How Should Higher Education Institutions Provide Lectures Under the COVID-19 Crisis

Abstract

As the COVID-19 crisis prevails, many universities and colleges all over the world were not able to conduct face-to-face classes and instead conduct online learning. Online learning has merits and is evaluated by learners and university faculties. However, whether or not the learning quality of online learning improves or maintains should be evaluated. Furthermore, online learning without being face-to-face is different from flipped classroom. This paper examines how the quality of online learning changes empirically. The empirical results show that most of the results are not different from face-to-face class, and online quiz type test scores are quite high; however, the quality of reports (writing) has declined significantly. There is some possibility that surface knowledge improved by online learning of undergraduates, but in-depth learning by thinking or discussing with other learners and faculty are not realized.