UA Little Rock Professor Explores Attitudes of Faculty Members Toward Online Teaching as a Result of the Pandemic

A majority of political science teachers in higher education felt more positive about teaching online after the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study by a University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor.

Dr. Rebecca Glazier, a professor of political science in the School Public Affairs, published a paper, "Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 on Political Science Teaching," in the journal PS: Political Science and Politics.

She surveyed about 300 political science faculty who are members of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The data reveals a picture of faculty who are doing more for students and feeling strained by their efforts. Those with more experience teaching online before the pandemic held a more favorable view of online teaching when they were surveyed during the pandemic. The results found that the attitude of most faculty members (about 80 percent) towards online teaching became more positive (46.2 percent) or stayed the same (31.9 percent) during the first two years of the pandemic.

"We thought that teaching during COVID would make a lot of people hate online teaching," Glazier said. "As a whole, it didn't make people more negative. The people who were most affected were those that had to teach online for the first time as a result of COVID-19."

About 22 percent of those surveyed now have a more negative attitude regarding online teaching because of the pandemic.

"Teaching for the first time during COVID was really hard for a lot of faculty members. They were all of a sudden being thrown into teaching online with a week's warning," Glazier said. "That is what made some people hate online teaching. If you give people some training and preparation, people don't hate online teaching."

Glazier and her co-author, Dr. J. Cherie Strachan of the University of Akron, are both members of the Political Science Education group of APSA. Glazier received a Small Research Grant from APSA to support her project.

In addition to studying attitudes toward online teaching, Glazier said her research also found that faculty members developed some positive teaching habits during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty members reported spending more one-on-one time meeting with students to discuss personal problems, though women consistently reported giving more of their time to students both before and during the pandemic. Many faculty members also reported becoming more empathetic during the pandemic.

"It has made me more aware that many of my students have challenges that I do not know about which affect their performance," one respondent stated.

Glazier said most of her research project's big-picture findings - attitudes toward online teaching and faculty becoming more empathetic and spending more one-on-one time with students - "extend across all disciplines and are something that all faculty are dealing with."

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