IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i16p8718-d608433.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Teaching and Researching in the Context of COVID-19: An Empirical Study in Higher Education

Author

Listed:
  • Margarida Rodrigues

    (CEFAGE-UBI Research Center, Department of Management and Economics, University of Beira Interior, 6200-209 Covilhã, Portugal)

  • Rui Silva

    (CETRAD Research Center, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro—UTAD, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal)

  • Mário Franco

    (CEFAGE-UBI Research Center, Department of Management and Economics, University of Beira Interior, 6200-209 Covilhã, Portugal)

Abstract

There is increasing recognition worldwide of the importance of academic activities, specifically in situations of pandemics. Therefore, this study aimed to understand the effects of COVID-19 on lecturers/researchers and Ph.D. and master students who have faced unexpected and continuous disruption in their teaching and research activities. To fulfil the aims, the study focused on a mixed method approach quantitative study based on a questionnaire administered on social networks and open questions. The unit of analysis was lecturers/researchers and Ph.D. and master students. The results obtained show that this lengthy interruption had severe impacts on their activities, requiring new competencies and capacities to deal with changes in a short period of time, including less positive feelings affecting them and their families. The main contribution of this study lies in identifying the barriers and opportunities created by this virus in the academic world and in presenting a theoretical framework to improve the situation, given that the confinement exponentiated negative and psychological feelings in academics, although telework is seen as a positive factor with continuity in the future, as a way to foster the social, environmental sustainability of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the wellbeing of their human capital. As implications for practice, the evidence points to the need for academics to be provided with training in E-learning, about technological tools for use in distance-learning and to reconsider how they carry out their research on the ground.

Suggested Citation

  • Margarida Rodrigues & Rui Silva & Mário Franco, 2021. "Teaching and Researching in the Context of COVID-19: An Empirical Study in Higher Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-18, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:8718-:d:608433
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8718/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8718/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esteve Corbera & Isabelle Anguelovski & Jordi Honey-Rosés & Isabel Ruiz-Mallén, 2020. "Academia in the Time of COVID-19: Towards an Ethics of Care," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 191-199, June.
    2. Virginia Gewin, 2020. "Five tips for moving teaching online as COVID-19 takes hold," Nature, Nature, vol. 580(7802), pages 295-296, April.
    3. Ganguly, Dibyasree & Misra, Sheuli & Goli, Srinivas, 2020. "India’s COVID-19 Episode: Resilience, Response, Impact and Lessons," MPRA Paper 99691, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Marco Brand & Victor Tiberius & Peter M. Bican & Alexander Brem, 2021. "Agility as an innovation driver: towards an agile front end of innovation framework," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 157-187, January.
    5. Shoko Kawano & Masayuki Kakehashi, 2015. "Substantial Impact of School Closure on the Transmission Dynamics during the Pandemic Flu H1N1-2009 in Oita, Japan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(12), pages 1-15, December.
    6. Howard D. White & Belver C. Griffith, 1981. "Author cocitation: A literature measure of intellectual structure," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 32(3), pages 163-171, May.
    7. Susan K. Gardner, 2010. "Contrasting the Socialization Experiences of Doctoral Students in High- and Low-Completing Departments: A Qualitative Analysis of Disciplinary Contexts at One Institution," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 81(1), pages 61-81, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agnieszka Krugielka & Grazyna Bartkowiak & Sebastian Dama, 2021. "Functioning of Academic Teachers in the Conditions of the COVID-19 Epidemy in Poland in 2020 (Qualitative Test on the Basis of Self-Assessment)," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(Special 5), pages 269-287.
    2. Nilmini M. Rathnayake & Pivithuru J. Kumarasinghe & Ajantha S. Kumara, 2022. "How Do Different Types of University Academics Perceive Work from Home Amidst COVID-19 and Beyond?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-19, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Margarida Rodrigues & Mário Franco & Rui Silva, 2020. "COVID-19 and Disruption in Management and Education Academics: Bibliometric Mapping and Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-25, September.
    2. Margarida Rodrigues & Mário Franco & Nuno Sousa & Rui Silva, 2021. "Reviewing COVID-19 Literature on Business Management: What It Portends for Future Research?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-21, May.
    3. Tsung Teng Chen, 2012. "The development and empirical study of a literature review aiding system," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(1), pages 105-116, July.
    4. Gaviria-Marin, Magaly & Merigó, José M. & Baier-Fuentes, Hugo, 2019. "Knowledge management: A global examination based on bibliometric analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 194-220.
    5. Pamela E. Sandstrom, 2001. "Scholarly communication as a socioecological system," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 51(3), pages 573-605, July.
    6. Wang Guizhou & Zhang Si & Yu Tao & Ning Yu, 2021. "A Systematic Overview of Blockchain Research," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 205-238, June.
    7. Dixit, Aasheesh & Jakhar, Suresh Kumar, 2021. "Airport capacity management: A review and bibliometric analysis," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    8. Zhong, Xiang & Liu, Jiajun & Gao, Yong & Wu, Lun, 2017. "Analysis of co-occurrence toponyms in web pages based on complex networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 466(C), pages 462-475.
    9. Jianhua Hou, 2017. "Exploration into the evolution and historical roots of citation analysis by referenced publication year spectroscopy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(3), pages 1437-1452, March.
    10. Thor, Andreas & Marx, Werner & Leydesdorff, Loet & Bornmann, Lutz, 2016. "Introducing CitedReferencesExplorer (CRExplorer): A program for reference publication year spectroscopy with cited references standardization," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 503-515.
    11. Stephen Afrifa & Tao Zhang & Peter Appiahene & Vijayakumar Varadarajan, 2022. "Mathematical and Machine Learning Models for Groundwater Level Changes: A Systematic Review and Bibliographic Analysis," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-31, August.
    12. Ying Huang & Wolfgang Glänzel & Lin Zhang, 2021. "Tracing the development of mapping knowledge domains," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 6201-6224, July.
    13. João J. M. Ferreira & Cristina I. Fernandes & Sascha Kraus, 2019. "Entrepreneurship research: mapping intellectual structures and research trends," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 181-205, February.
    14. Mehmet Ali Köseoglu & John A. Parnell & Melissa Yan Yee Yick, 2021. "Identifying influential studies and maturity level in intellectual structure of fields: evidence from strategic management," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1271-1309, February.
    15. Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta & Stefano Ghinoi & Matteo Masotti & Francesco Silvestri, 2021. "Economics research and climate change. A Scopus-based bibliometric investigation," SEEDS Working Papers 0321, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Apr 2021.
    16. Masaki Eto, 2013. "Evaluations of context-based co-citation searching," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 651-673, February.
    17. Jun-Ping Qiu & Ke Dong & Hou-Qiang Yu, 2014. "Comparative study on structure and correlation among author co-occurrence networks in bibliometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(2), pages 1345-1360, November.
    18. Georg Groh & Christoph Fuchs, 2011. "Multi-modal social networks for modeling scientific fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 89(2), pages 569-590, November.
    19. Pamela E. Sandstrom, 2001. "Scholarly communication as a socioecological system," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 50(3), pages 573-605, January.
    20. Mingwei Pan & Jian Tao, 2022. "Towards a Sustainable Multidimensional Approach to English Proficiency Proof in the Post-Pandemic Era: Learning from the Legacy of COVID-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-14, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:8718-:d:608433. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.