E-learning for Undergraduate Students Amid The Pandemic: Teachers' Perspective

The COVID-19 induced lockdown caused significant disruptions in the education sector, leading to prolonged closure of colleges in India and worldwide. As a result, teachers were forced to switch to online teaching using the available resources, which presented a major challenge since they were accustomed to traditional teaching methods. This study aimed to understand the teachers' perspective towards e-learning, including their motivation, knowledge about technology, infrastructure support, and the problems they faced while teaching undergraduate students. We conducted a quantitative analysis on primary data collected from a sample of 163 teachers from the University of Delhi and other institutes in North India. We used exploratory factor analysis and two-step cluster analysis to analyze the data. Three factors were identified to have a bearing on an effective online teaching process: infrastructure support provided by the institute and overall efficiency; overall resource availability, and online content management. Our cluster analysis revealed that teachers can be divided into two clusters based on their technical knowledge and the infrastructure support available from the institute, respectively. We found that for e-learning to be effective, institutional support in terms of infrastructure and training is necessary, and instructors' motivation to learn new techniques is also imperative.