The Attitude of the Academic Community towards Distance Learning: A Lesson from a National Lockdown

Abstract

The number of online courses conducted at universities has been growing steadily worldwide. The demand for this form of education has jumped sharply in the 2019/2020 academic year as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national lockdown. The following study uses the case of University of Wrocław and examines how this unprecedented situation would affect the attitude of members of the academic community toward distance learning. The examination, based on quantitative analysis of separated questionnaires distributed among teachers and students, reveals that the previous experience in distance learning strongly correlates with willingness to use it in the future, i.e. after fighting the coronavirus crisis. Thus, the research suggests that the implementation of distance learning may involve the need to put more emphasis on systematic and long-term actions. The results achieved in the study may contribute to improving the ways of implementing distance learning on a large scale in institutions dealing with higher education.