Indian Journal of Educational Technology Volume 6, Issue 2, July 2024 1 Research Article Attitude of College Teachers towards Virtual Classroom during COVID-19 Pandemic Mehraj Ahmad Bhat1 & Shabnum Ali2 1Assistant Professor Govt. Degree College Bijbehara (J&K) E-mail: mehrajsc@gmail.com 2Research Scholar, Department of Education, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U. P. Abstract Due to technological advancement important changes have been seen in the field of teaching and learning process. It is one of the tools that have emerged from information and communication technology, and during this pandemic, many schools, colleges and universities have been included in the teaching-learning process. In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the attitude of college teachers towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. A self-constructed scale was administered to 206 college teachers via online mode. Item-wise analysis showed variations in attitudes towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, both genders showed average attitudes, but in certain items, both genders showed highly positive attitudes towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results also revealed that the teachers from different streams like sciences, social science, arts and commerce have not shown any significant differences in attitude towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research outcomes can be used as input for framing virtual classroom learning platforms in an educational setting through teachers. Keywords: Attitude; College Teachers; Virtual Classroom; COVID-19 Pandemic Introduction Today, the world is facing a pandemic as the Coronavirus (Jamrozik et al., 2020) is sweeping around the globe, and its effect is going on. The pandemic has led to many deaths; lakhs of people have been quarantined and has led to a serious situation of thinking towards a global health emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a total lockdown world over and India is no exception. During the lockdown, the education sector was impacted heavily and educational institutions had to move from the offline mode of teaching and learning to online mode. Learning was rebooted during the Covid-19 pandemic. This Covid-19 was an ideal time to accept technological introduction and its latest offerings to make education delivery to students more efficient and make it more productive through online learning. The shutdown of educational institutions has led to many apprehensions among the students and teaching fraternity (Gupta & Goplani, 2020). However, the teaching fraternity has been adapting innovative methods to interact with the students with a focus on the curriculum. Online learning also comes as an interesting and interactive additional resource as compared to the normal classroom. Undoubtedly, the spread of COVID-19 created huge challenges for the world’s educational systems. Indian Journal of Educational Technology Volume 6, Issue 2, July 2024 2 All the educational institutions cancelled their classwork, examinations and other allied activities and it led to many negative impacts. During the COVID-19 pandemic educational institutions switched to a virtual mode of teaching, the body language and facial expressions are under restrictions as it is difficult to use these tools through online mode. However, the pandemic came with its own disadvantages and switching from traditional to modern methods of teaching and learning was not a simple task. Therefore, in virtual teaching, the teachers used different social networking and educational applications/platforms, like, zoom, Google Meet, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, etc., to restore their classwork and save the precious time of students. India was no exception to the global trend where every student is not well equipped with high-speed internet and digital gadgets. Numerous advanced educational institutions in India are also not equipped with digital facilities right now to cope with sudden changes from the educational setup to the virtual education system (Jena, 2020). Due to this sudden transition from physical classes to virtual classes, many teachers and students faced difficulties in order to operate the platform as they were not ready for this sudden transition. The problem was compounded in areas that already were underdeveloped like J&K, where accessibility of modern gadgets was a herculean task for students from low- income backgrounds. Since the mode of teaching and learning during the pandemic changed, teachers had to adopt modern ways which were dominated by information and communication tools. This is a new area for both students and teachers, and assessments will probably have greater measurement errors than the normal teaching-learning process (Upoalkpajor & Upoalkpajor, 2020). In this context, the present work tries to analyse the attitude of teachers in higher education, particularly college teachers towards, adapting to modern methods of ICT and virtual classrooms by using the questionnaire method distributed among 206 College teachers. Relevant Prior Research A number of studies have been conducted on the attitude of teachers towards E-Learning, learning through technologies, computers, the Internet, online learning, etc. For instance, a study was conducted by Panda & Mishra, (2007) in which they came to the conclusion that frequent usage of computers and email is strongly correlated with favourable attitudes towards e-learning. Similarly, Mahdizadeh et al. (2008) found that teachers’ attitudes towards online learning may be affected by their perceptions of web-based activities, computer-assisted learning, and the additional value of online learning settings. However, Kutluca (2010) found in his study a significant difference in the scores of attitudes towards computers based on factors like experience using a computer, degree of computer use, taking computer classes, owning a computer, frequency of use, and class of the scores. Bakr (2011), did a study on Egyptian public schools and found that teachers generally have a favourable attitude towards technology. In terms of gender and teaching experience, no significant differences were seen. Similarly, Suri & Sharma (2017) indicated that no significant effect of gender or faculty on teacher attitudes toward computers and e-learning whereas a significant effect of age was seen on teacher’s attitudes towards computers & Indian Journal of Educational Technology Volume 6, Issue 2, July 2024 3 e-learning. Nachimuthu (2020) found that normal classroom practice does not affect the attitude of students towards online learning and there is no significant difference between the male and female attitude scores of students and teachers toward online learning practice in Covid-19. Besides, Alhumaid et al. (2020) stated that there is a positive relationship between technology acceptance and e-learning during Covid-19. To sum up, a number of studies have been conducted on the attitude of teachers, towards information and communication technology, computers, learning through technology, e-learning, computer competency, technology acceptance, etc., but none of the studies has been conducted on the attitude of teachers towards virtual classroom during COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the present work will be an addition to the already established knowledge of E-Learning by filling the suitable gap of attitudinal variations among the teaching community of colleges towards virtual classrooms. The present study holds much significance as it is done in such a study area where levels of development are very low and adaptation of modern methods of teaching and learning is very slow. Objectives of the Study: 1. To study the attitude of male and female college teachers towards virtual classrooms during the Video-19 pandemic. 2. To find out whether a significant difference exists between the attitude of college teachers in different streams towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology Descriptive survey research was used in the present study. The process of description as employed in this research study goes beyond mere gathering and tabulation of data. It involves an element of population/sampling procedure, tools for collecting the data, and interpretation of the meaning or significance of what is described. Population of the Study The population of the study consists of all the Assistant Professors of colleges of UT of Jammu and Kashmir. Sample of the Study In the present study, 206 College Assistant Professors currently posted in different Colleges of UT of Jammu and Kashmir filled out the questionnaire and were selected through simple random sampling. Out of the total 109 were male and 97 were female respondents. The researchers did not visit colleges personally due to the COVID-19 restrictions; the data was collected through the Google platform as the scale was distributed via mail and WhatsApp groups. Tool Used To know the attitude of college teachers towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic, a self-constructed scale was devised by the investigators to collect the information. The five- point scale consisting of 20 statements was developed to check the attitude of college teachers towards virtual classrooms. The response alternatives for each item were (1) Strongly disagree, (2) Disagree, (3) Neither Agree nor Disagree, (4) Agree and (5) Strongly agree. Indian Journal of Educational Technology Volume 6, Issue 2, July 2024 4 Validity To ensure the validity of the scale the researchers used two methods, face validity and construct validity. The face validity was evaluated by experts from the concerned field. Furthermore, to evaluate the construct validity of the scale, the researchers used the correlation method i.e., to correlate the score of each item & total score of the scale. The results are shown in table 1. Table-1: Correlation between each item and total score Items ‘r’ values Sig. Items ‘r’ values Sig 1. .720** .000 11. .709** .000 2. .710** .000 12. .491** .000 3. .448* .045 13. .399** .000 4. .289** .000 14. .245** .000 5. .725** .000 15. .419** .000 6. .689** .000 16. .529** .000 7. .265** .000 17. .401** .000 8. .389** .000 18. .397** .000 9. .165** .043 19. .345** .000 10. .307* .032 20. 499** .000 **Significant at 0.05 level The values found to be are .720, .710, .448, .289, .725, .689, .265, .389, .165, .307, .709, .491, .399, .245, .419, .529, .401, 397, .345, .499 which are significant at 0.05 level. Reliability The reliability of the scale was calculated through Cronbach alpha and was found 0.72. The scores of the scale are categorized into three categories i.e., low attitude (below 50), average attitude (50-75), and high attitude (above 76). Statistical Techniques Used To analyse the data the researcher used Percentages, Descriptive statistics and One-way-ANOVA. The tabulation and analysis of data was done by using SPSS software version 20. Analysis and Discussion of Data: Objective 1: To study the attitude of male and female college teachers towards virtual classrooms during the Covid-19 pandemic. To analyse the attitude of male and female college teachers towards virtual classroom, all the items in the scale were analysed by using percentage. The description of each item with respect to male and female is shown in Table-2. Indian Journal of Educational Technology Volume 6, Issue 2, July 2024 5 Table-2: Item-wise Analysis of the attitude of male and female college teachers to- wards Virtual Classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic S.No. Items Percentage% Male Female 1. All goals of teaching are fulfilled through virtual classrooms. 45.73 43.71 2. Quality of teaching is much better through virtual classrooms than actual ones. 41.47 41.71 3. Interaction between the students and teachers is not good in virtual classrooms. 43.82 40.28 4. Virtual classrooms are more inexpensive in terms of cost and time than the actual classrooms. 65.00 63.71 5. Virtual classrooms are effective for all the types of students. 38.23 39.42 6. All students remain motivated throughout the session during online teaching. 37.05 37.14 7. Individual attention is not paid to every student while teaching online. 37.79 34.57 8. Virtual classrooms should be made as a part of curriculum. 66.47 69.71 9. All teachers do not have competency to teach virtually. 50.44 51.14 10. Online teaching should replace actual classroom teaching. 36.76 42.00 11. Effective learning takes place through virtual classrooms. 46.47 45.42 12. Teaching online is much easier than teaching in actual classrooms. 54.85 51.42 13. Problems of students are not addressed through virtual teaching. 46.02 44.85 14. Online teaching and learning help students to become aware about online learning strategies. 77.05 78.57 15 Virtual teaching help all the teachers to know the new ways of teaching. 74.85 73.42 16. Performance of students are not assessed fairly in virtual classrooms. 40.44 36.28 17. There is a lack of coordination between students and teachers in virtual classrooms. 76.47 80.57 18. All the students do not attend the online classes. 35.44 32.00 Indian Journal of Educational Technology Volume 6, Issue 2, July 2024 8 y Students can look at course materials and revisit courses from online classroom folders, which is one of the major advantages of a virtual classroom. They can access pre-recorded videos and lectures. y The flexibility of the virtual classroom enables both students and teachers to work and attend classes from anywhere. y Virtual learning environments are cost-effective because they minimize the need for textbooks and travel. y Teachers and students can both enhance their knowledge and skills by using a virtual classroom. It facilitates learning interactive online technologies like e-mail, online tests, homework drop boxes, collaboration tools, etc. y Moreover, as information and communication technologies (ICT) rule the globe, a new paradigm in education will emerge as a result of the combination of online and offline teaching and learning techniques. Conclusion The perusal of results revealed that teachers of both genders showed average attitudes towards online teaching and learning, however, in certain items, both genders showed highly positive attitudes towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results also revealed that the teachers from different streams like sciences, social science, arts and commerce have not shown any significant differences in attitude towards virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Acknowledgment: The authors are highly grateful to all participants (College Assistant Professor’s) for their collaboration and contribution in giving the responses through Google form. The authors also acknowledge the support provided by their respective institutions.) References Alhumaid, K., Ali, S., Waheed, A., Zahid, E., & Habes, M. (2020). COVID-19 & eLearning: Perceptions & attitudes of teachers towards E-learning acceptance in the developing countries. Multicultural Education, 6(2), 100-115. Bakr, S. M. (2011). Attitudes of Egyptian teachers towards computers.  Contemporary Educational Technology, 2(4), 308-318. Gupta, A., & Goplani, M. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on Educational Institution in India. Purakala, 31 (21), 661-671. 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