**6. Results and discussion**

### **6.1 Sociodemographic data of the participants**

The population comprised six male academics and four female academics who are lecturing the science modules shown in **Figure 1**, wherein there is an integration of Moodle LMS. Subsequently, it was quite difficult to mark digital assessments for STEM courses and provide timely feedback to the students. The four male e-learning practitioners were interviewed to report on their observations and challenges encountered by the academics in the different faculties within this institution.

The responsibilities of the three e-learning practitioners focused mainly on supporting staff academics with mitigation of conundrums faced during the digital engagements and grading assessments for STEM courses (**Figure 2**). On the other hand, challenges around digital learning and teaching are not encountered by academics only, however, students are affected and therefore one of the participants was responsible for the provisioning of academic support to students (**Figure 2**).

**Figure 1.**

*Science modules taught by the ten academic participants.*

**Figure 2.** *Accountabilities of e-learning practitioners.*

Moreover, the data were collected through interviews among the lecturers in the science-related courses. Subsequently, the consultation of the report was facilitated by the e-learning practitioners to obtain the data for comprehension of the challenges observed through the teaching and learning activities. The students whom the lecturers taught were at the first-year level in the Science Foundation, Earth Sciences, and Mathematical and Computational Sciences departments at one of the rural-based universities in South Africa.

The findings of this study exhibit that there are major issues and challenges that many academics and e-learning practitioners are encountering regarding the integration of blended learning as the new norm even in the post-COVID-19 era in higher education. Technological continuity as a new normal in the post-COVID-19 era seems to be unattainable.

#### **6.2 Moodle LMS adoption**

The table titled "Moodle Adoption Report" shows the active and inactive academics in line with the minimum online presence policy within the four faculties namely, the Faculty of Science, Engineering, and Agriculture, the Faculty of Health Sciences, the Faculty of Management Commerce and Law, and the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education. Moreover, the report further indicated the percentage of adoption within the four faculties in the university. The Faculty of Science, Engineering, and Agriculture recorded 29, 57%, the Faculty of Management, Commerce, and Law recorded 29, 09%, the Faculty of Health Sciences recorded 10, 62%, and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences reported 26, 76% in relation to the Moodle LMS usage. Nevertheless, this study focused on participants sampled from the three departments in the Faculty of Science, Engineering, and Agriculture (**Table 1**).

Interestingly, the results of the report clearly illustrated a total of 16 online active academics out of a total of all teaching staff members of the three participating departments. Frankly, this notion resulted in a huge number of 40 online inactive academics within these departments.

The usage of the Moodle LMS has deteriorated and the adoption is quite cumbersome in terms of the percentage of academics who are actively integrating blended learning. Moreover, the continuity of digital education seems to be questionable based on the current realities of usage. As such, some of the lecturers indicated that the assessments will forever need a physical setting, not an online space, particularly in rural-based and historically disadvantaged institutions where connectivity infrastructures seem to be a major conundrum for students from remote areas. Some honestly indicated that they are reluctant to undergo proper training for Moodle and other online platforms and their students were mostly unable to engage in the ongoing discussion during the session.

A high percentage (70%) of some academics narrated that face-to-face is better than online since one can monitor students who attend the classes while on the platform, it is difficult for the academics to trace the students who are actively engaging in the content and those who are only available for compliance (**Figure 3**). Hwakoh [11] concurs with the difficulties of student online engagement when students show no interaction during the online lecture.

On the other hand, 30% of academic participants thrived with learning the usage of the Moodle platform (**Figure 3**). These lecturers realized the significance of LMS usage as it brings up an improvement in terms of the quality of teaching [12]. Over and above, the online preference of some academics resulted from the LMS benefits such as interacting with students through assigning essay assignments, testing *via*

*Evaluating STEM Lecturers' Experiences with Digital Assessments and Continuity of Digital… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113259*


#### **Table 1.**

*Moodle adoption report.*

multiple-choice questions, provision of presentation slides prior to lecturers [13], and detecting students' participation through the online participation register.

Furthermore, the results of this study indicate the preferred platforms (WhatsApp, Moodle, Microsoft Teams, and Google Teams) shown in **Figure 4** that

#### **Figure 4.**

*Frequency of use of online platforms by lecturers.*

academics use to supplement their teaching and learning with the students if they are not available on campus for contact sessions.

WhatsApp is more used than the other platforms due to students' data challenges as they are presently not receiving incentives from the institution. Moreover, the computer labs were not accessible to the students, and they had problems with the lack of devices for online classes. Students supported the use of WhatsApp while considering their financial circumstances and lack of technological devices to attend online classes and network connectivity problems in the comfort of their learning space. The lecturers provided feedback on students' assessments using these platforms, while interaction between the lecturers and students was quite unsatisfactory due to the network connectivity.

This resonates with Tay et al. [14] articulated in their study that online learning depends on the technologies used at the time and the curriculum that is being taught. The researchers suggest that the platforms and different approaches should be integrated to achieve maximum learning. Moreover, in congruence with the retrospect

*Evaluating STEM Lecturers' Experiences with Digital Assessments and Continuity of Digital… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113259*

of studies conducted in this area, the findings of this study report that the digital competence of the users may be a solution to online learning.

#### **6.3 Usage of the Learning Management System between students and academics**

The e-learning practitioners expressed their concerns and major conundrums during their training, observations of minimum online presence, and daily consultation with the academics and students. The students' daily consultation had common problems, which among others encompass network connectivity, struggling to log into the Moodle LMS, and inaccessibility to the assessment activities uploaded by their module lecturers. Furthermore, e-learning practitioners further elucidated that academics have challenges concerning marking assessments and providing feedback on the platform due to inadequate mastery of the platform operation and navigation skills. This study is validated by the findings of Karuppiah et al. [15] who elucidated that it is imperative to recognize the type of student enrolled in the course to design a suitable interaction system that enables the students not only to learn but even to interact among themselves. Therefore, LMS's affordances come in handy in any prescribed learning and teaching e-platform as it determines and prescribes efficacy through use in learning activities within a course.

#### **6.4 Complacency in the online setting**

The findings of this paper reported that the biggest problem among others is complacency in the online setting and the academics tend to think that the online platform is conformable to constantly facilitate online classes while many students are mostly not participating and only available for compliance and procedural record keeping. Over and above, online classes have proven not to be solely independent due to the higher number of students who are not capacitated, and this poses an academic trajectory in many institutions. This study concurs with Dhawan [16] who pinpointed that face-to-face teaching has received strong support from students at all levels and has been viewed as more effective than online interaction as the lecturers and students tend to experience challenges. Lai et al. [17] argued that within a learning and teaching setup, its deliverables are on a web-based Learning Management System, results showed that students' frustrations were found in three folds:

(i) *Lack of prompt feedback from the lecturer*

Lack of prompt feedback denotes that STEM students were impeded from receiving proper guidance and timely feedback on learning and teaching progress. This ultimately relates to a lack of guidance, which, in the long run, puts students at risk of not mastering concepts and not passing the module.

(ii) *Ambiguous instructions on the Web*

Learning and teaching instruction must be explicitly stated and directed to students, however, in an online platform, students find that teaching and learning activities with competing deadlines may have ambiguous instruction and it is practically not viable to continue with the task until such time the lecturer may clarify the instructions.

(iii) *Technical problems*

Amid online learning and teaching activities, STEM students raised concerns about technical problems they encounter on and with the LMS platforms. These challenges cannot be resolved as expeditiously as needed; they may be escalated to e-learning support personnel. This could be frustrating to students as they may be facing an immediate need to use and participate in learning and teaching activities but fail to do so because of technical problems they encounter. Therefore, students get support from the e-learning whenever they are on the verge to submit their projects and this poses learning challenges with respect to the submission deadlines.

### **6.5 Fixed mindset and expectation**

In this study, it was mainly reported that the transformative and flexible strategies and approaches were reluctant considered by the academics in their attempts to adapt to the new normal. Furthermore, the findings revealed that most academics believed that contact learning remains irreplaceable throughout generations and ages as some are technophilic. This study is incongruent with the findings of Lai et al. [17]. The study outlined that face-to-face learning is irreplaceable and a cornerstone of any learning institution, even if the current discourse and technological revolution require the use of e-Learning. Attard [18] further highlighted in comparison to a program that is run online and one that is not, students who are attending their course online face a few barriers to their full participation in coursework units. Henceforth, face-to-face learning is more powerful in terms of student engagement and participation than online learning. Moreover, online learning was and is still an effective approach to meet the accelerated demands of the diverse student population in universities and colleges.

### **6.6 Resistance to using technology**

The e-learning practitioners who were interviewed about their perceptions and perspectives on the continuous usage of technology in the higher education sector in the post-COVID-19 era indicated that the academics deteriorated the use of blended learning in their respective programs. This has been necessitated by the adjustment of COVID-19 regulations imposed on the indoor gathering capacity wherein there is a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. Subsequently, the findings of this study are consistent with Attard [18], which articulated that a major challenge for online learning is the one-size-fits-all approach, which does not do justice to student differences.

This is further validated by the authors in Orlando and Attar [19] elucidated that emerging and experienced academics are reluctant to adapt to the digital transformation in their teaching practices and approaches. The researchers suggest that online learning should be integrated with contact sessions to mitigate decontextualized teaching classrooms while technical support ought to be provided to the academics who are unable to effectively use blended learning in their teaching.

#### **6.7 Lack of technological skills**

Based on the findings of this study, this aspect of technological deficiency has largely been in the responses of both academics and e-learning practitioners. Most lecturers stated that they are not well equipped with the technological devices usually used for online teaching and learning environments. Academic institutions were impelled by the COVID-19 pandemic to integrate technology when facilitating lessons. However, academics made use of social media platforms to compensate for

*Evaluating STEM Lecturers' Experiences with Digital Assessments and Continuity of Digital… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113259*

their incompetency with Moodle utilization. Nevertheless, this strategy did not yield positive results as the students were unable to comprehend the feedback on their assessments owing to the unsatisfactory interaction with their lecturers. Significantly, there is a need for academics to be well-trained to use technology and LMS affordances skillfully and excellently. Unfortunately, Orlando and Attar [19] posit that the online environment presents several challenges for both academic staff and students who increasingly require higher levels of technological competency and proficiency on top of their regular academic workload. This should be done to ensure that they have the necessary competencies and proficiency to use the prescribed LMS to aid their academic activities. This study corroborates with Khoa et al. [20] whose findings exhibited that lecturers and students are mainly not thoroughly trained to navigate the Moodle platform affordances. Moreover, it attests to Khoa et al. [20] espoused that technology is expected to improve access to education, reduce costs, improve the cost-effectiveness of education, and maintain the competitive advantage in recruiting students in higher education.
