Embarking digital learning due to COVID-19: Are teachers ready?

Abstract

The COVID 19 pandemic insists schools to close and embark on the digital environment to keep learning to happen. Implementing this learning in educational settings faces challenges related to human resources and infrastructure issues particularly in developing countries. This study investigated the teachers’ readiness in conducting digital learning in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. This exploratory study employed an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews via either voice calls or video calls to safely gather both quantitative and qualitative data from 62 teachers of 27 different schools in the middle of social distancing regulation in Yogyakarta. The study revealed that the majority of teachers were psychologically, technologically, and pedagogically ready to conduct digital learning. However, the digital learning problem was mostly coming from teachers who teach in rural areas. Students’ technology affordances mainly caused a disparity of digital learning success. The findings suggest that the choice of technology adoption and methodology adjustment can be viewed as a solution to the current digital learning problem. Finally, instead of the teachers’ readiness, the students’ readiness and teachers’ technological pedagogical knowledge are other key aspects of the digital learning success. Thus, these two issues are suggestive for further studies.