Expectations Vs. Reality: A Narrative Anecdotal Approach to Examining the Digital Tools Used to Engage Undergraduate Students During Pandemic

Abstract

Pandemic has transformed higher education expectations, but realistically, the challenges encountered during this transition are enormous. Despite much published work on the positive outcome of technological use, the sudden change profoundly impacted factors such as students' learning engagement and motivation, technological difficulties, feedback during live lectures, mental health, and the need to provide a ‘realistic’ experience. Therefore, this paper sheds light on the above factors through an educator's reflective and experiential learning (researcher and learner). The authors accumulated narrative, anecdotal records, and observations over ten months. The narrative records were noted and observed as an educator, who documented the learning experiences and relationships of how interactions and engagements occurred with students. Adapting foundational guidelines by (Beaty, 1986) for descriptive narrative records, a thematic analysis is achieved for themes and commonalities to emerge. Results are discussed through the interpretivism paradigm with the hermeneutic method to understand educators' experience throughout the anecdotal responses. Finally, criticizing and evaluating the digital tools used for undergraduate students is crucial to identifying the possible challenges and similarities.