et al., 2002). UDL facilitates the inclusion of students of various abilities who can benefit from the methods since they are adaptable and diversified. In order to give instructors accurate and continuous information to alter instruction and enhance learning, assessments need to be sufficiently flexible. The three key dimensions of UDL are access, participation, and progress (McGuire et al., 2006). Higher education courses are now more varied than ever with students from diverse backgrounds and experiences. UDL principles can be used to increase diversity in the classroom. Instructors can make their courses more accessible and inclusive by using a variety of methods to engage students, deliver content, and structure evaluations (Dyjur & Perreira, 2021). There are five viewpoints through which accessibility may be considered especially in a digital or e-learning setting— presentation, control techniques, access modalities, learner support, and availability

S. Biju School of Business and Management, Christ University, Bangalore, India V. Pallath (B) Medical Education Research and Development Unit (MERDU), Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

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of alternative but equal material, formats, and activities, (Seale, 2014). In an extensive study on accessibility (Ngubane-Mokiwa, 2016), Ngubane-Mokiwa outlines the means of representation, expression, and engagement as prerequisites for adequate access. Digital accessibility brings with it the challenge of inclusivity in the context of specially-abled learners. For example, visually challenged learners will need access to image-based information via a screen reader where they are provided with text versions of the images in order to facilitate their comprehension. Ensuring active participation is primary to UDL. Extended periods of engagement is always challenging in learning. However, studies demonstrate that actively engaged learners comprehend and learn better, retain better, enjoy the learning experience better, and appreciate the significance of learning and learning experience (Park, 2003). Participation is facilitated through lessons broken up into small groups and students are engaged in class discussions and experiments. Activities and/or evaluations with self-reflective and goal setting components encourage active involvement, discovery, and experimentation (Jhangiani, 2017). UDL also encourages comfort while learning, reduce fear and cater to meaningful growth. All students in a classroom have unique assets and weaknesses that must be taken into consideration when planning instructions. Individual strengths, needs, and interests can be identified by professionals’ working with specially-abled learners and also by trained general educators who apply a UDL lens. Identification of the learners uniqueness along the three aspects of learning (recognition, action and expression, and engagement) enables integrating them into instructional delivery (Ralabate, 2011) and could lead to achievment of aspired learning ouctomes. Progress requires dedication by students to develop their own knowledge and skills to increase the depth and breadth of one’s knowledge and to stay encouraged to keep learning new things. Using dynamic evaluation techniques, UDL facilitates various methods to convey information thereby providing a framework for scaffolding and a path to success for students (Rose & Anne Meyer, 2002). Assuming that emotions are inherent to all learners, the UDL assessment method states that focusing on emotions may lead to more accurate results. UDL also incorporates regular and flexible assessments into the instructional delivery to offer teachers and students quick and actionable feedback before a failure occurs. Rapid results through valid and accurate assessments help all the stakeholders of education process. UDL-based education can help students to overcome the unforeseen learning obstacles. This will allow the diverse group of learners to perform mastery learning, improving the accuracy, information, and value of progress assessments and the outcome attained. (Rose et al., 2018).

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2 Working with the Specially-Abled−Inclusivity Challenges Students with special needs face a wide range of obstacles to accessing inclusive higher education. However, research on the difficulties faced by specially-abled learners in higher education is sparse and does not take into account specific issues. Inclusive higher education is a policy drawback, a management dilemma, and an instructional design challenge (Zabel et al., 2020). Moving towards inclusive education principles requires strategic thinking and the road is not an easy one—specifically in higher education. Barely a decade ago, higher education was different from that of today. Diversity among students too has increased and is rising (Moriña, 2017a, 2017b). It is a challenge generally for faculty members to effectively facilitate discussions on inclusivity challenges including race and racism. Classrooms could experience macroaggressions related to inclusivity challenges and faculty members may not be effective in their interventions in such instances (Linder et al., 2015). The literature confirms that students with special needs face a wide range of challenges in their pursuit of a college degree including physical obstacles such as difficulty accessing facilities, inadequate support services at the university level, a lack of financial resources to pay for these and other forms of assistance, as well as curriculum challenges such as using ineffective teaching and assessment methods (Ahammed, 2021; Cortiella & Horowitz, 2014; UNESCO, 2018). There is an inherent need for effective strategies to build authentic and vulnerable inclusive classrooms. This will need to be supported through effective policies and their implementation that ensure the success of all students with special needs (Moriña, 2017a). Having a student support representative who is familiar with the teaching and learning environment is a huge asset (Zabel et al., 2020). This will enable ensuring that students arriving at the HEI are aware of the resources available to them and whom to contact in the event of a problem. It is much appreciated if questions concerning financial aid can be answered promptly, both throughout the application process and before a student arrives at the HEI. The student should be able to turn to a single individual for help if they have a problem. Higher Education is also experiencing and adapting to newer scenarios with focus on students who needs extra assistance, speciallyabled students, marginalised students from minority cultural groups, and/or students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and depending on the nation (Seale, 2014). Adopting and implementing inclusivity in higher education is difficult and challenging. Inclusive education is more adopted and better practiced for younger children, before their higher education. This leads to more specially-abled high school graduates, leading to higher demand for inclusive higher education. Studies have established that, this need and striving towards achieving it, as a hallmark of a good university (Gairín & Suárez, 2014).

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The Analytics There is a scarcity of data regarding the status of education of differently-abled learners. The UNESCO 2018 report based on available data from forty-nine countries reported that learners between 15 and 29 years were less likely to have attended schools in comparison to learners without any disabilities. This essentially leads to even fewer learners attending higher education. The data further reveals that differently-abled women were benefitting at even lesser rates than differently-abled men. The availability of accurate and authentic data on specially-abled and their education status is one of the prime challenges of working towards better addressing the challenge of inclusivity.

Pedagogical Limitations Globally, students with impairments face considerable challenges to obtain an education. The degree of student difficulty varies by nation, but the fundamental issue is lack of inclusion. Obstacles for inclusion include physical, technical, psychological, or a failure of the accommodating system (Wecapable, 2017). Lack of physical support systems, absence of individualization, complex accommodation processes, psychological barriers including stigma and stereotyping, and the unavailability of accessible study material are some of the key challenges. The pedagogical limitations include teacher perception (Mohanty & Jena, 2015), lack of awareness (Tinto, 1997), infrastructural and instructional deficiencies (Moll, 1992), curriculum inadequacies (Ahammed, 2021), and digital challenges (Cortiella & Horowitz, 2014). Nowadays, teachers are rated based on their students’ success. It’s a two-way street. Teachers and students must be successful in the classroom for education to take place. This is a challenge in the context of specially-abled students. In continuum, these students will not be able to advance as quickly as their peers in the regular education population. Progress is made slowly and steadily. An individual student’s achievements might be overlooked when they are constantly judged against those of other students. Neither the special education teacher nor the students are treated fairly in this situation. Instructional strategies that include menu-driven adaptive choices to assess student’s cognitive and sensory demands are vital. Remedial measures and content may be automatically and dynamically adapted to meet the requirements of students with special needs, while also highlighting their talents (Diamond & Shreve, 2008).

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Policy Needs Policies and regulations are vital to ensure inclusivity in this regard. Policies empower and thereby continuous and frequent revisits are mandatory. Policies on skill development of teachers that ensure integration of inclusive student learning instructional delivery are necessary. Teachers can gain such skills through a variety of methods including formal induction and mentorship programs, on-going professional development opportunities, classroom evaluation methods, and cross-institutional collaboration with other educators. Education reforms pave the way for change and inclusivity (Schleicher, 2016). A diverse and long-term approach is needed to ensure that specially-abled learners are fully integrated into higher education (Zabel et al., 2020). A strong partnership between policymakers, administrators, and teachers and students is needed to guarantee that students with special needs are successfully integrated into an inclusive higher education environment. Policies that mandate facilitator upskilling are also needed to promote understanding of how curricula can be created to mitigate for unforeseen obstacles and challenges in learning for all children. There needs to be a special focus on the foundation curriculum and “learning how to learn” in higher education.

3 UDL for Specially-Abled Students During the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools transitioned to online and remote teaching. COVID-19-related protocols have proved particularly challenging for children with disabilities. Many handicapped learners were affected physically and psychologically by the COVID-19 pandemic, and their relationships may have been hampered as a result (Krishnan et al., 2020). The situation begs the question—‘how might learning environments be designed to accommodate the wide range of learning preferences and talents that students bring to the classroom—specifically those with special needs?’. UDL outlines strategies for using resources and technologies to enhance learning, boost student participation in the classroom, make material more accessible and appealing, and produce evaluations and assessments that are inclusive of all categories of students. A one-size-fits-all approach to the learning material may not work for specially-abled learners who may require distinct forms of representation. Certain people may be better able to absorb information visually or audibly than by reading. Learning is made easier by allowing learners to perceive the links inside and between various concepts through the use of several representations of a single subject, a technique known as dual coding (Jose, 2019). Specially-abled students such as those with cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy may approach learning in a different manner than others and so too is the case with those who are unable to communicate in their native tongue. Similarly, a key aspect is the level of participation. Individual differences in motivation may be attributed to a variety of variables, including culture,

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neurology, significance to the individual, and past knowledge. Dyslexic learners are more likely to grasp topics through authentic learning experiences rather than through the use of printed texts,. If the topics are taught through activities that involve kinesthetic skills, such as theatre or role acting, these children may be motivated to learn. There is no one-size-fits-all method of engagement. Learning styles differ greatly among students, with some valuing spontaneity while others prefer a more structured approach. Students differ in their preferences for working alone or in groups. UDL strategies emphasize on customized delivery of standardized lessons. Students with impairments, according to the UDL framework, are no different from other students when it comes to the need for accommodations. UDL-adopting educators understand that specially-abled students are an important part of the classroom’s rich diversity. Teacher expectations should be raised in line with the UDL paradigm so that students with severe impairments may actively participate in their learning, be resourceful, and act on or demonstrate what they have learned. Students with substantial disabilities should not bear the burden of implementing new curricula, but rather those in charge of establishing them. Prior to concluding that children with severe impairments are unable to learn or get benefit from instruction, instructors can utilize UDL to identify hurdles in the curriculum and implement flexibility enablers that support overcoming the barriers (Coyne et al., 2010). Inspiring specially-abled to see themselves as capable, valued members of society who can develop and learn is made possible by curriculum that is particularly designed with their needs in mind. Teachers may utilize the UDL framework to assist them to change their thinking about curriculum to be more inclusive and to recognize that learner variation is normal and valued (Hartmann, 2015). It is also noteworthy to consider the benefits of non-disabled learners learning in a system that values and demonstrates inclusivity. The efforts towards inclusivity thus will have effects on specially-abled as well as non-disabled learners, which in the truest sense is the essence of inclusivity).

Teaching Strategies and UDL In the context of using UDL for developing teaching strategies it is vital to refer back to the three dimensions of UDL—Representation, action and expression, and engagement. Students of all backgrounds and socioeconomic levels are served by what is known as “representation” in educational contexts. According to the UDL concept, having many representations of the same topic increases engagement, and functions as an enabler to the specially-abled learners (McGuire et al., 2006). Using videos, audio text, and diagrams, the UDL framework can help students with a wide range of learning styles better grasp the material being taught in their classes. This means, for instructors to be better able to help students of all ages and backgrounds, they

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must have access to a wide range of technological and innovative teaching opportunities. Increasing the amount and range of prospects for students to participate and to be evaluated benefits both instructors and students. Creative, hands-on, and relevant education is the best way to engage learners and keep them engaged. To keep students interested, it is imperative for faculty to engage in novel and creative instructional delivery practice. This warrants empowerment and training for teachers, while focusing on innovation and novelty for students with special needs. A study on improved lesson planning (Courey et al., 2012) showed that UDL can have tangible impact on teaching and learning, only if teachers learn to use UDL effectively in planning instruction for all types of learners including the specially-abled. Analysing the learner variability in learning requirements and assisting the learner are two essential concepts from the UDL framework applied to address the education of specially-abled learners. In order to better help this demographic, instructors can use the UDL framework to analyse the ways to support this population. All institutions should have specialized staff to assist specially-abled learners. Specifically in the context of COVID-19, task forces at the institutes of higher education rushed to integrate innovative teaching methods such as online learning and recorded lectures, as well as midterm exams and homework assignments, by anticipating student demands and drafting thorough instructions for faculty. If a student is unable to participate in an online study for a variety of reasons, exploring alternatives become imperative. Owing to the challenges of learning, “alternative formats” for speciallyabled learners to have choices to consume content if one format doesn’t become effective, should be developed for the learners, and probably in a co-development mode with the learners themselves. Social isolation anxiety, an outcome of isolation due many reasons including a pandemic induced one, cannot be overlooked. This mandates continuous and regular engagement beyond capped time.

4 Conclusion Institutions of higher education will need to prioritize student learning facilities and measures that support both UDL and accessibility. Engaging academics is an accessibility endeavor, and it’s important to think about how institutional proposals may work in specific corners of academia because change initiatives require broad support. The pandemic broadened the existing digital divide for learners with special needs. UDL provides a strategic pathway to ensure continuous learning and effective engagement. These strategies are extremely dependent on support such as policy reforms, faculty training and competency development, cultivating a culture of inclusivity, and most importantly a future-looking institutional support.

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References Ahammed, H. (2021). Challenges faced by teachers of learners with learning disability. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 9. Cortiella, C., & Horowitz, S. (2014). The state of learning disabilities: Facts, trends and emerging issues. New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities, 25, 2–45. Courey, S. J., Tappe, P., Siker, J., & LePage, P. (2012). Improved lesson planning with universal design for learning (UDL). Teacher Education and Special Education, 36(1), 7–27. Coyne, P., Pisha, B., Dalton, B., Zeph, L., & Smith, N. C. (2010). Literacy by design: A universal design for learning approach for students with significant intellectual disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 33, 162–172. Diamond, B. J., & Shreve, G. M. (2008). Cognitive-adaptive instructional systems for special needs learners. In R. Z. (Ed.), Understanding online instructional modeling: Theories and practices. IGI GLobal. Dyjur, P., & Perreira, C. (2021). Increasing accessibility and diversity by using a UDL framework in an infographics assignment. Currents in Teaching & Learning, 12(2). Gairín, J., & Suárez, C. I. (2014). Clarifying and identifying vulnerable groups. In Gairin (Ed.), Vulnerable collectives in the university. Reflections and proposals for intervention (pp. 35–61). Hartmann, E. (2015). Universal design for learning (udl) and learners with severe support needs. International Journal of Whole Schooling, 11(1), 54–67. Hitchcock, C., Meyer, A., Rose, D., & Jackson., R. (2002). Providing new access to the general curriculum: Universal design for learning. Teaching Exceptional Children, 35(2), 8–17. Jhangiani, R. S. (2017). Ditching the “Disposable assignment” in favor of open pedagogy. In. In W. A. (Ed.), Essays from excellence in teaching. http://teachpsych.org/E-xcellence-in-TeachingBlog Jose, A. (2019). Universal design for learning: The three principles. https://ansrsource.com/blog/ universal-design-for-learning-the-three-principles/#:~:text=UDL%20is%20a%20framework% 20that,based%20on%20three%20defining%20principles King-Sears, M. (2009). Universal design for learning: Technology and pedagogy. Learning Disability Quarterly, 32(4), 199–201. Krishnan, I., De Mello, G., Kok, S., Sabapathy, S., Munian, S., Ching, H., & Kanan, V. (2020). Challenges faced by hearing impairment students during covid-19. Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 5(8), 106–116. Linder, C., Harris, J., Allen, E., & Hubain, B. (2015). Building inclusive pedagogy: Recommendations from a national study of students of color in higher education and student affairs graduate programs. Equity & Excellence in Education, 48(2), 178–194. McGuire, J. M., & S. S., & Shaw, S. F. (2006a). Universal design and its applications in educational environments. Remedial and Special Education, 27, 166–175. McGuire, J., Scott, S., & Shaw, S. (2006b). Universal Design and its implications in educational environments. Remedial and Special Education, 27(3), 166–175. Mohanty, S., & Jena, S. (2015). Perception of teachers about educational provisions for students with disability in higher education institution. Perception, 92, 104. Moll, L. (1992). Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology. . Cambridge University Press. Moriña, A. (2017a). Inclusive education in higher education: challenges and opportunities. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 32(1), 3–17. Moriña, A. (2017b). Inclusive education in higher education: Challenges and opportunities. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 32(1), 3–17. Ngubane-Mokiwa, S. (2016). . Accessibility strategies for making MOOCs for people with visual impairments: A Universal Design for Learning (UDL) perspective. https://oasis.col.org Park, C. I. (2003). Engaging students in the learning process: The learning journal. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 27(2), 183–199.

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Ralabate, P. (2011). Universal design for learning: Meeting the needs of all students. https://www. readingrockets.org/article/universal-design-learning-meeting-needs-all-students Rose, D. H., & Anne Meyer. (2002). Chapter 7: Using UDL to accurately assess student progress. In D. H. Rose, & A. Meyer (Eds.), Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Rose, D., Robinson, K., Hall, T., Coyne, P., Jackson, R., Stahl, W., & Wilcauskas, S. (2018). Accurate and informative for all: Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the future of assessment. Handbook of accessible instruction and testing practices (pp. 167–180). Springer, Cham. Schleicher, A. (2016). Teaching excellence through professional learning and policy reform. Lessons from Around the World. International Summit on the Teaching Profession. Seale, J. (2014). E-Learning and disability in higher education: Accessibility research and practice. Routledge. Tinto, V. (1997). Classrooms as communities: Exploring the educational character of student persistence. The Journal of Higher Education, 68(6), 599–625. UNESCO. (2018). Education and disability—Analysis of data from 49 Countries. UNESCO institute for Statistics. Wecapable.com. (2017). Students with disabilities: Most common barriers and difficulties. https:// wecapable.com/students-with-disabilities-barriers-difficulties/ Zabel, N., Kaçaniku, F., & Koliqi, D. (2020). Towards the inclusion of students with special needs in higher education: Challenges and prospects in Kosovo. Cogent Education, 8(1), 1–20.

Prof. Dr. Seena Biju had an illustrious career as an academic associated with various leading universities. She had served as a faculty member with Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai Campus, T. A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), Manipal, India, Manipal International University (MIU), Malaysia, and Sikkim Manipal University, India. She held various administrative posts including Deanship of the School of Management, MIU, Malaysia, and Associate Director of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sikkim Manipal University. With a career spanning 25 years, she had touched the lives of her students and colleagues as an astute academician and administrator. She was Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certified and has postgraduate degrees in applied statistics and Business administration. She was an alumnus of the Indian Statistical Institute and her key areas of research were statistical modelling, six sigma theory, and Academic Quality Measurement and Assurance. Seena Biju left us for rest in eternal peace on the morning of 10 August 2022 and at that time was associated with Christ University Bengaluru as a Professor at the School of Management. Her Google Scholar profile can be found at https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=5-i3KNsA AAAJ&hl=en.

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S. Biju and V. Pallath Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vinod Pallath, Ph.D. has been an active academic for more than two decades in health professionals’ education, with extensive involvement in teaching undergraduate medical students, masters and doctoral students in health professionals’ education, research, and faculty development for health professionals. His teaching and research in Medical Education focuses on Faculty Development, Professionalism, and Competency Based Medical Education and Leadership and Management. As a trained Medical Microbiologist, he also teaches Medical Microbiology and Immunology. He currently focuses his microbiology research on survival strategies of uropathogens. He is a Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) regional fellow, Co-Faculty member for FAIMER Competencybased Medical Education (FACE) professional development programme, and Project Advisor to fellows of International FAIMER institute, Philadelphia. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Current Affiliation: Associate Professor Medical Education Research and Development Unit (MERDU) Faculty of Medicine Universiti Malaya (UM) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Chapter 13

Future Inclusive Education Seena Biju, Vinod Pallath, Bhakti More, Blessy Prabha Valsaraj, and Kwan Hoong Ng

1 Introduction Since face-to-face meetings were no longer possible as the virus spread, educational institutions around the world had to quickly adjust by moving to online sessions, changing exams to online, and replacing lessons with videos and synchronous web sessions. The rapid adoption of online education had far-reaching consequences for all parties involved in the educational process, from students and teachers to school administrators and the public at large, and significantly altered the educational experiences of everyone involved. New difficulties emerged because of faculty adaptation (Valsaraj et al., 2021) and transition investment (Mogaji & Jain, 2020), alterations in learning management systems (Gamede et al., 2021), broadband expansions (Raza

S. Biju School of Business and Management, Christ University, Bangalore, India V. Pallath (B) Medical Education Research and Development Unit (MERDU), Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya (UM), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] B. More School of Design & Architecture, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai, United Arab Emirates B. P. Valsaraj Department of Community and Mental Health, College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman K. H. Ng Department of Biomedical Imaging, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UCSI University, Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_13

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et al., n.d.) etc. Colleges, universities, and institutions of Higher Education all over the world were transitioning as an immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inclusivity—a Stretched Task The initial transition included a panic rush by educational institutions to keep the show on without losing connection with their students. Upgrading IT infrastructure, acquiring laptops for teachers and students, and increasing bandwidth were all pressing issues in this dynamic setting. At this juncture, inclusivity posed a greater challenge. Historically, inclusivity has been a function of policy reforms (Amor et al., n.d.), teacher’s efficacy and beliefs (You et al., 2019), a global priority and a collective responsibility (Hasan et al., 2018; Ydo, 2020). With the pandemic shutting out all physical contact, inclusivity manifested itself differently. Many schools were caught off guard by the quick transition to distance learning because they lacked policies and procedures for remote teaching and learning, pedagogical structures, delivery methods, and communication systems—specifically for students with special needs (Hood, 2020). Because specially-abled learners are a population that is more vulnerable to medical and social risks, the effects of isolation on them may be even more severe (Berger et al., 2020). As educational delivery shifts to online and remote learning, students with special education needs are put in at even greater danger, particularly when schools and teachers are unable to play a role in the socialization of students or provide social assistance or specialists. School connectedness prioritizes relationships and makes specially-abled learners feel a part of the school community, thereby making a favorable effect on their academic, social, emotional, and physical well-being (Cumming et al., 2017). Now with the pandemic, there was a growing danger for students with exceptional needs to fall between the cracks despite teachers’ best efforts, and they run the risk of losing their academic and emotional connections. (Page et al., 2021). The pandemic brought to light several of the issues that were beyond the realms of reality. Inclusivity is now to be looked at with deeper foresightedness and focused strategies. For the students of mainstream learning, leaders in the field of education are taking measures to guarantee that online education is of good quality and useful to both students and potential employers. There will always be things that a computer can’t do. The perception of remote learners by recruiters is becoming an increasingly important consideration in designing programs. Since many universities and institutions of Higher Education were forced to close due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, students from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds who are already at a higher risk of experiencing increased vulnerability received less of the support and extra services they require, and the achievement gap between students who face and do not face these additional barriers widened. The closure of educational institutions has had far-reaching consequences on students’

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sense of school community and self-esteem, two factors that are crucial for educational equity. UNESCO estimates the educational disruption has affected 1.5 billion students worldwide and probably the analysis does not include the specially-abled and marginalised (UNESCO, 2020a). Technology-based solutions, such as online and remote learning, were implemented in several nations to ensure the continuous provision of education. 40% of low-income nations, however, did not offer targeted assistance to students from disadvantaged backgrounds during the COVID-19 pandemic (UNESCO, 2020b). In many parts of the world, students lacked the resources they needed to participate in online learning opportunities, including computers, modems, internet connections, accessible materials, content adaptations, and human mentors. Although 826 million students (50%) around the world did not have access to a household computer, 706 million (43%) did not have access to the internet, and 56 million (11%) did not have access to information via mobile phones due to limited coverage by mobile networks, online and distance education exacerbated these inequalities (UNESCO, 2020c).

The Way Forward The pandemic delivered critical learnings regarding the essentiality of inclusive education. At any point of time and especially in times of crisis and sudden changes, it was essential to take a comprehensive approach to educating students, one that considers their academic, social, and emotional requirements. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that institutions of higher education is vital for young adults’ emotional and social development in addition to their intellectual development. Students learn and grow in areas of social competence including self-assurance, camaraderie, responsiveness, participation, respect, gratitude, empathy, and responsibility in the safe and supportive setting of an institution. A report by UNESCO (2020d) outlines the following as critical to sustaining inclusivity in education. • Government support with legal and policy reforms to ensure diverse accommodations, ensuring access to assistive technologies, and inclusive ICT • Assisting teachers by providing learning, research, and teaching aid while ensuring provision for care-giver support • Encouraging Civil Society organizations to take lead in leading inclusivity with policies that support mobilizing resources. • Educational communities (people or establishments, individually or collectively involved in the support and welfare of educational institutions) to proactively establish and enforce policies, and processes, with inclusive design and education ideas and standards that allow all learners full participation and equal access.

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2 Inclusivity Dimensions—A Discussion This section is a synopsis of the key points from the chapters presented in this book. The attempt here is to describe the learning and summate than to endorse the findings. The development of online course options as a replacement for conventional classroom teaching is one of the most far-reaching shifts in the educational landscape. Despite its usefulness, some student demographics are disproportionately impacted by virtual learning environments, which contributes to the digital divide. Although it is common knowledge that some populations face difficulties gaining access to technological resources, online learning can disadvantage learners in more nuanced ways, such as through feelings of isolation caused by the virtual wall, time constraints of domestic responsibilities, and communication barriers related to online delivery. Each of these factors can undermine the three psychological conditions necessary for efficient self-regulated learning: students’ sense of connectedness, autonomy, and competence (Cockburn et al., Chap. 5). In ensuring that the forced online education (equivalent to emergency remote learning during pandemic times) is of perceived value, the service quality of the educational institution, which is probably relatable to instructional delivery and support provided by the educational institutions needs to be evaluated and assured. Service quality dimensions namely responsiveness and reliability were shown to be influencing the continued intention to engage in learning (Dhaigude & Dhayagude, Chap. 2). Although the above-mentioned studies and perspectives were from non-disabled learners, these indicate factors influencing inclusivity which higher education needs to pay attention to in their attempt at inclusive higher education.

Managing the Digital Divide Online learning is one of the cornerstones of adaptation to the enormous changes in teaching and learning specifically caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To assure the continuity of teaching and learning in higher education, educational institutions hastened the transition from physical instruction to online learning Teaching and learning changes required system and teacher/student adaptability, which mandated adapting to varied resources, levels of technology adaptability, personal teaching or learning concepts and methodologies, etc. creating gaps in delivery, comprehension, and accessibility. Given the importance of inclusivity, diversity, and equality for teaching and learning, the pandemic warranted attention to obstacles of adaptation and the fast-changing learning environment, widening and exacerbating the digital divide (Findyartini et al., Chap. 7). The disparities in information technology and infrastructure between countries and regions increased and the disparities in the IT teaching abilities of teachers became a prominent manifestation of the digital divide in higher vocational education. This thereby mandated clear focus and action strategies to decrease the digital

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divide at three levels: the state, colleges, and educators. The key players include government participation and policy support, IT infrastructure, online learning resources, instructors’ IT teaching skills, and effective teacher-student interaction which affect the efficiency and effectiveness of online learning. These are essential for bridging the digital gap in postsecondary vocational education (Yun Fah & Zhongyan, Chap. 6). Although the findings were from a smaller number of respondents, the availability of technical support and availability of feature-laden gadgets were perceived to enhance inclusivity and facilitate learning, and in bridging the divide created by geographical location, especially for preparing for admission examinations for future studies (Guo An & Heng Chua, Chap. 8). This qualitative description shows the need for support systems for bridging the divide. The need for support to enable the bridging of the divide was also demonstrated in the Chap. 10 (Chun Chee, Pui– Shan & Mohd Zaki), which describes the attempts to enhance inclusivity among the Malaysian B40 learners. In Malaysia, B40 represent the lower economic strata and also the largest among the population, was affected by pandemic heavily due to various reasons including loss of employment to generate income. The students from this category faced challenges in adjusting to the demands of the emergency transition to remote learning in terms of connectivity and resources including hardware and software. Identification of need (also creating the data on the need) enabled the initiation of support. Support from the government, non-governmental organizations and industry played a significant role in bridging the gap.

The Experiences Thereby The pivotal element to change in this context are the students. Students with special needs, international and displaced (from campuses) students, those from backgrounds of poorer economic levels, refugees and those affected by isolation, including a conglomerate of challenges for technical programs were growing to be the concerns for the providers of academic services. The pandemic brought changes that significantly affected their ways of learning and their lives. These modifications both benefited and hampered students’ growth, especially the specially-abled. Studies enquired and analyzed several of such situations, showcasing the change strategies used by institutions (Hartman, Phillips & Coston, Chap. 1). A specific essay on the visually impaired students studying in Malaysian higher learning institutions highlighted the challenges in creation of adaptable curricula and the interventions needed, despite the committed policies and the country striving to be comprehensive, accessible, and inclusive, while it gives handicapped students, particularly visually impaired pupils, with the same educational opportunities as nondisabled people. Inaccessible and unfamiliar online learning materials had a significant impact on the online learning of visually impaired students in higher education. This warrants a good understanding of the limitations that visually impaired students experience and mandating a relook at the education policies. (Wilson, Sreedharam & Ramayah, Chap. 4).

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At a rather tangential, yet vital consideration are the challenges faced in teaching refugees in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. While examining the special case in Malaysia the development and difficulties of refugee status definitions, as well as how the uncertainty between them and other migrants generated barriers to formal education is noticed. This limbo highlights the deficiencies in refugee education, such as linguistic barriers, a lack of qualified personnel, and cultural differences. Delivering effective education in the recent pandemic context involves adaptability to meet their urgent needs for food, shelter, and a means of subsistence, as well as a shift in school-aged children’s and adolescents’ life priorities from education to earning. Therefore, providing a quality and inclusive education at this time of crisis requires the integration of teaching–learning content and delivery that emphasizes their physical, mental, and social well-being; overcoming stigma; and cultural and adversity sensitivity. By promoting learning based on their existing environment and continuity in knowledge inquiry and skill development, communities are strengthened and better prepared for any unforeseeable future problems. (Morozova, Abu Bakar & Ng, Chap. 11). The facilitators and caregivers themselves were also challenged with the onset of the pandemic. School closures have disrupted students’ routines, forced caregivers to take on the job of teacher, and forced educators to transition to online learning. Faculty and students needed to transition to online learning, which required unlearning and relearning of teaching and learning skills. Kahu’s Students centered frameworkbased interventions at the micro (educational interface) level were utilized at Western Sydney University School of medicine to manage the digital divide, and ensuing continuation of training in a challenging community centered curriculum. Lessons learnt showed that often-overlooked abilities and adaptability required of different teaching team members to move to remote learning while juggling other job and life obligations (Majardi, Micheal, Mason & Mansour, Chap. 3) were the enablers of efforts leading to bridging the digital divide.

Converging on the Essentials Bringing the varying needs of learners into sync with the constraints of online education is necessary for determining the long-term effects of the COVID-19 outbreak and for improving future online learning and pedagogical delivery. Despite the Internet’s potential as the Great Equalizer, the COVID-19 outbreak posed a hurdle to educational inclusiveness. During the pandemic, the intersection of ePortfolio evaluation, multimodal literacy, and diversity in higher education led aid to pedagogy and learning. Because participants can choreograph intermodal relations in multimodal composition to be creative, the evaluation of ePortfolios for multimodal literacy is democratic and sustainable. This opens the door to investigating assessment rubrics and lecturer remarks in various contexts to integrate student expectations (Ching Yee, Seau Jill, Tan & AkhaviZadegan, Chap. 9).

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) lends tremendous strategies for inclusivity. UDL is a set of curriculum creation concepts that strives to offer all students an equal opportunity to study and may be used by educators at any grade level or subject area. “UDL provides a blueprint for establishing instructional goals, methods, resources, and assessments that work for everyone—not a single, one-size-fits-all answer, but rather adaptable approaches that can be tailored and altered for individual needs,” according to the National Center for Universal Design for Learning (Harper, 2018). The guiding concepts of UDL include diverse ways of representation or knowledge acquisition, various means of expression or display of learning, and numerous types of engagement to promote learning. Given the diversity of potentials among speciallyabled students, inclusive learning via UDL develops a sense of unity and diversity. The major purpose is to figure out how to teach the subject to various types of students in a classroom context. Lessons are created to address a variety of needs and strengths. The potential of several UDL tactics for assisting specially-abled students in transitioning through the epidemic, such as personalizing learning content with guaranteed accessibility, individualizing learning goals based on student potential, flexible/customized assessments, and qualitative grading is worth exploring (Biju & Pallath, Chap. 12).

3 Employability and Inclusive Education COVID-19 and Workplaces Over a period of years, the work landscape has been changing to VUCA (volatile, uncertainty, complex and ambiguous) which therefore requires specific skill sets for graduate employability. The role of soft skills in enhancing employability has been essential (Abd Majid et al., 2022). Cheng et al., (2021) state that employability is a key concept in higher education and there is yet a gap in what employers need and graduate employability which is based on skill sets, attitude, and external factors. The expectations of employers after COVID 19 pandemic have been different than pre COVID (Sato et al., 2021) and hence it is important to understand how the landscape of employability has been impacted due to COVID and the role of higher education in adhering to these competencies. When the pandemic caused disruption in the workplace, the work-from-home concept was integrated in the business model, and employees faced social isolation and emotional distancing. While the work-from-home model continued employability, it also demanded people-connect, skilling and re-skilling on attributes of design thinking, technological advancement, storytelling, and many newer competencies for developing new skill sets (Kaushik & Gulleria, 2020). COVID-19 impacted the employment market in terms of the supply and demand sides of graduates, a decline in recruitment demand, the rise of employment supply and the unstable scenario of employment continued which impacted the psychological expectations of the

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graduates (Mao et al., 2022). The unstable factors in employment continued after a year of pandemic further in 2021 (Liu, 2021). Mainga et al. (2022) discuss on the rapidly changing workplace which demands willingness to learn and lifelong learning to sustain graduate employment as the future of workplace is unknown. The skills required for the new normal include creativity and innovation, problem and conflict solving which in turn require student-centric pedagogies, and teamwork to focus and emphasise self-directed learning. Buheji and Buheji (2020) summarises the employability competencies as the 5Ps; proactiveness, preparedness, pullingtogether, problem-solving, and publishing and publicizing. Among the 5Ps, the ‘proactiveness competency’ may ensure capacity to prepare ahead to deal with an expected challenge or even an unexpected probability. Workplace competencies and graduate attributes have changed post COVID-19.

Reimagining Inclusive Higher Education for the Future of Work Higher education systems in the developed and developing world will need to be reimagined to meet the demands of complex, dynamic, and continuously evolving labour markets. Universities have to play an important role in overcoming students’ academic barriers as well as integrating them into the workforce, especially those with disabilities (Morina & Biagiotti, 2022). Reimagining Inclusive higher education is necessary to comprehend the future of work as workplaces have transformed during COVID times. Letzel-Alt et al. (2022) discusses the concept of Differentiated Instruction (DI) as strategies to cater to social, economic, cultural and learning needs to monitor individual student needs and if implemented by teachers can enhance the quality of teaching by mastering learning strategies to address heterogeneous groups. The future of work demands a higher education system that is dynamic, as COVID-19 has innovated workplaces (Micic & Mastilo, 2022) and higher education therefore should transform to align with the needs of post-pandemic 21st-century workplaces.

4 University Preparedness for Inclusive Education Universities worldwide were open and receptive to taking up necessary and immediate measures for adapting to the changing times during the pandemic and postpandemic periods by evolving the educational delivery and policies dramatically and consistently. Universities were very proactive in organizing technical support and training for the faculty through workshops and provision of additional resources (Valsaraj et al., 2021). Online learning became the norm in all universities and the

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official meetings and conferences shifted to virtual platforms swiftly. This increasingly brought a sense of freedom, cost-effectiveness and feasibility to the ongoing educational affairs and learning transactions among the students, faculty, and administrators. The world is witnessing a paradigm shift in the field of education through the windows of digitalization and inclusive education. Inclusive education has evolved to be the dynamic energy in curriculum reform. To materialize the true sense of inclusive and qualitative education, requires preparedness of all relevant educational components to participate in the notion actively (Rad et al., 2022). The sentiments, attitudes, and concerns about inclusive education were assessed among Spanish university students, and interestingly it was shown that the female students had a more positive attitude. Their favorable attitude was linked with empathy and social domination traits (Navarro-Mateu et al., 2020). Alnahdi and Schwab (2021) found that teachers’ positive attitude toward inclusion was strongly associated with their perceived self-efficacy to effectively implement inclusive education in their classrooms. The teachers who had exposure to a family member with a disability displayed positive attitudes towards inclusive education. Hassanein et al. (2021) demonstrated through their study that combining informationbased instruction with structured fieldwork practices on inclusive education can possibly alter teachers’ attitudes in favour of inclusive education. These findings highlight the fact that as a forward-looking society, it is time for the education system and universities to reframe the mindset and broaden our vision to a brighter future by rendering quality education to all including specially-abled and marginalized.

5 Reflections and Conclusion—Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education Reflecting on personal experiences, shared experiences, and research in this book, it can be seen that COVID-19 enforced immense unlearning and relearning in all arenas of life. This was an opportunity to shift our focus from the earlier firmly held beliefs and values There is a need for the creation of awareness regarding the necessity of inclusive practices in higher education among academics, administrators, policymakers as well as learners. Academic professionalism should include allegiance and the practice of inclusivity at the teaching, learning, research, and administration levels. Assurance of inclusivity should be a mandatory part of academic, administrative, and corporate social responsibility. about life, success, business, and education. What matters at the end is the acceptance and respect for fellow beings. Education is the most powerful tool to empower the society. Let this be available and accessible for all through inclusive education. Some key takeaway messages as guidance to the inclusive future of higher education are:

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• There is a strong need for an accurate mechanism to gather data regarding the different societal, financial, and technological divides (including the digital divide) influencing the implementation of inclusivity in higher education. This will hopefully enable the data-driven development of policies and support systems to effectively implement inclusivity in higher education. • A collection of experiences, examples, and stories of successful (as well as unsuccessful) attempts to improve inclusivity, needs to be developed as resources (and as data) for higher education institutions. • There is a need for an emergency transition policy (for times of rapid changes and transitions like a pandemic experienced), ensuring inclusivity in all areas, especially in education. • There is a strong need for research to develop data and explore the effectiveness of inclusive practices and their effects on learning and learners in higher education. The research should not only focus on the effects of inclusive practices among the specially-abled, marginalised, and neglected but also should explore the changes in attitude, beliefs, and practices among the nondisabled towards inclusive practices. • There should be development of an envisaged outcome framework for equity, inclusivity and diversity attributes for higher education driving the development of outcomes and competencies. The existence of such a framework will enable the curriculum reforms to include inclusivity practices in teaching and learning. This framework should be supported by appropriate educational theories and empirical evidence- generated through research. Implementation of UDL should be facilitated and rewarded by higher education institutions. • A stakeholder-driven data acquisition, a data-driven policy development, an experience-driven, learner-centered inclusivity policy implementation, and a research-driven evaluation of the effectiveness of practices will probably bring the best outcome envisaged through inclusive higher education.

References Abd Majid, F., Sharil, W. N. E. H., & Salmee, M. A. A. (2022). A preliminary snalysis on the academics’ concern on graduate employability amidst the pandemic. Asian Journal of University Education, 18(3), 625–636. Alnahdi, G. H., & Schwab, S. (2021). Special education major or attitudes to predict teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching in inclusive education. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 680909. https:// doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.680909 Amor, A. et al. (n.d.) International perspectives and trends in research on inclusive education: A systematic review. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(12), 1277–1295. Berger, Z. D., Evans, N. G., Phelan, A. L., & Silverman, R. D. (2020). COVID-19: Control measures must be equitable and inclusive. British Medical Journal 1, 368–369. https://doi.org/10.1136/ bmj.m1141

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Prof. Dr. Seena Biju had an illustrious career as an academic associated with various leading universities. She had served as a faculty member with Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai Campus, T. A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), Manipal, India, Manipal International University (MIU), Malaysia, and Sikkim Manipal University, India. She held various administrative posts including Deanship of the School of Management, MIU, Malaysia, and Associate Director of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sikkim Manipal University. With a career spanning 25 years, she had touched the lives of her students and colleagues as an astute academician and administrator. She was Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certified and has postgraduate degrees in applied statistics and Business administration. She was an alumnus of the Indian Statistical Institute and her key areas of research were statistical modelling, six sigma theory, and Academic Quality Measurement and Assurance. Seena Biju left us for rest in eternal peace on the morning of 10 August 2022 and at that time was associated with Christ University Bengaluru as a Professor at the School of Management. Her Google Scholar profile can be found at https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=5-i3KNsA AAAJ&hl=en.

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215 Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vinod Pallath, Ph.D. has been an active academic for more than two decades in health professionals’ education, with extensive involvement in teaching undergraduate medical students, masters and doctoral students in health professionals’ education, research, and faculty development for health professionals. His teaching and research in Medical Education focuses on Faculty Development, Professionalism, and Competency Based Medical Education and Leadership and Management. As a trained Medical Microbiologist, he also teaches Medical Microbiology and Immunology. He currently focuses his microbiology research on survival strategies of uropathogens. He is a Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER) regional fellow, Co-Faculty member for FAIMER Competencybased Medical Education (FACE) professional development programme, and Project Advisor to fellows of International FAIMER institute, Philadelphia. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Current Affiliation: Associate Professor Medical Education Research and Development Unit (MERDU) Faculty of Medicine Universiti Malaya (UM) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bhakti More, Ph.D. has pursued her doctoral studies at the School of Built Environment, University of Salford, Manchester, UK, and has over two decades of experience in teaching. Her area of research is social and environmental sustainability, and she has received an award for the most innovative research at 12th Post Graduate Research Conference from University of Salford, Manchester, UK. She is a coordinator for Manipal Environment and Conservation Students Club and has received consecutive awards for Best Sustainable Green Campus Audit and Best Sustainability Action Project from Environment Agency Abu Dhabi and is part of the core team for preparing the Climate Action Plan for MAHE Dubai for UNFCC, Race to Zero. She was awarded ‘Best Coordinator’ by Environment Agency Abu Dhabi in 2022 for commitment since 2015. Dr. Bhakti is an ambassador for ‘Woman in Construction’ for the Big 5, Dubai, and a mentor for LINK Program, UAE. She can be contacted at [email protected]. Current Affiliation: Chairperson and Associate Professor School of Design and Architecture Manipal Academy of Higher Education Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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S. Biju et al. Dr. Blessy Prabha Valsaraj, Ph.D., MSN, MSCP, RM, RN has completed PhD in Mental Health Nursing from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, following her Masters in Mental Health Nursing and Master’s in Counseling and Psychotherapy. She has academic experience over two decades from leading Universities in India and Oman and administrative experience of 4 years as Head of the Department of Community and Mental Health in College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University. She has published research articles, and books related to education, mental health, and research. She has received many awards including the Best teacher award, Most accomplished faculty award, Best paper presenter and Best poster presenter. Her current research focuses on mental health, competency building in nursing education, happiness, and workplace wellness. Current Affiliation: Assistant Professor Department of Community and Mental Health College of Nursing Sultan Qaboos University Muscat, Sultanate of Oman Prof. Dr. Kwan Hoong Ng, Ph.D., FInstP, SABMP was the recipient of the Marie Skłodowska Curie Award in 2018 given by the International Organization of Medical Physics for his excellent contribution to research, education, and leadership. He has been teaching and researching for over 35 years in medical physics with a special interest in nurturing early career scientists instilling in them the virtues to live by. He has initiated a number of impactful interdisciplinary research globally, including risk communication, science, and technology in society. Professor Ng has published extensively in international journals, proceedings, and books. He is one of the world’s top 2% scientists in 2022 as released by Stanford University. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Current Affiliation: Emeritus Professor Department of Biomedical Imaging Universiti Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences UCSI University Port Dickson Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

Correction to: The Motivational Divide: Addressing the Diverse Student Body in Challenging Times Jessica Grace Cockburn, Wei-Han Hong, Yang Faridah Binti Abdul Aziz, Jamunarani S. Vadivelu, and Chan Choong Foong

Correction to: Chapter 5 in: B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_5 The original version of the book was published with the incorrect author’s “Chan Choong Foong” given name and family name in Chapter 5. The book and the correction chapter have been updated with the changes.

The updated version of this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_5

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8_14

C1

Index

A Accommodations, 2–4, 9 Adult literacy, 196 Agenda 2030, 177 Alternative Learning Centres (ALCs), 176 Anderson’s online learning model, 164 Assessment ePortfolios affordances and constraints, 147 awareness of intermodal relations, 147 effective feedback, 154 hosting, 155 inclusivity, 155 intermodal relations, 151 multimodal literacy, 139 Assistance power, 135 Assistive technologies, 53–55 Google Classroom, 52, 53 Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), 7 distractions, 7 hyperactivity, 7 sensory stimulation, 7 stress, 7 B B40 definition, 164 B40 students challenges, 167 population, 167 Bangsar Farm, 183 Bantuan Prihatin Rakyat (BPR), 170 Behaviourism, 109 Blended learning, 98, 110

Blended teaching model, 98 Blibli, 134 Blue Ribbon’s (TBR) Climate Action Incubator Programme (CAIP), The, 183 Brushing Your Emotions Daily, 184 Build a high-level team of teachers, 101 C CALIS technique of SmartPLS, 22 Canada, 178 Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), 5 Cerebral palsy, 197 Change the teaching methods of teachers, 100 Change the teaching thinking of teachers, 99 China, 96–99 curriculum reform, 99 “Internet" education curriculum, 96 teacher abilities, 99 teacher reform, 99 Vocational Education Micro-course and MOOC Consortium, 96 Circular migration, 175 Civil society organisations, 176 Climate disaster, 182 Cognitivism, 109 College adjustment, 111 Color blindness, 54 Community of Inquiry (CoI), 109 Constructivism, 109 Construct validity, 22

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 B. More et al. (eds.), Improving Inclusivity in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5076-8

217

218 Consumers, 15 adoption, 17 perception, 17 Convention on the rights of the child (1989), 176 Course design, 118 COVID-19, 1–10, 13, 14, 209 global death rate, 13 origin, 13 pandemic, 13 post-outbreak norm, 13 post-pandemic, 13 spread, 13 technological innovation, 13 and workplace, 209 Wuhan, China, 13 Creativity, 149 Cross-sectional survey, 14 Cultural expectations, 71 Curriculum reform, 99, 212 teacher abilities, 99 teacher reform, 99

D Delivery services, 1 Design of educational technology, 90 Differentiated instruction, 140 Digital, 13, 196 challenges, 196 court hearings, 13 education, 13 meetings, 13 payments, 13 Digital anxiety, 141 Digital divide, 34–38 challenges for vocational education, 94 definition, 34 distance education, 90 factors for student engagement, 35 global, social, and democratic divides, 91 in higher vocational education, 90 Kahu’s student-centred model, 35 managing, 206 in medical education, 34 medicine in context (MiC) program, 40 in problem-based learning (PBL), 39 research phases, 35 students’ information needs satisfaction, 93 technical access, 91 in the United Kingdom, 35

Index user access, 91 Digital literacy, 42 self-efficacy, 42 Direct selling, 15 Distance education, 90 Divergences in the digital divide, 71, 76 in the Classroom, 70 ethnic diversity, 76 gender inequality, 76 resource disparity, 76 Diversity in the classroom, 70 Driving force, 135 Dyslexia, 197

E East Asia and the Pacific, 52 Educational justice, 125 Educators, 1 eLEAP, 165 e-learning, 109 Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT), 165 EPortfolios for multimodal literacy affordances and constraints, 147 awareness of intermodal relations, 147 Establish a new type of teacher-student relationship, 101 Europe, 2 European Commission, 2 Examination, 127 entry, 127 online, 127 Expectation confirmation, 16 Expert learner, 198 Exploratory case study, 143

F Facebook, 168 Family medicine qualifying examinations, 128 Food security, 182 Forced online education, 16 Hong Kong, 17 online distance education, 17 perceived usefulness, 17 Slovenia, 17 technology, 17

G Garden-to-table, 183 Generation Z, 110

Index

219

German "dual system" vocational education model, 102 Google Classroom, 52, 53 Greater Western Sydney (GWS), 33

International human rights Law, 176 International Rescue Committee, 179 Internet access, 164 Internet + Teaching, 89

H Healthcare settings, 3–10 break out rooms, 3 classroom, 3 lab, 3 screen time, 4 technology, 3, 7, 10 technology assistance, 3 virtual classes, 3 Hewlett Foundations, 188 Higher education, 2 Higher vocational colleges, 90 Hindering force, 135 Hybrid learning models, 42 HyFlex, 42 Hyper-connectivity, 111

K Kern’s 6-step approach to curriculum development, 108 Keyes 5 SWB Dimensions, 185 Knowledge divide, 92

I IGen, 110 attributes, 112 characteristics, 110 IKEA, 188 Improve the information literacy of teachers, 100 Inclusive campus, 61 Inclusive education design resources, 79 and emplyability, 209 future, 203 guidance for, 211 higher education, 210 university preparedness, 210 Inclusive education design resources, 79 Inclusive Education Programme (IEP), 59 In-depth learning, 91 India, 13, 21 Byju’s, 13 Coursera, 13 Edtech, 13 Unacademy, 13 Vendantu, 13 Youtube, 13 Individualization, 196 Information literacy, 100 Institute for democracy and economic affairs, 179 Instructional deficiencies, 196

L Learner variability, 199 Learning, 1–9, 164 asynchronous, 4 evidence-based, 5 formal, 5 informal, 5 skills, 4 student-centered, 5, 8, 9 student-centered approach, 5 synchronous, 4, 164 tachycardia, 5 Learning difficulties, 198 Learning in regular classes, 125 inclusive education, 125 Learning Management System (LMS), 165 Learning preferences, 70 Lembaga Tabung Haji (Pilgrimage Management and Fund Board), 170 Limited resource settings, 112 Linguistic variances, 198

M Mainland China, 125 Malaysia, 51–53 higher education, 51 Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013, 52 Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), 164 Malaysia’s Immigration Act 1959/1963, 176 Ministry of Education, 96 movement control order (MCO), 52 prevalence of blindness, 53 Massive Open Online Course, 90 Mass media, 15 Mass media channels, 15 Medical and health professions education, 107

220 clinical clerkship, 108 curriculum adaptation, 108 diversity, 107 inclusivity, 108 system-based, 107 Medical curriculum community-engaged, 33 fully integrated, 33 hyper-diverse, 33 Microsoft Team, 53 Millennial characteristics, 110 Mobile examination platforms, 128 Modernization of vocational education, 90 Mon Refugee Education Centre, 183 Motivational theories, 73 impact on learning, 73, 74 Movement Control Order (MCO), 163 1.0, 163 2.0, 163 Multimodal content analysis, 145 steps, 145 Multimodal literacy definition, 142 Multi-party cooperation mechanism, 98 Muscular dystrophy, 197 Music, 149 My skills website, 96 N Narrowing the "Digital Divide" in Higher education, 95 funding, 96 in Higher vocational education, 95 resources, 95 teachers’ strength, 95 National Digital Network Plan (Jendela), 170 National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP), 169 National People’s Well-Being and Economic Recovery Package (Pemulih), 169 National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA), 91 New teaching evaluation, 97 O Online Distance Learning (ODL), 140 Online education, 13–17 burnout, 17

Index challenges, 14 continued intentions (CI), 14 definition, 16 distance education, 17 forced, 14 Hong Kong, 17 mental health, 17 online distance education, 17 perceived usefulness, 17 perceived utility, 16 perceived value (PV), 14 screen time, 16 service quality and satisfaction, 17 service quality (SQ), 14 Slovenia, 17 studen satisfaction (SS), 14 Online education and service quality, 17 Online examinations COVID-19, 17, 128, 204 COVID-19 pandemic, 128 definitions, 130, 131 themes, 130, 131 Online "internship base", 98 Online learning advantage, 70 conceptions, 115 declarative knowledge transfer, 94 digital literacy, 93 disadvantage, 70 effectiveness, 93 enhancing inclusivity for B40 students, 163 factors associated with wellbeing, 114 factors influencing factors influencing teachers’ decision to adopt, 116 factors influencing teacher adoption, 116 factors influencing teachers’ vitality, 117 gamification, 109 in higher education (HE), 52 impact of the information technology gap, 92 live classroom, 93 in medical education, 107 origin, 90 privacy, 37 self efficacy, 93 student wellbeing, 37 supporting teachers, 116 teacher’s leadership, 117 teacher’s self-quality, 117 teacher profiles, 114

Index teachers’ perspective, 114 and teaching (OTL), 163, 165 Online learning in medical and health professions education, 109 Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire (OSLQ), 113 Open and Distance Learning (ODL), 166 Open Education Resource Construction Coordination Working Group, 96

P Pedagogical limitations, 196 People of Concern (POC), 176 Perceived utility, 16 Persons with Disabilities (PWD)-inclusive university, 51 Physical and mental impairment, 2 Policy needs, 196 Postgraduate Entrance Examinations (PEE) enrolment, 127 feelings, 134 supportive conditions, 132 Public and private universities, 61 Purposive sampling, 144

Q Qualitative study (thematic analysis), 130 Quality of Life, 182

R Racially inclusive classrooms, 195 Reform of online teaching in higher vocational education, 90 Refugees challenges in education, 177 education during pandemic, 175 education in Malaysia, 178 Residential Determination Status (RSD), 176

S Sampling method, 144 Schools of Nursing, 1, 3 break out rooms, 3 screen time, 4 virtual classes, 3 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), 167 Self-Regulated Learning (SRL), 113

221 Self-regulations during COVID-19, 71, 72, 74, 75 emotional disconnect, 72 motivation, 72 student preparedness, 74 virtual wall, the, 72 Semi-structured interviews, 130, 145 Sensory impairments, 197 SERVQUAL conceptual model, 23 constructs, 20 hypotheses, 18 mediation role of satisfaction, 20 Social, 184, 199 acceptance, 184 actualization, 185 anticipation, 185 contribution, 185 integration, 185 isolation anxiety, 199 relation, 199 Social acceptance, 185 Social actualization, 185 Social anticipation, 185 Social contribution, 185 Social integration, 185 Southeast Asia, 175 Special Education Integration Programme (SEIP), 59 Special education programme, 59 Speech-language pathologists, 193 Spiritual and financial support, 133 Stanford University, 91 president of, 91 Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), 14 Structured questionnaire, 14 Student-centered approach, 8 evidence, 8 Student-centred solutions, 77 Student Loan Fund Corporation (PTPTN), 171 Students anxiety, 4 circumstances, 112 external motivation, 112 internet access, 112 internet connection, 112 interviews, 4 isolation, 4 lack of control, 4 learning, 4 living area, 112 pain, 4

222 perceptions, 13 physical and emotional, 1 physical and mental impairment, 2 psychomotor skills, 4 skills, 112 sociodemographic backgrounds, 112 stress, 4 support, 2 visual disabilities, 4 visual disturbances, 4 with disabilities, 2 Student sociodemographic backgrounds, 112 Support, 2 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 177 Synchronous mode of learning, 164

T Tabung Prihatin Siswa, 170 Teacher high-level team, 101 ICT useability, 94 perception, 196 teaching methods, 100 teaching strategies, 198 teaching thinking, 99 Teacher-student relationship, 101 Technical manipulation, 153 Technology acceptance model, 17 consumer adoption, 17 perceived ease of use, 17 perceived utility, 17 Telegram, 168 Telekom Malaysia, 168 Tenth Malaysia Plan (2011-2015), 171 Thematic analysis, 130 Thematic data analysis, 130 Theory of Expectation–Confirmation (ECT), 15 Twelfth Malaysian Plan, 167 Two-way approach, 102

U UCSI, 184 “Leave No One Behind” Education project, 186 UFuture, 166 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 90, 204, 205

Index United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 175 United Nations (UN), 2 Universal design for learning accepting and supportive classroom, 6 center for applied special technology (CAST), 5 checkpoints, 6 dimensions, 193 Google Hangouts, 7 in higher education (for the specially-abled), 193 Microsoft Teams, 7 movement, 193 new learning modality, 6 recorded classes, 6 virtual chats, 6 virtual learning spaces, 6 Zoom, 5, 7 Zoom poll, 6 Universal Design for Learning (UDL), 5, 140, 193, 194 Universal Service Provision (USP) Fund, 170 Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), 165 Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), 166 Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), 166 USA American Disabilities Act (ADA), 2 educators, 1 methods of teaching, 1 UTAR e-learning environment, 167 Utilitarian tendency of information, 91

V Virtual classroom engagement, 75 Visual impairment, 53–58, 60 access to learning materials, 54 B40 students, 55 blindness, 53 definition, 53 education (special education) regulations 2013, 59 federal constitution, 57 federal constitution (Malaysia), 57 Incheon Strategy, the, 60 information and communication technology (ICT) related challenges, 55 JAWS, 54

Index laws that govern and protect, 57 national action plan for persons with disabilities 2016-2022, 59, 60 persons with disabilities act 2008, 57 students, 51 support, guidance, and communication barriers, 56 Window-Eyes, 54 Visually impaired people, 53 blindness, 53 definition, 53 Visual-textual relation, 148 Vocational education, 90 developed versus developing countries, 92 postsecondary, 206 urban versus rural, 93

223 W WBLE and WBLE2, 167 Western Sydney University academics-professional staff-student-community partnerships, 46 population, 33 School of Medicine, 33 Wisdom education platform, 96 World Soil Day, 184

Y Yayasan Sukarelawan Siswa (YSS), 170 YTL Foundation, 170