Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Online Home Learning: An Explorative Study of Primary Schools in Indonesia

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the constraints of the online teaching and learning process at home as a result of the unprecedented situation with the pandemic COVID-19. The study used an exploratory case study, and for the research approach, a qualitative case study method was used to obtain information about the constraints and consequences of the pandemic COVID-19  on teaching and learning activities in primary schools. In this study, the respondents were 15 teachers and parents of two primary schools in Tangerang, Indonesia. A list of semi-structured interview questions was developed based on the related literature and was used to collect in-depth information from the respondents. The findings of this research revealed some challenges and constraints experienced by students, teachers, and parents in online learning. The challenges related to students were: limited communication and socializing among students,  a higher challenge for students with special education needs, and longer screen time. Parents saw the problem was more related to a lack of learning discipline at home, more time spent to assist their children's learning at home - especially for children below Grade 4 in Primary School, a lack of technology skills, and higher internet bills. Teachers identified more challenges and constraints, including some restrictions in the choices of teaching methods normally applicable in a regular face-to-face class, less coverage of curriculum content, lack of technology skills that hinder the potential of online learning, the lacks of e-resources in Indonesian language resulting in more time needed to develop e-contents, longer screen time as a result of e-content creating and giving feedback on students' work, more intense and time-consuming communication with parents, the challenge for better coordination with colleague teachers, principals, and a higher internet bill.

Keywords: teaching and learning process, Covid-19, pandemic, explorative study, online learning, home learning