Search

Qualitative content analysis is used in this study to review related online education since the outbreak of COVID-19. The aim of this study was to summarize the impact of online teaching on the education industry during the pandemic, sum up the viewpoints of all kinds of people to draw conclusions, and conclude the practical countermeasures. Based on the result of the analysis, firstly, we think that students and teachers are satisfied with online education, but parents have expressed dissatisfaction with this kind of education. Secondly, this paper lists the advantages and common problems of online teaching during study at home from different aspects. According to deficits, we summarize the solutions from three aspects: network equipment, teaching, and self-adjustment. This research is of great significance. It is not only beneficial to the development of educational platforms and personalized teaching but also helps formulate education policy to reduce the burden of education.

This paper analyzes the professional ethical knowledge of teachers in the use of technologies by teachers in training. Based on the disciplinary pedagogical technological knowledge (TPACK) model, it is intended to measure the correct inclusion of technologies in the classroom. For this, a descriptive exploratory methodological design study was carried out. The instruments used have been the Likert scale questionnaire and the personal interview, organized into four dimensions in which the self-perception of professional ethical knowledge, ethical knowledge of technology, pedagogical technological ethical knowledge and disciplinary technological ethical knowledge of the future teachers. The questionnaire has been applied to a sample of 1.051 trainee teachers from a European university in the context of COVID-19 and 822 students participated in the interview. The results show the scarce training in professional ethical knowledge of teachers in training and the importance of addressing this knowledge in the 21st century, a post-pandemic context. Another of the conclusions is the need to include the ethical component in the TPACK model to achieve a correct and ethical use of digital resources in the classroom.

Drawing on communities of practice and social cognitive learning theories, this paper explores language teachers' beliefs, knowledge and practices concerning the provision of high-quality education to learners with specific learning difficulties in various educational settings around the world. The data sample for this paper comprises qualitative data (videorecorded interviews and teaching resources) collected from six teachers working across various educational settings (primary, secondary, college and university) across several geographical areas (Europe, Middle East, and Southeast Asia). Thematic analysis was adopted to analyse the data. The findings suggest that teachers continue to experience challenges in educating learners with specific learning difficulties regardless of the educational setting. Limited opportunities for receiving specialised training in this area have been identified by several teachers as one of the key factors affecting the quality of their practice. The change in the mode of instruction from face-to-face to online was not always reported as negatively affecting the quality of educational provision to learners with specific learning difficulties. Technology-assisted online lesson delivery was seen as being advantageous to learners with some types of learning difficulties. Findings from this paper can be useful to teacher-practitioners and teacher-educators who are interested in improving the quality of language education for learners with specific learning difficulties.

Digital contact tracing tools were developed to decrease the spread of COVID-19 by supplementing traditional manual methods. Although these tools have great potential, they were developed rather quickly resulting in tools with varying levels of success. The main issues with these tools are over privacy and who might have access to the information gathered. In general, their effectiveness varied globally, where users expressed privacy concerns associated with sharing identity, illness, and location information. This paper reviews these issues in deployments across Asia, Europe, and the United States. The goal is to begin a discussion that improves the design and development of digital technologies that not only improve the control of infectious disease spread, but also achieve an appropriate standard of privacy and security.

Purpose: The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 has had a profound impact on education institutions at all levels. Open universities, with their privileged delivery method, have been in an advantageous position. In the earlier stages of the pandemic, they made remarkable contributions to assuring learning continuity. However, with more and more conventional universities migrating online, great changes have taken place in the field of higher education, and it is imperative for open universities to adjust their strategies in order to maintain their leading role in a technology-enabled education context. This paper aims to examine what challenges have been faced by open universities during the pandemic and how they will transform in the future. Design/methodology/approach: Six open universities in Asia, Africa and Europe were selected as cases in this research to make a comparative study based on the papers in the volume beyond distance education. Similarities and differences among the cases were analyzed in order to identify the developing trend for open universities in the international context. Findings: The results showed that (1) open universities in these regions demonstrated their resilience in the pandemic; examples were that new technologies have been leveraged to implement totally online delivery with short notice and huge amount of learning resources were offered to the society. (2) However, they encountered challenges of delivering fully online examination due to the lockdown and quarantine policies, and open universities in African and the sole private institution suffered financial pressure due to improving information and communication technology infrastructure and staff training. Another challenge was the fierce competition from conventional universities that open universities in Asia and Europe came across. (3) Four main areas were identified for future development in order to respond to the challenges: No.1 is that programs such as health care, psychology, epidemiology, virology, immunology, data analytics, biology and bio-informatics have stimulated interest for African open universities to develop in the future; No. 2 is that open universities were seeking to innovate their teaching formats; short courses, such as micro credentials, might be developed as agile and flexible offerings which are expected to be suitable to learners in the pandemic context; No 3 is that programs and courses for upskilling in the context of digitalization will be implemented; and No. 4 is that lifelong learning is given a higher priority in order for open universities to stand securely in the higher education sector. Originality/value: The study may give open university leaders a quick insight into their future development.

Digital competence is part of 21st Century skills that allow individual teaching professionals to engage in new and flexible ways of learning. Studies have shown that digital competence improves education and equips the teaching staff with expertise on how to use information, communication, and basic problem-solving. The need for digital competence is clearly evident in the current pandemic situation, where digital technologies have taken a more prominent role in communication and education processes. Beyond the digital competence of educators, proper school infrastructure and curricula are needed during pre-service training to help teachers achieve digital competence. To better understand this need, an online survey was developed to analyze digital education in Albania. The survey was designed to analyze the teaching competence of teachers in pre-service and in-service programs, as well as their schools' curricula and infrastructure. Results from the questionnaire highlighted a need for the acquisition of digital knowledge for teachers according to different age groups. The results of the study found that difficulties teachers encountered in the acquisition of digital knowledge were not only due to deficiencies in teacher training but also other issues such as lack of infrastructure. The study concludes by recommending that providing digital education should be in line with European and national policy and legislation, as well as with national and international organizations. The paper reports findings assessing the level of preparedness of Albanian educators in regard to digital education and explores opportunities and identifies challenges for coping with enhancing digital development.

A documentary review was conducted on the production and publication of research papers on studying the variable Digital Transformation, Education and COVID-19. The bibliometric analysis proposed in this document aims to know the main characteristics of the volume of publications registered in the Scopus database from 2020 to 2022, achieving the identification of 464 publications in total. The information provided by this platform was organized using tables and figures, categorizing the information by Year of Publication, Country of Origin, Area of Knowledge and Type of Publication. Once these characteristics were described, the position of different authors regarding the proposed topic was referenced through qualitative analysis. Among the main findings of this research, it is found that Spain, with 49 publications, was the country with the highest global production. The area of knowledge that made the most significant contribution to the construction of bibliographic material related to the study of Digital Transformation, Education and COVID-19 was the area of Social Sciences with 253 published documents, and the type of publication that was most used during the period mentioned above was the journal article, representing 54% of the total scientific production.

The COVID-19 crisis has led to widespread temporary school closures and a deep economic recession. School closures have threatened children's ability to learn and later return to school well prepared. The impact of the economic recession is going to be even more devastating: first for students, but also for the ability of some Catholic schools to maintain their enrollment and remain sustainable financially in countries where they do not benefit from government support. This paper, the first in a set of two, looks at some of the likely impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on Catholic Schools in developed countries with a particular focus on the United States, a country not only hard hit by the crisis but also where Catholic schools are especially vulnerable to downturns. While Catholic schools may be able to respond to the immediate challenge of school closures among others through distance learning options, their ability to maintain enrollment during the economic downturn is less clear. How schools will respond to the twin challenges of ensuring learning during school closures and beyond, and remaining affordable for families at a time of economic stress, may affect whether they are able to maintain their comparative advantage. A key aim of the paper is to make Catholic school teachers and leaders aware of some of the discussions on how to respond to the crisis, and provide links to online resources that may be useful. [For Part II of the series, see EJ1278501.]

The premise of this brief opinion piece is that the fundamental paradigm of education appeared with Plato. It is that there is a co-location in time and space of learners, teachers, and resources. The absence of any of these elements can lead to shortcomings in the meaning of the term "to be educated". Recent events such as COVID-19 demonstrate that the paradigm is subject to challenge but that its premises are firmly established. It is recognised that there are complex philosophical and theoretical arguments surrounding distance education debates. It is not possible in a short article like this to canvass all the possible philosophical positions that affect education. Pointers to these debates are referenced in the article. For the purpose of this article, "philosophy" is taken to mean that department of knowledge or study that deals with ultimate reality, or with the general causes and principles of things. More narrowly, it is the study of general principles of some particular branch of knowledge, experience, or activity--in this case, distance education or flexible learning. "Theory" is taken to mean a scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena.

This conceptual and descriptive study examines the critical issues, challenges and priorities for European higher education (HE) leaders, drawing upon the theory, practice and experience of leaders inside and outside the open and distance learning (ODL) field. Focussing on the emerging vantage points of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), global trends and the post-pandemic HE landscape, the article discusses their impact on organisational architecture and the emerging leadership roles for driving organisational values, change and sustainability. The authors argue that to maintain institutional stability and agility, leaders must interpret the current zeitgeist to set priorities, build decision-action packages and embrace a new organisational architecture: one characterised by flexible structures, a clear vision of the desired future, a culture of trust and openness, a comprehensive and deep understanding and optimum application of employee skill and talent, and the effective implementation of digital tools and curriculum structures in pedagogically meaningful ways. Leaders must be adaptable, agile and innovative, with the capacity to understand, identify and support the forms of leadership appropriate to their strategic objectives and institutional culture. The paper concludes by targeting critical priorities and actions that leaders must navigate to create innovative and dynamic futures for their institutions.

When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, the education sector soon faced the unprecedented challenge of moving courses online within no time. The rapid implementation of emergency remote teaching (ERT) led to students and teachers alike being thrown into an emotional terra incognita. This paper sets out to explore if foreign language (LX) grit, learners' passion and perseverance for LX learning, is a predictor of learners' foreign language enjoyment (FLE) and their foreign language anxiety (FLCA) in LX classes taught remotely due to COVID-19. Additionally, the role of trait emotional intelligence (TEI) in mediating the connections between LX grit, FLE, and FLCA is investigated. With a web survey, data were collected from 481 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Europe. Regression analyses indicated that LX grit was a reliable predictor of FLE and TEI. TEI functioned as a partial mediator in the model, explaining a significant proportion of variance (14.3%) in FLE scores. Thus, grittier students, who were also more emotionally intelligent, reported enjoying their English classes more. LX grit was also shown to be a reliable predictor of FLCA. In this case, TEI functioned as a full mediator in the model, explaining 22.5% of the variance in FCLA scores. Therefore, lower TEI scores were linked to higher levels of FLCA. Less gritty EFL learners scored lower on TEI, which consequently determined higher levels of FLCA. Data from two open-ended questions revealed that particularly enjoyable or anxiety-provoking episodes during ERT were similar among all learners. While positive group dynamics, teachers' forgiving nature and easy-going disposition, humor as well as the innovative use of technology were mentioned as common factors boosting their FLE, speaking in front of strangers, overwhelming workload and technology-related aspects were frequently mentioned sources of anxiety.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, children with disabilities were confronted with ableist discourses that justified unfair policy measures. This study is concerned with the discourses recorded in a range of education documents, published during the pandemic within the Republic of Cyprus. It employs an interdisciplinary framework, informed by Critical Discourse Analysis, Inclusive Education, and Critical Disability Studies, to examine the powerful actors and the ideologies that influenced the formation of discourses. The paper undertakes a critical interpretation of the disability discourses developed in Cyprus during the pandemic, links this with other relevant research conducted in other European countries prior to and during the pandemic, and suggests policy actions/measures that value children with disabilities and their families.

The competition of civilizations forced the European universities to adapt to the competition with the Chinese and American universities. European integration cannot advance without the collaboration between European universities. An answer to these challenges is the CIVICA project, the European University of Social Sciences, a consortium of the following universities: Bocconi University (Italy), Central European University (Hungary), European University Institute (European Intergovernmental Organization), Hertie School of Governance (Germany), The National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (Romania), Sciences Po (France) and the School of Economics in Stockholm (Sweden). This experiment aims to become one of the European pilot universities, in the first round of applications for Erasmus+ in February 2019. The experiment takes into consideration the most important resource of a country: the human resource. The network of universities that are part of the CIVICA consortium will group approximately 38,000 students, 7,000 teachers and 3,000 people from the administrative apparatus. The London School of Economics is part of the CIVICA consortium, as an associate partner. At the Bucharest conference, the public presentation of the consortium and its objectives, the rectors of the seven universities set out to educate the future generations of professionals in social sciences, in order to solve the most pressing problems of the world. Creating a European identity is essentially the long-term, fundamental objective of the CIVICA consortium. In the context of this conference, we interviewed a few representatives of CIVICA, and their answers will be analyzed in this paper's section dedicated to the results of the research.

With schools and universities closing across Europe, the COVID-19 lockdown left actors in the field of education battling with the unprecedented challenge of finding a meaningful way to keep the wheels of education turning online. The sudden need for digital solutions across the field of education resulted in the emergence of a variety of digital networks and collaborative online platforms. In this joint article from scholars around Europe, we explore the COVID-19 lockdowns of physical education across the European region, and the different processes of emergency digitalization that followed in their wake. Spanning perspectives from Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Nordic countries, the article's five cases provide a glimpse of how these processes have at the same time accelerated and consolidated the involvement of various commercial and non-commercial actors in public education infrastructures. By gathering documentation, registering dynamics, and making intimations of the crisis as it unfolded, the aim of the joint paper is to provide an opportunity for considering the implications of these accelerations and consolidations for the heterogeneous futures of European education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments worldwide to produce solutions to the abruptly interrupted work in education. School systems appear to have responded rapidly, creating home schooling and online educational environments, where teachers and students would interact with safety. In this paper, we attempt a synthesis of Sen's capability approach, Bourdieu's theory of capital and Bernstein's framework in order to theorize the relationships between home and school conditions and practices, and to analyse the data of the 2nd Survey of Schools: ICT in Education (a survey conducted in 2019 on behalf of the European Commission collecting data regarding digitalization in education and digital technologies in learning in the European Union). The survey is complemented by a second set of indicators provided by Eurostat to further investigate the availability and functionality of household space per family in selected European countries. We find significant differences in important social and environmental conversion factors, likely limiting children's capability to benefit from digital schooling. The most important differences are found in regard to parents' familiarity with information and communications technology use, while inequalities in environmental factors, such as overcrowded housing, are also existent. Overall, there are large inequalities within and between countries in Europe, which need to be addressed by policymakers.

The spread of COVID-19 pandemic upturned higher education routines, inducing a shift to online learning which sometimes translated into a huge leap towards didactic experimentation. While exposing critical issues in existing teaching methodologies and assessment processes, such emergency distance education condition could spark meaningful educational innovation. This paper describes an international study engaging teachers of professionalizing courses in the educational area across the world (N=120). The aim was to investigate their perception of the induced distance education in terms of teaching methodology and assessment practices. Emerging findings indicate a silver lining in the midst of the pandemic storm, as teaching practices gear more towards being student-centred.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic has strongly affected different issues of everyday life. The pandemic has changed consumer attitudes and behavior. Consequently, during COVID-19, businesses had to decide how to organize the advertising campaigns and what content should be addressed to consumers. Considering the limited number of articles concerning these issues, it seems important to evaluate the impact of the global health crisis on advertising messages in different countries. The main objective of this paper is to assess TV commercial campaigns implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the specific epidemic situation in the selected countries. The research methodology was based on the observation, a qualitative method of collecting data obtained through monitoring the content of TV commercials aired during the afternoon, before or after the main news service. The research was conducted in May 2020 and in May 2021 in five selected European countries affected to varying degrees by the coronavirus pandemic. The research results allowed evaluation of the advertising messages in terms of their content and values exposed. The findings indicate that the number of COVID-related TV commercials is not correlated with the number of patients and deaths from COVID-19. The themes appearing the most often in the TV commercials in the studied period were the #StayAtHome idea, family and friends, the aspect of safety during the crisis, and brands' special offers. The tone of the advertisements was usually uplifting and hopeful, trying to cheer the stressed societies. From a theoretical perspective, the research results show the advertising strategy issues in specific conditions in different European countries. These findings concerning TV commercial strategy during a pandemic crisis could provide references for other countries, especially in Europe. The research results could be useful for marketing managers in developing strategies concerning the successful planning of TV commercials in crisis periods in European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos Geograficos is the property of Cuadernos Geograficos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summary: The recent pandemic caused by COVID‐19 has globally affected air transport mobility as well as the airline industry in general. Numerous restrictions have been implemented in airline transport, which is potentially leading toward severe long‐term impacts on the global airline industry. In this paper, air transport mobility was analyzed regarding Europe (EU) based on the available data from the relevant sources associated with the airline industry. Data were analyzed in specific periods from January to April of 2020, which corresponded with the initialization of the pandemic in the EU and later in its full development. Specifically, two airports were selected in Croatia as case studies to analyze the impact of COVID‐19 more thoroughly on mobility together with the estimation of carbon footprint during the pandemic and the year before the pandemic state. The results revealed that COVID‐19 gradually affected air transport mobility in the EU where a peak was reached in April with a reduction in the number of flights in the EU region reaching more than 89%. Cargo traffic was not significantly affected by the pandemic, and was even increased in some cases due to the supply of medical equipment in the fight against the disease. The analyzed case study revealed the reduction in air transport mobility for selected airports to be more than 96%, which directly affected the reduction of CO2 emissions to factor 1.81 for the commercial airport of Zagreb and 3.49 for the seasonal airport of Split. A normalization of air transport mobility is expected to be reached through a 1‐year period with a continued reduction in the number of flights ranging from 15% to 25%, based on the projections and expectations from relevant EU associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority suggests that as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant disruption to the economy, businesses, and people's lives, national supervisory authorities should mitigate the pandemic's impact on the European insurance sector. The functioning of insurance companies is in danger as they must balance a drastic increase in the number of claims with their capital and solvency stability. In this study, we evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on insurance companies using European insurance companies' financial statement data from 2010 to 2020. The results unambiguously demonstrate that the pandemic has negatively affected the functioning of the insurance sector. In particular, the return on assets decreased in German and Italian insurance companies during the pandemic. Furthermore, the solvency ratio decreased in the Belgian, French, and German insurance sectors. Conversely, the Polish insurance sector was unaffected. Moreover, we did not find any effects on the Z-score ratio in our sample. Lastly, the value of receivables owed to Belgian insurance companies increased. Based on this evidence, we argue that European legislators should discuss how to manage the probable financial problems of insurance companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 control policies might negatively impact older adults' participation in volunteer work, instrumental support provision, and the likelihood of receiving instrumental support. Studies that quantify changes in these activities and the related factors are limited. The current study aimed to examine the level of volunteering, instrumental support provision and receipt before and during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe and to determine whether older adults' volunteering, instrumental support provision and receipt were associated with individual exposure to COVID-19 and the stringency of country's COVID-19 control policy during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional survey using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Corona Survey 1 was designed to focus on community-dwelling Europeans aged ≥50 years. History of participation in volunteering work and instrumental support provision or receipt was assessed from the previous SHARE Wave data. The country's COVID-19 control policy stringency index (S-Index) was from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker database. A total of 45,669 respondents from 26 European countries were included in the volunteering analysis. Seventeen European countries were included in the analyses of instrumental support provision (N = 36,518) and receipt (N = 36,526). The multilevel logistic regression model was fitted separately to analyse each activity. Results: The level of volunteering and instrumental support provision was lower during the pandemic, but instrumental support receipt was higher. The country S-Index was positively associated with support provision (OR:1.13;95%CI:1.02–1.26) and negatively associated with support receipt (OR:0.69;95%CI:0.54–0.88). Exposure to COVID-19 was positively associated with support receipt (OR:1.64;95%CI:1.38–1.95). COVID-19 exposure on close ones positively associated with volunteering (OR:1.47;95%CI:1.32–1.65), support provision (OR:1.28;95%CI:1.19–1.39), and support receipt (OR:1.25;95%CI:1.15–1.35). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted older Europeans' volunteering, instrumental support provision, and instrumental support receipt from outside their household. When someone close to them was exposed to COVID-19, older Europeans were likely to receive instrumental support and to volunteer and provide instrumental support. A stricter country's COVID-19 control policy might motivate older adults to provide instrumental support, but it prevents them from receiving instrumental support from outside their households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes airline reactions to the COVID-19 crisis in the spring months of 2020 along the typical crisis response strategies of retrenchment, persevering, innovating, and exit. Based on the content analysis of 148 news items filtered from a daily aviation industry newsletter published during the unfolding of the crisis in Europe (from January 6 to June 2), the paper specifies and differentiates European airlines' strategic responses, outlines key implications for the post-COVID-19 competitive landscape, and raises attention points for managers and policy makers. • Analyzes European airlines strategic reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. • Differentiates and specifies European airlines responses along retrenchment, persevering, innovating and exit strategies. • Governments might act as change agents; preventing the collapse of large carriers, but hindering efficient decision-making. • Suggests impact on business model convergence; network carrier and low-cost carrier propositions likely drift apart again. • Suggests cementation of industry structures; the consolidation that was underway is halted at least temporarily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]