The problems and challenges of virtual education in elementary school during the outbreak of coronavirus

Mosayebi, Malihe; Rezapour Mirsaleh, Yasser; Behjati, Fatemeh

The problems and challenges of virtual education in elementary school during the outbreak of coronavirus

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Master student of school counseling, Ardakan University, Ardakan, IRAN.

² Associate Professor of Counseling, Department of Counseling, Ardakan University, Ardakan, IRAN.

³ Assistant Professor of Educational Sciences, Department of Counseling, Ardakan University, Ardakan, IRAN.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the problems and challenges of virtual education in elementary school during the corona outbreak. This is a qualitative study which has an exploratory phenomenological nature. The target population of the study included all families of students living in Ardakan city who had at least one student in elementary school in the academic year 2020-21. Purposeful sampling method was used and the semi-structured interview continued until saturation of the data, which eventually reached 10 parents. Interviews were analyzed using thematic coding method. By analyzing the data, virtual education problems were identified as "teacher and school", “parents”, "students" and "virtual education substructure". The results showed that the problems of virtual education during the outbreak of the Corona virus are not only different from the presidential education problems, but because of the lack of families' readiness to face these problems, are also more extent than virtual education. According these problems, we can provide virtual education substructure and establishing a cultural context for acceptance of virtual education so that it can be useful in post-pandemic virtual education.

Keywords