English teacher’s views on the barriers of implementing e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic at the private universities in Bangladesh

Abstract

The closure of the physical classroom in Bangladesh at the tertiary level during the COVID-19 Pandemic has left private university students and teachers dependent on e-learning platform. The E-learning teaching environment is an unprecedented experience for most teachers and students; furthermore, they have limited or no experience with it. This paper explores the views of private university English teachers on the barriers of implementing e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic from 4 aspects: barriers to teachers, university, curriculum, and student. Moreover, this study examines the relationship between implementation barrier with teachers' demographic factors. Data was collected using Google form which was distributed online via email, involving 101 participants from different private universities in Bangladesh. The findings of this study suggested that student-level barrier had the highest impact on e-learning use. Besides the student level barrier, a strong positive correlation with the student level barrier, and a curriculum level barrier were found. The study also showed no significant positive correlation between implementation barriers and teachers’ demographic factors. However, there was a negative statistically significant relationship between gender and barriers. This study recommends further study on the overcoming the barriers of implementing e-learning system during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the pandemic and highlights students’ and administrators’ views.