A critical assessment of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on construction education, teaching and learning in South Africa

Abstract

The emergence of the global pandemic Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease was confirmed by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on the 5th of March 2020. Across the world, the outbreak of the COVID-19 has challenged the education system such that academic institutions have been struggling with ways of delivering education safely and affordably to prevent the spread of the virus. This stimulated the need for higher education institutions to fully adopt the online learning approach in teaching and learning (T&L). Unfortunately, the sudden shift from the traditional approach of teaching to an online mode of teaching and learning has given rise to new problems due to the unpreparedness of society to face sudden change. This study aims to examine the impacts that the new online teaching and learning methods have on students with a view to proffering possible measures of improving the teaching and learning in this era of digital platform among the construction management and quantity surveying students in South Africa tertiary education institutions. The study adopted a mixed research method approach using a questionnaire for quantitative and semi-structured interview instruments for the qualitative aspect of the research. A total of seventy-seven (77) questionnaires were obtained from construction students within the Construction Management Quantity Surveying department at the Durban University of Technology. The target participants for this study. In addition, six (6) academic staff were interviewed to get the qualitative data for the study. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously but were analysed separately. The quantitative data from the questionnaire were analysed through descriptive and exploratory factor analysis utilising Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 28. While the qualitative data from the semi structured interview were analysed thematicall The overall findings of this study showed that changing from face-to-face to online learning during the pandemic had a major impact on students’ performance. The key findings from quantitative results indicated that the transition from face-to-face to online has resulted in various challenges or setbacks such as technical problems associated with internet connectivity, lack of skills training, psychological setbacks associated with mental health, social setbacks and infrastructure support. This study discovered these challenges are crucial towards the academic performance of students and the successful implementation of online learning. Furthermore, the results of the qualitative analysis concluded that class attendance, internet connections, lack of technical skills and lack of infrastructure support are key challenges facing the delivery of online learning during the pandemic and the academic performance of the students. These findings were in line with findings of quantitative analysis. Other challenges that contributed to poor performance are, that students were isolated, and they couldn’t collaborate. The study also revealed lack of proper devices for online learning such as laptops and cell phones affected students and the delivery of online learning. The findings of this study also highlighted measures that can be implemented to improve online T&L during the COVID 19 pandemic. From the findings of this study, it was evident that there is a need for proper training in skills on how to use online platforms. Other measures included: the provision of infrastructure support such as computers, laptops and enough data provision of counselling for students and academic staff to maintain the state of mental health, introduction of learning management systems such as blended learning, distance learning and massive open online courses. Globally higher education institutions have demonstrated resilience in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study recommends that online learning should be promoted by the government and university policymakers thus this will help to enhance the practice among students and academics also working towards the Industrial Revolution. This will be achieved through assuring that. The competence skills required by students and lecturers to utilise the technological functions of online learning, the provision of infrastructure support, quality assurance and different learning management systems such as blended learning are being prioritised