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COVID-19 and African E-Learning Systems: Structural and Institutional Strategies for Resilience and Antifragility

By Patience Akpan-Obong

Qualitative Research Design and Methodology

The research method that best achieves the goal of this research is a qualitative, explanatory case study. The qualitative research method facilitates the understanding and explanation of linkages among various events or phenomena in complex situations (Morrow & Smith, 2000). It also provides context by capturing unquantifiable data such as those about beliefs, perceptions and attitudes (Sauro, 2015; Creswell (1998). The qualitative method is usually applied to the study of smaller samples of individuals or organizations; but it works for this research as well. Though the research focuses on large organizations (countries), it examines and analyzes a small but representative subset at the systemic (macro) level. This strategy thus facilitates an in-depth examination of structures, processes, events, and activities that occurred in a specific time and across a broad terrain (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).

The qualitative approach has five different strategies: ethnography, phenomenological

narrative, grounded theory and case study. This research adopts the case study strategy because of its utility for in-depth examination of various data sources and documents to explain the factors that mediated how countries managed the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on their education systems. A case study draws attention to the decisions, perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes of stakeholders in the education systems of macro organizations, namely countries. It can be exploratory, explanatory or descriptive but the explanatory version is used for this research because it supports the goal of making sense of an extensive phenomenon and its intricacies during a specific time period (2020). A qualitative and explanatory case study therefore best aligns with the core phenomenon examined in this research, purpose of the research and data collection strategy.

Research data will be generated from multiple online sources and authoritative government reports and publications. These will include publicly available reports on the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the education systems of African countries in 2020. From the general reports, specific data and statistics on six countries will be extracted for analysis. Some of the statistics will include the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in each country, information pivotal to an analysis of the relationship between the level of COVID-19 infection and the specific education-related response by each country, on one hand, and the role of the plethora of mediating factors discussed in the introduction of this paper. For instance, low infection rate might explain a country’s decision not to shut down schools.

The reverse might also be the case: a country with high level of infection may be more likely to shut down. What happens during the shutdown is determined by the level of technology in the country as well as education policies and stakeholders’ attitude to online education. (Stakeholders are used here to refer to parents, students, school administrators, policymakers and education technologies). Data on a country’s population and macroeconomic statistics (such as per capita income), level of ICT diffusion and general attitudes to remote or technology-enabled learning will also be collected to interrogate these linkages. Together, these datasets will be analyzed to understand the critical factors that influenced the decisions of each country and how those decisions affected their education systems. Given that this research will depend mostly on secondary data, there is no plan to include human subjects. However, the reports and documents from which data will be generated for the research will comprise the decisions, beliefs and attitudes of stakeholders in the education sector in each of the six countries. These elements will be captured and analyzed for insights into the human dimension.

The six countries are drawn from three regional and economic communities (RECs) in Africa. Two countries (the most populated and least populated) are selected from each REC. While this selection method is not exactly random sampling, it provides a good geographic spread while also ensuring leveling out the level of socio-economic development in the countries. This is anchored on the assumption that the level of resources is likely to have an impact on the central phenomenon of the research: Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the educational systems of African countries in 2020.

(The research design is visually presented below.)

Pilot Data

The impact of COVID-19 on learning and teaching is still unfolding ut many studies have already been conducted on the transformative and disruptive impact of the virus on the education landscape. A search for “COVID-19 and education and Africa” on a university online library ( www.lib.asu.edu) one evening in July 2021 produced 14,190 results in less than two seconds. When the research was refined by “relevance” and publication date in the range of 2020-2022, 14,161 results remained. This number was further refined to include only peer-reviewed journal articles available in “full text online.” The final output was 4,359 demonstrating the volume of research already emerging even as the world is still in the middle of the pandemic. Most of the studies are descriptions of the immediate impact of the pandemic on schools and various national interventions to reduce systemic disruptions (Owolabi, 2020; Mukute, Burt, Buhle, & de Souza, 2020; Mhlanga & Moloi, 2020; Association for the Development of Education in Africa, 2020). Issues of access to the enabling technologies are predominant in these studies. There is scant attention to how sociocultural attitudes and specific institutional frameworks affect the outcomes of technological interventions.

Furthermore, emerging studies on COVID-19 and education in Africa have either focused on primary and secondary levels of education or have framed the discussion in a manner that assumes that all levels and types of ownership (public or private) encounter the same challenges and therefore intervention challenges must be uniform. Admittedly, it is early days yet and the impact of the global pandemic of 2020 on education systems in African countries is still unfolding. Still, one argues that the singular focus on access to technologies ignores the role of sociocultural factors in ways that echo the technology transfer discourse of development theorization of the 1960s (McIsaac & Gunawardena, 1996). The argument then was that infusion of external inputs such as the right technologies in the newly decolonized countries would lead to development regardless of the sociocultural and institutional contexts (Inkeles & Smith, 1974; Gajjala & Mamidipudi, 1999). It has since been acknowledged that the transfer of technologies by itself was not a sufficient factor for development (Stamp, 1990; Akpan-Obong, 2010; Asiedu, 2012). And yet, current studies on the impact of COVID-19 on the education systems in African countries seem to focus on lack of access to enabling technologies without much attention to the sociocultural and institutional contexts of education in these countries.

As part of the preliminary data collection, a recorded Zoom interview was conducted with an official of the Ministry of Education in the Seychelles Republic, an archipelago of 115 islands on the Indian Ocean off the coast of eastern Africa. The country has about 100,000 people, one university and several professional institutes and academies. The federal government issued safety guidelines according to the recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO). These guidelines were strictly enforced at the primary and secondary school levels. The university and the professional institutes were given the flexibility to create safety guidelines according to their needs. While many countries in Africa shut down completely, Seychelles did not. According to the education official interviewed for this research, “there wasn’t a complete lockdown generally. And in the academic sector, there were situations where smaller groups of learners met in person and adhered to safety guidelines” (personal interview, July 4, 2021). Some of these situations involved learners in professional institutes who required hands-on learning. For instance, learners enrolled in the maritime academy had to be physically on the sea.

Interestingly, the impact of COVID-19 disruptions on the education sector in this country was minimal compared to what occurred in the tourism industry, the major income-generating sector in the country. The shutdown on global travel directly affected Seychelles even though the country remained open for business and the rate of COVID-19 infection was low. According to the Worldometer, an organization that tracks coronavirus cases in real time, there were 18,582 cases and 94 deaths in all of 2020 (Worldometers, 2021). Also of note was that the size of the country presented its own challenges due to the shortage of personnel to contain the rises.

This preliminary research from both primary and secondary sources underscores the significance of this research. It contributes a sociocultural and institutional perspective to the unfolding body of research. It directs attention to the role of sociocultural and institutional factors such as perceptions and attitudes to online education and policy guidelines and how they influenced countries’ responses and intervention strategies when colleges and universities shut down in 2020.

Qualitative Study Design

Research topic/title	COVID-19 and African E-Learning Systems: Structural and Institutional Strategies for Resilience and Antifragility
Central phenomenon	Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the educational systems of African countries in 2020
The strategy of inquiry
Which strategy?	Qualitative Method—Case Study—Explanatory—Content Analysis
Why is it appropriate?	Research depends on multiple sources of secondary data on the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the education systems of six African countries. Data will be generated from reported accounts of the impact on the education systems and responses by stakeholders in the countries of study. The qualitative—case study—explanatory—content analysis research and analytical strategy achieves the goal of the research by providing in-depth examination of how the complexity and linkages of factors such as policies and regulations, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs and structures explain how countries’ responses to the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on education systems.
Data collection
Who will your participants be?	Stakeholders (parents, students, school administrators, policymakers and education technologies) in the education sector of each of the six countries are the research participants. While these stakeholders will not be interviewed or surveyed individually, the research will capture their views and opinions as reported in the media and policy documents. These views and opinions will be codified and analyzed for insights into the impact of the COVID-19 on the education systems of the six countries and the decisions that each country made at the systemic, country-wide level.
How will you select participants?	The six countries are drawn from three regional and economic communities (RECs) in Africa. Two countries (the most populated and least populated) are selected from each REC. While this selection method is not exactly random sampling, it provides a good geographic spread and consistency without prejudice to a country’s level socioeconomic development in the countries.

Interview Protocol

This research will not require direct interviews of research participants or their representatives. However, for the benefit of students who are doing interviews in their qualitative research, below is the interview protocol that I might use were I to interview the heads of state of the six African countries included in this research.

I. Information about the interview:

Interviewee: Dr. Linda Barallon, Head of COVID-19 Task Force for Tertiary Education Institutions, Ministry of Education, Seychelles Republic (The interview questions must be the same but the name of the interviewee will change. Questionnaires do not require personal names or information but the researcher has to create a system for identification of the respondents on each questionnaire.)

Interviewer: Dr. Patience Akpan-Obong, Associate Professor, Arizona State University

Date: April 12, 2021 Time: 1:21 PM Place: Zoom

II. Consent and introduction

My name is Patience Akpan-Obong. I am an associate professor at Arizona State University. This interview is part of research on the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the education systems of Africa countries. Your country is one of six African countries selected for the case study. The purpose of the research is to examine how these countries responded to the lockdown and the role of structural and institutional factors in mediating the different ways that countries addressed the challenges to teaching and learning. The outcome of the research is expected to inform education policy in the six African countries while also providing general lessons for other countries on the continent. This interview will last approximately 20 minutes. While your participation is voluntary, I appreciate your time and cooperation, Mr. President!

This interview will be recorded. Given your level as the head of state out of six heads of state included in this research, your identity will be part of the research data and analysis. However, if this is a concern, your identity will remain anonymous. Do I have your permission to use your name, Ma’am? ( Interviewer waits for a response before proceeding.)

III. Ice breaker question

1. What would you consider to be the THREE most important socioeconomic concerns in your country today?

IV. Interview questions

1. How did the COVID-19 impact the education system in your country? (If response does not include the information that the schools were shut down and when, I would ask that as a fellow-up question even though I already have this information. But asking the question gets the interviewee to provide more information that I probably didn’t find during my online research.)

2. (If schools went on lockdown … and I know they did) After the lockdown, did teaching continue remotely? (Follow-question: If so, what strategies were used for continued learning. If not, why are the reasons for the absence of alternative forms of learning?)

3. What kinds of education technologies were available in your country during the lockdown and were they utilized?

4. What is your attitude toward online education?

5. Can you describe your citizens’ attitude toward online education?

6. Did your attitude toward online education and that of other stakeholders in your country influence how your country managed the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on your education systems?

7. What other sociocultural and structural factors mediated the use of technology for education s during the lockdown?

8. Based on your country’s experience of the 2020 lockdown, what are the lessons learned for resilience and antifragility in the national education system in case of future disasters?

9. What else would you like to add?

V. Wrap up and thank participant

· Thank you, Ma’am. I appreciate your time and the information about your country and its response to the impact of the 2020 coronavirus lockdown on your country’s education system.

References

Akpan-Obong, Patience (2010). Unintended outcomes in information and communication technology adoption: A micro-level analysis of usage in context. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 45 (2), 181-195.

Asiedu, C.  (2012) Information communication technologies for gender and development.  Information, Communication & Society, 15 (8), 1186-1216, DOI:  10.1080/1369118X.2011.610467

Creswell, J.W. & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Sage Publications

Creswell, J.W. (1998). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design Choosing Among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Inkeles, A. & Smith, D. (1974) Becoming Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

McIsaac, M. S. & Gunawardena, C. N. (1996). Distance Education. In Ed. David H. Jonassen, The Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. http://members.aect.org/edtech/ed1/index.asp

Mhlanga, D., & Moloi, T. (2020). COVID-19 and the Digital Transformation of Education: What Are We Learning on 4IR in South Africa? Education Sciences, 10(7), 180. doi:10.3390/educsci10070180

Morrow, S.L., & Smith, M.L. (2000) Qualitative research methods in counseling psychology. In S.D. Brown & R.W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of Counseling Psychology (3rd ed.) (pp.199-230). NY: Wiley

Mukute, M. Burt, J., Buhle, F., & De Souza, B. (2020). Education in Times of COVID-19: Looking for Silver Linings in the Southern Africa’s Educational Responses. Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, 36(2). https://doi.org/10.4314/sajee.v36i1.7

Owolabi J.O. (2020). Virtualising the School During COVID-19 and Beyond in Africa: Infrastructure, Pedagogy, Resources, Assessment, Quality Assurance, Student Support System, Technology, Culture and Best Practices. Adv Med Educ Pract,11:755-759.

Sauro, J. (2015). Qualitative Study: 5 Reasons to perform a qualitative study. https://measuringu.com/qualitative-study/

Stamp, P. (1990) Technology, Gender and Power in Africa. IDRC, Ottawa.

The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on Africa’s education: Reflecting on promising interventions and challenges, towards a new normal (virtual forum). https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/events/2020/impact-covid-19-africas-education-reflecting-promising-interventions

Worldometers (2021). Seychelles: Coronavirus cases. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/seychelles/