Challenges of digital education during the pandemic : Comparing the perspectives of disadvantaged and affluent children

Absztrakt (kivonat)

In my thesis, I researched the academic challenges of digital education. Since the primary school age group (7-14 years old) faced the greatest difficulties during the Covid-19 period, I found it interesting to analyse them. Furthermore, increasing the complexity of my dissertation, I made a comparison of disadvantaged and affluent families to see how different the period of digital education was for each social group. The aim of my research was to find the needed elements for an effective digital education. I am thinking here of the ideal online education method, teaching and emotional background support, the right devices and environment. For this purpose, I asked not only students but also teachers and parents how they went through this phase. This gave me a complete picture of what factors contributed to the online learning of the children. After all, without parents and teachers, children would not have been able to complete their studies. The methodology of my research was structured interview. I considered the interview format important because of the intimacy of the topic, however I formulated my questions in advance to make it easier to compare the opinions. I used snowball sampling method to make it easier to reach the interviewees. The results of my research have shown a gap between the difficulties of disadvantaged and affluent families. Lack of devices, inadequate home environment, lack of fundamental knowledge of parents, further complicated the lives of disadvantaged students. Both sections of society had problems with the disorganization of online education: uneven educational platforms, overly mixed requirements, inappropriate teaching methods. The lack of IT skills was evident by students and teachers as well. It was also found that the poor mental health of students due to isolation, contributed to the loss of motivation to learn. Overall, based on my interviews, the needed factors for an ideal online education are compulsory online classes, one electronic device per-person, noise-free separate room, IT trainings, small group classes for lagged behind students and last but not least psychological support.