An Observational Study of Engineering Online Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic

TL;DR

This observational study examines the challenges faced by engineering students and faculty during the abrupt shift to online education during COVID-19, offering insights and solutions to improve future online engineering instruction.

Contribution

It provides detailed survey results from a minority-serving institution and proposes practical solutions to address online engineering education challenges during the pandemic.

Findings

Identified logistical and technical challenges in online engineering education

Highlighted disparities affecting disadvantaged students

Suggested strategies for improving online instruction and assessment

Abstract

Although online education has become a viable and major component of higher education in many fields, its employment in engineering disciplines has been limited. COVID-19 pandemic compelled the global and abrupt conversion of conventional face-to-face instruction to the online format. The negative impact of such sudden change is undeniable. Urgent and careful planning is needed to mitigate pandemic negative effects on engineering education, especially for vulnerable, disadvantaged, and underrepresented students who have to deal with additional challenges (e.g. digital equity gap). To enhance engineering online instruction during the pandemic era, we conducted an observational study at California State University, Long Beach (a minority-serving institution). 110 faculty and 627 students from six engineering departments participated in our surveys and answered quantitative and qualitative questions to highlight the challenges they experienced during the online instruction in Spring 2020. In this work, we present the results of these surveys in detail and propose solutions to address the identified issues including logistical, technical, learning/teaching challenges, assessment methods, and hands-on training. As the pandemic continues, sharing these results with other educators can help with more effective planning and choice of best practices to improve the online engineering education during COVID-19 and beyond.