Investigating the readiness level of lecturers at FELTE, ULIS in synchronous teaching in the online environment

This study was conducted to investigate the readiness level of lecturers at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies in Vietna

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

HÀ NỘI – 2021

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

Tìm hiểu về mức độ sẵn sàng cho việc giảng dạy đồng nhất trên môi trường trực tuyến của giảng viên khoa

Sư phạm Tiếng Anh, trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Khoa Anh Việt Sinh viên: Nguyễn Minh Hiếu

Khóa: QH2017.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI – 2021

ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Nguyen Minh Hieu, class 17E1, being a candidate for the degree

of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the

retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the

library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance

with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or

reproduction of the paper

Nguyen Minh Hieu Tuesday, May 4th, 2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Mr Khoa Anh Viet –

my mentor and supervisor in this graduation paper, for his detailed instruction and valuable comments and advice on progress, which is a determining factor in the fulfillment of this research

Another appreciation I would like to make is to 75 lecturers at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies for participating in our research project by completing the survey questionnaire and allowing us to conduct short interviews This research cannot be completed without their contribution

Last but not least, I want to send our gratitude to my family members, my classmates

at class 17E1, who have provided me with financial and emotional support Without their understanding and care, I would not have been able to make an endeavour to finish this research project

ABSTRACT

Thanks to the effects of the 4th Industrial Revolution, education is gradually

digitizing, and online teaching programs are created more and more in the time of

the technology boom Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, this process

was accelerated but created doubts about the readiness of teachers to implement new

teaching methods This study was conducted to investigate the readiness level of

lecturers at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of

Languages and International Studies in Vietnam in teaching synchronously in the

online environment Readiness level in synchronous teaching was assessed on four

factors: personal readiness, content readiness, technology readiness, and

institutional support readiness 75 teachers at the Faculty participated in the survey,

and 4 of them continued to comment in in-person interviews The result is the

faculty’s lecturers achieve a high level of readiness in many factors, with technology

readiness and institutional support readiness having the highest consensus

However, many shortcomings remain throughout the teaching process shared by

teachers, including skepticism about the online teaching trend, the lack of

curriculum and activities suitable for online platforms, and inadequacies in the

infrastructure to deliver long-term online education Based on these findings,

pedagogical implications for universities and lecturers are discussed

TABLE OF CONTENT

1.1 The rationale of the study 1

2.1 Synchronous online teaching 5

2.1.1 History of online teaching 5

2.1.2 Definition of online teaching 6

2.1.3 Types of online teaching 7

2.1.4 Significances and challenges of online teaching 8

2.2 Readiness level in Synchronous teaching in the Online environment 10

3.5.1 Analyzing the quantitative data 22

3.5.2 Analyzing the qualitative data 23

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS 25

Analysis of the questionnaire 25

Summary of survey collection procedure and Participants’ demographic

Readiness level in personal factors 27

Readiness level in content factors 30

Readiness level in technology factors 31

Readiness level in institutional support factor 34

B Analysis of interview sessions 35

Readiness in personal factors 35

Readiness in content factors 37

Readiness in technology factors 38

Readiness in institutional support 40

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 The rationale of the study

The rapid growth in Information Communication and Technologies (ICT) nowadays has brought remarkable changes in various fields, including education (Ismail, Bokhare, Azizan & Azman, 2013) Over the years, thanks to the development of information technology, the forms of distance learning have been developing at a rapid rate, and online teaching is one such form (ULIS, 2020) Over time, online training programs have opened up at different levels of education and in various ways, especially at higher education levels (Tuoi Tre, 2020) For instance, student enrollments in universities in Australia between 2009 and 2010 reflects a 5.4% increase in on-campus study and a 25.7% increase in external or multimode study (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011)

In Vietnam, online education in general and particularly in universities and colleges exists but has not developed strongly (Laodong.vn, 2020) However, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing period, universities and colleges were forced to shift their curricula from in-class teaching to classes on online platforms Statistics show that, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic

in Vietnam, 92 universities deployed online teaching to students (Zing News, 2020) Online lessons, where teachers and students interact and communicate with each other indirectly through online meeting platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, have gradually encouraged students' interest in learning during the pandemic time, as the new teaching method provides convenience to the students while staying at home and provokes their curiosity while studying (Tuoi Tre, 2020) However, it is notable that the difficulties in getting used to this new form of teaching should be considered, namely the need to renew the teaching curriculum or the use of new tools on online platforms, not to mention the familiarization between instructors and students when interacting online

The University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi is one of the leading universities in digital transformation trends

in higher education in Vietnam Before the COVID-19 pandemic, online teaching has been applied to students in the form of blended learning, which can be understood as “a combination of face-to-face and technology-mediated instructional forms and practices” (Friesen, 2012) However, during the pandemic period, many subjects previously taught directly in the classroom were changed to synchronous learning, which involves real-time communication between teachers and students (Johnson, 2006; cited by Oztok et al., 2013) This situation requires teachers to prepare for this transformation in various aspects; otherwise, it can lead to the failure

of the online teaching course (Kentnor, 2015) Derived from the general situation across the country, simultaneously from the desire to explore and propose a direction for teachers to be ready for digital transformation and new teaching methods in online environments, this study is conducted to assess teachers' readiness, particularly the ones at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, for synchronous teaching in the online environment

1.2 Research questions

This study is designed to identify the factors and standards required for a university lecturer to plan and deploy lessons in an online education environment At the same time, this study also investigates whether the instructors at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies are fully equipped and are genuinely ready for online teaching Specifically, this study will focus on answering two questions:

- What factors do EFL lecturers at FELTE, ULIS need to be ready for synchronous teaching in the online environment?

- How do EFL lecturers at FELTE, ULIS describe their level of readiness for synchronous teaching in the online environment?

1.3 Methods of the study

This research adopts a mixed-method survey research as its design, by using quantitative and qualitative components in order to attain an objective and comprehensive view of the research According to Griffie (2012), a survey research design utilizes “to enable the teacher-researcher-educator-educator to investigate a construct by asking questions of either fact (descriptive) or opinion (explanatory) from a sample of a population from a sample of population for the purpose of generalizing to the population.” Griffie also highlights the significance of this research design, as it can produce descriptive summaries and generalize the statements based on its large database Questionnaire and open-ended interviews are employed to invest the data objectively and subjectively The population of the research is lecturers at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE), University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) in Hanoi; they will complete the survey and some of them will later conduct the interview session

to provide the descriptive data to invest the research issues

1.4 Scope of the study

This research focuses on the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education lecturers, University of Languages and International Studies As the COVID-19 pandemic consigned all the lecturers and learners to stay at home, most lecturers in the faculty had the opportunity to access and teach lessons in a fully online environment Furthermore, ULIS still applies online teaching as an alternate form in many different cases when teachers and students cannot meet face to face

1.5 Contribution of the study

Through this research, the author wants to identify the elements and qualities that teachers should equip to be successful in teaching online when this form of teaching

is still relatively new, and it was only widely adopted for a short period before this study is conducted Moreover, this study is designed to guide and support teachers

to self-direct teaching preparation in an online environment, and at the same time, help educational institutions orient themselves to train teachers to suit the new

educational environment Moreover, the author also hopes that this work will become a theoretical basis and a reliable reference source for further research

1.6 Organization of the study

The following sections of this research will consist of four chapters will be presented

in the order shown below:

Chapter 2: Literature review

This chapter provides the definitions of synchronous online teaching, readiness in online teaching, factors related to investigate the readiness level and an overview of the relevant literature on previous studies

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter outlines the settings of the research, the description of research methods, the data collection instrument, and the data collection and data analysis procedure

Chapter 4: Findings & Discussions

This chapter reports the data collected from the questionnaire and the interview The research questions are addressed and discussed in this chapter as well

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This chapter concludes the paper by summarizing the findings, along with the suggested pedagogical implications The limitation and suggestions for further research is also included

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Synchronous online teaching

2.1.1 History of online teaching

Online teaching and learning is a branch of distance learning Ko & Rossen (2010) defined distance education as “a process that traditionally included courses taught through any form of learning that does not involve the traditional classroom setting.”

It can be understood that students and instructors are not required to be in the same place at the same time Distance education can be conducted via various platforms, namely through corresponding radio, television, and the Internet (Kentnor, 2015) Though online teaching has rapidly grown since the advance of the online technical revolution, distance education is not a new teaching method The fact remains that its evolution and progression have lasted over the last 300 years, parallel with innovations in communications technology, and distance learning continues to grow

in popularity (Kentnor, 2015)

Online educational programs emerged in 1989 when the University of Phoenix began using CompuServe, one of the first consumer online services in the US; and the University became one of the first to offer online education programs through the Internet shortly after the unveiling of the World Wide Web in 1991 (Kentnor, 2015) The online educational marketplace’s move prompted many reputable institutions and not-for-profit colleges and universities to follow the University of Phoenix (Carlson & Carnevale, 2001) This new medium of distance education’s vision and effectiveness were apparent (Kentnor, 2015); therefore, universities and colleges began experimenting with online courses in the early to mid-1990s However, the rapid growth of online education in traditional nonprofit institutions did not start until 1998; unfortunately, these programs did not survive long (Arenson, 1998) By 2002, over 1.6 million post-secondary students chose to enroll

in online courses, and six years later, that number had almost tripled (Allen & Seaman, 2008, cited by Kentnor, 2015)

However, the situation is changing As Sener (2012) argues, “education has been, is being, and will continue to be cyberized.” Sener contends that the first era of online education has been devoted to providing access In contrast, the second era has the potential to improve the quality of education as a whole, not just online education

It is not about changing the knowledge being conveyed but merely shifting the way

it is “transmitted, preserved, and generated” (Sener, 2012, p 124) Therefore, it is now time to focus on the quality of the education we provide, both in the classroom and online, and use the technology and innovations available today to motivate, inspire, and educate the students of the 21st century (Kentnor, 2015)

2.1.2 Definition of online teaching

There are several definitions of online teaching from different studies Aydin & Tasci (2005) use the definition from The Commission on Technology and Adult Learning (2001), who stated e-Learning is instructional content or learning experiences delivered or enabled by electronic technology, particularly computer networks and standalone computers Kentnor (2015) defines online education as a teaching method “which uses computers and the Internet as the delivery mechanism with at least 80% of the course content delivered online” Alternatively, Ibili (2020) once defines E-learning as “a way of learning, in which the interaction between educator, student, and course content is carried out synchronously or asynchronously via electronic communication systems such as the internet, video, telephone, computer” These definitions, as mentioned above, have drawn the essential elements of online teaching but do not specify the nature of online education Of all the descriptions, the one stated by Ko & Rossen (2010) fully reveal the nature of online teaching, including the origin, characteristics, and requirements

of this teaching method:

Teaching online means conducting a course partially or entirely through the Internet You may also see references to online education as eLearning (electronic learning) It is a form of distance education, a process that traditionally includes courses taught through any form of learning that does not involve the traditional

classroom setting in which students and instructors must be in the same place at the same time

From the definitions, the researchers all acknowledge the uniqueness of online teaching is the use of the Internet and technological devices as primary means of communication and education Ko & Rossen (2010) even depict a scenario when online teaching is adapted to the educational field’s current situation For instance, the teacher can work and teach online without showing up at the same place with the students, or regular activities in in-classroom lessons such as standing at a lectern

or scribble on a chalkboard would be eliminated These fundamental changes are believed to benefit both lecturers and learners; however, there exist numerous challenges that both sides need to recognize and overcome

2.1.3 Types of online teaching

In a fully online environment, the teaching process can be conducted by two approaches, namely teaching with asynchronous communication (or asynchronous learning) and teaching with synchronous communication (or synchronous learning) (Oztok, Zingaro, Brett & Hewitt, 2012)

Asynchronous learning “occurs in delayed time, and does not rely on simultaneous access for educational outcomes” (Johnson, 2006, cited by Oztok et al., 2012) Typical examples of asynchronous environments are email or forums The comments and notes are sorted by threads, “helping the students follow multiple simultaneously-occurring discussions” (Hewitt, 2005; cited by Oztok et al., 2012)

In asynchronous courses, naturally permit the teaching role to be spread across individuals in student moderators or student facilitators In contrast to face-to-face courses, students in asynchronous courses can assume a more central teaching presence role (Oztok, Zingaro, Brett & Hewitt, 2012) Compared to synchronous teaching and face-to-face courses, Asynchronous learning is dominant, including time-independent access, opportunities for heightened peer interaction, avoidance

of undesirable classroom behavior, and support for multiple learning styles (Oztok, Zingaro, Brett & Hewitt, 2012)

On the other hand, synchronous learning “involves real-time communication between teachers and students,” and it is common in the form of a text chat or video conferencing (Johnson, 2006) Several studies suggest that social presence is higher

in synchronous chat than in asynchronous discussion This form of online education can tackle certain learners’ issues, such as time management since the students tend

to hold monthly “marathon” sessions on weekends in asynchronous courses (Schwier and Balbar, 2002) However, the purpose of synchronous communication was to give students more opportunities to discuss course content (Oztok, Zingaro, Brett & Hewitt, 2012) Synchronous chat contributed to the “continuity and convenience” of the class, helped sustain regular contact, and created a sense of urgency and immediacy; it can also create a passion for the learners

As synchronous online teaching is widely applied in the Faculty, this research will investigate online teaching by finding the factors that impact the teaching process and discover whether FELTE lecturers are fully ready for synchronous teaching

2.1.4 Significances and challenges of online teaching

There are consensus views about the convenience and efficiency of online teaching, and these benefits of online education for both the students and their institutions are well documented across a range of higher education discipline areas (Downing & Dyment, 2013) One of the most significant reasons is about finance, particularly the cost of training and improving cost-effectiveness (Aydin & Tasci, 2005; Akaslan & Law, 2011; Ibili, 2020) Not only the learner can take advantage of the financial benefit, but the institutions and university can involve as well, as budget reduction and the decrease in the number of people at the college-age create pressure

on the administrators (Friga, 2020) Buckenmeyer et al (2011, cited by Cutri & Mena, 2020) believe that the willingness to participate in online transitions “has enabled universities to gain a competitive advantage in today’s higher education marketplace” Downing & Dyment, (2013) assures the learning opportunities for

students, especially “nontraditional students” and “students who live in remote or regional areas” as they can access higher education with an affordable cost More than widening the access to learning opportunities, online learning can also build up

a student-centered environment (Barker, 2003; Pederson & Liu, 2003; Salmon, 2003; cited by Downing & Dyment, 2013), facilitate increased student engagement (Anderson, 2008; Herrington & Herrington, 2006; cited by Downing & Dyment, 2013), and develop students’ abilities in a technology-driven workplace (Bonk, 2009; Chau, 2010; cited by Downing & Dyment, 2013) Online education can be a useful tool to support disabled students, improve quality of teaching and learning, increase flexibility in teaching and communicating (Akaslan & Law, 2011) Moreover, institutions and universities are satisfied with the new training method, organizations and companies can utilize the advantages of technology in employee training and boost productivity and retention anytime and anywhere (Minton, 2000; Bork, 2002)

However, there exist serious challenges that both the learners and the lecturers need

to overcome Looking back at the failure of online teaching systems in the late 1990s, Kentnor assures because of the shortage of understanding about online teaching and pedagogy in the online environment (Marcus, 2004; Bernard et al., 2004; cited by Kentnor, 2015) Moreover, the failure is also caused by the misjudgment of the importance of the readiness of online teaching material, and the differences between direct teaching and online teaching (Arenson, 1998; cited by Kentnor, 2015) This challenge is widely agreed by other researchers; and from that lack of understanding, the investment to design well-documented material for online teaching becomes harder to achieve For academic staff, there are concerns about significantly increased workload when adapting the new way to educate (Bolliger & Wasilik, 2009; Gannon Cook, Ley, Crawford, & Warner, 2009; cited by Downing

& Dyment, 2013) and they would not recommend this mode of teaching to others (Ward Ulmer, Watson, & Derby, 2007)

Also, the shortage of knowledge related to this field is also caused by the lack of research studies that focus on implementing online teaching (Akaslan & Law, 2011) This can negatively affect the educators; for instance, many traditional tenure-track faculty are new to online teaching and lack formal education in how to successfully teach online (Gülbahar & Adnan, 2020; He et al., 2014; Kyei-Blankson et al., 2019; Mohr, & Shelton, 2017; cited by Cutri & Mena, 2020), but they are being asked to transition, create, and implement online teaching (Allen & Seaman, 2016; Cutri & Whiting, 2018; Rennie & Morrison, 2013; cited by Cutri & Mena, 2020)

Moreover, it appears that a large number of potential employers simply do not perceive online education as a credible process (Gayton, 2009; Huss, 2007; cited

by Downing & Dyment, 2013) That is a contributed reason to the collapse of online education system in the late 1990s in the US, when the institution implemented the system with lack of support for the faculty and lack of leadership with an understanding of online education (Kentnon, 2015)

2.2 Readiness level in Synchronous teaching in the Online environment

2.2.1 Definition

To define the sense of readiness for teaching, Giallo and Little (2003) stated that it

is “the teacher’s feeling of being ready is important in the way she/he delivers the lessons However, Baker (2002) has a more detailed definition of teaching readiness, which is (1) a harmony combination of one’s capability and their willingness to complete a job; (2) an important role; and (3) when teachers feel prepared to implement their pedagogical abilities: cognitive and affective aspects Though the definition of teaching readiness is concise and clear, prior research doesn't provide a detailed definition of online teaching readiness Prior research defines online teaching readiness by listing factors that contribute to the preparation

of the teacher to become successful in this field Therefore, based on the definition

of Baker (2002), online teaching readiness can be defined as “the harmony combination of teacher’s capability and willingness to implement the pedagogical abilities in the online environment.”

In the previous part, from the evolution of online teaching, the importance of constructed courses, as well as well-documented online materials with the constructive support from the institution is vividly depicted These are some typical characteristics to form the readiness in the online teaching environment The readiness in teaching, especially in a relatively new as online teaching, becomes essential, as Altun (2003, cited by Ibili, 2020) stated in his study that is “an important factor on attitudes of pre-service teachers towards e-learning”

well-2.2.2 Factors that influence EFL teacher readiness for STOE

To list and classify the factors that affect online teaching readiness, there are various viewpoints in classification of criteria When conducting their study, Aydin & Tasci (2005) mentioned two prior frameworks conducted by Haney (2002) and Chapnick (2000) While Haney uses 70 questions to assess the organizational readiness then classify into seven categories, which are (1) Human resources; (2) learning management system; (3) learners; (4) content; (5) information technology; (6) finance; and (7) vendor, Chapnick lists 66 factors groups them into 8 categories: (1) Psychological; (2) sociological; (3) environmental; (4) human resources; (5) financial readiness; (6) technological skill (aptitude); (7) equipment; (8) content readiness The methods of two researchers are also different, as Haney uses a checklist to ask the managers to decide the level of importance of each aspect, while Chapnick uses multiple choices for each question and expects managers to select only one response that represents the situation of their respective companies These researches have constructed the fundamental theory of assessing readiness for online education; however, these researches didn’t specifically focus on teachers and lecturers Therefore, they need the following research to deploy more on the readiness of certain groups of learners and teachers, particularly in this research is EFL lecturers in universities

When conducting the study about essential factors that ULIS lecturers need to become successful in the online teaching environment, Nguyen & Nguyen (2010)

consider the distance learning environment, teacher’s role, institution management and support, learning condition, students-lecturer interaction and technology factor

To measure the importance of each factor, the authors use a deep-end interview to collect the data then conclude the important factors Though this study can cover most of the essential factors that are required to become a successful online teacher; however, the classification of content omitted several essential criteria, namely the attitude toward online teaching or the content readiness

After reviewing prior research, the author acknowledged that Akaslan & Law (2011) study consists of various similarities with the ongoing research, as this research also investigates the readiness level of lecturers and it was conducted with a population

of faculty lecturers at higher education institutions Categories of teacher’s readiness are divided into four main groups, namely people, technology, institution and content factors For each group, the category is continued to be divided, as can be seen from Figure 1 However, when studying the lecturers’ perceptions of readiness for synchronous online teaching, as well as identifying the factors that influence this readiness, there are a number of factors that lecturers have little to no dependence

on Therefore, from the original model, the researcher attempts to modify certain aspects to apply to this research, which can be described in Figure 2

Figure 1: A model to measure readiness for online education (Akaslan & Law

(2011)

Figure 2: Proposed model for online teaching readiness (based on Alaskan & Law,

2011)

2.2.2.1 Personal readiness

As can be seen from the evolution, the failure of the online teaching systems in the

US was considered to be caused by the lack of preparation of educators and uncertainty to the success of the new teaching method Therefore, the success of online teaching heavily relies on the people, particularly the educators who are involved in online teaching

To investigate the people factor, Akaslan & Law (2011) consider relevant skills, experiences, confidence levels, and attitudes of the people concerned, namely researchers, lecturers, administrators and strategists towards elearning may have an effect on the integration of e-learning Nguyen & Nguyen (2010) consider that if this process keeps implementing, eventually the role of teacher will become unnecessary However, at this certain time, the role of the lecturer also needs to change, and the lecturers should be aware of that The teacher also needs to acquire several necessary experiences, such as the technological skills at basic level, as Akaslan & Law pointed out, there is generally a linear relationship between internet/software skills and confidence regarding e-learning From those opinions, the role of teaching and technology skills, as well as teachers’ attitude appear vividly Moreover, as online teachers are required to carry more requirements than usual, the readiness of knowledge becomes more essential than ever, as they not only instructs the learners, but now they have to play the role of a guide, a

collaborative partner who can introduce the reliable source for the learner to study

self-2.2.2.2 Technology readiness

The emergence of evolving technologies leaves a significant impact on educational development (Ismail, Bokhare, Azizan & Azman, 2013) As the primary means of communication and education are the Internet and technological devices, technology becomes the fundamental factor of all To assess the readiness in technology, the readiness factor can be divided into three categories, namely resources, technology literacy and ease of tool use The resources category assesses the availability of hardware (personal computer, smartphones or tablets), softwares (operating system (such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux), browsers (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox), office tools (Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Evernote) and video conferencing platform (Skype, Zoom, Google Meet)) and IT infrastructure (such as the availability and stability of internet connection) The skills category assesses the literacy of computer usage and software usage to support the teaching process in general and particularly to teach in the online environment This section also assesses teachers' understanding of technology and their perspectives on the application of technology in teaching in general and online teaching particularly

2.2.2.3 Content readiness

From the evaluation of online teaching, the lack of online teaching material and the differences between material for online teaching and direct teaching are fundamental aspects causing the collapse of the online educational system in the US Therefore, the content readiness of online teaching plays an essential role, as it best supplies the learners to achieve the goals of the courses Oketch (2013) stated that “Content

is the driving engine of any system”; therefore, According to Lopes (2003) content readiness can be associated with the availability of existing content, its format, levels

of interactivity, reusability, and interoperability In this study, according to Oketch, the content will be assessed by its availability, structure and reusability; also it will

assess the lecturers’ satisfaction with the content as well as their training needs for online teaching content development

2.2.2.4 Lecturers’ perceptions on institutional support

As Oketch (2013) explained, if institutions want elearning to be successful, they must be prepared both culturally and environmentally Hung (2016) also highlights the importance of support from institutions, which is an important dimension for teachers’ online learning, as it corresponds to factors that help or hinder people’s behavior in certain environments Because of that, according to Oketch, this factor will assess the perception of lecturers in terms of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use

Akaslan & Law (2011) consider the support should perform by offering a good infrastructure, a supportive culture, incentives, models and resources However, the support in infrastructure and supportive culture is not everything In analyzing corporate educational environments, Joo, Joung, and Sim (2011, cited by Hung, 2016) identified three important types of institutional support: superiors’ support, colleagues’ support, and positive organizational atmosphere Because the support towards the adaptation and use of elearning is essential, the lecturers’ perception of this aspect is also included in the assessment

2.3 Research gap

2.3.1 Review of previous studies

Previously, online teaching faced many difficulties due to the lack of conditions for teachers to access information technology, inadequate infrastructure, and lack of investment from schools Koo (2008) discussed the current situation of Online Collaborative Learning in Malaysia, saying that their teachers “many of them did not have much exposure in using computers or the Internet for collaborative purposes as they hardly used to the Internet for teaching and learning” and “Teachers can more successfully carry out OCL if it gains support from school's principal or school's management.” (Koo, 2008)

In the studies published when the Covid-19 epidemic broke out worldwide, all countries around the world organized online teaching In these online teaching studies, studies have reported that online teaching experiences are pretty limited Coman et al (2020) indicate that “higher education institutions in Romania were not prepared for exclusively online learning.” According to Atmojo & Nugroho (2020),

“online learning does not run well since it lacks preparation and planning” due to problems coming from the students, the teachers, and the students' parents, along with valid reasons More specifically, when Hasbi & Sari (2021) describes the difficulties teachers have confronted while teaching English distantly using Google Classroom, such as the effort keeping students active in the Google Classroom sessions, managing students in the online tasks and submissions, and dealing with technical problems such as unstable signals and limited internet access It can be seen that, for an extended period preparing for an online course, difficulties in building curricula and activities suitable for the online environment will be barriers for the trainers Previous studies have also shown the significant influence of technology foundation and technology readiness on online teaching (Philson, 1999; Lee & Zulkifli, 1999) states that access to the Internet at schools “is still the key issue that needs to be addressed before introducing any Internet-based teaching and learning approaches in schools.” Oketch (2013) also claims technological readiness

is “the most important factor followed by culture readiness in eLearning readiness.”

Some studies also compare each group’s readiness to correlate; however, results between studies are not consistent Hung (2016), when studying Teacher readiness

in Online development, said male teachers show greater readiness in the dimension

of learning-transfer self-efficacy than did female teachers, or teachers with a master's degree “assigned a heavier weight to the dimensions of communication self-efficacy and learning-transfer self-efficacy than did teachers with a bachelor's degree ” However, in another study, Soetan & Coker stated "There is no difference between male and female lecturers' readiness to use online technologies for instructional delivery." (Soetan & Coker, 2018) Oketch (2013) also shares his

opinion when saying, “there is no significant relationship between age, gender, and level of education on eLearning readiness.” However, due to the dominant gender and academic degree of certain groups of teachers, it will not be possible to evaluate the correlation of readiness in synchronous online teaching among the target groups

in this study

2.3.2 Research gap

After reviewing the literature, the author notifies certain gaps that can be covered by this research As online teaching has just been implemented for 25 years and developed rapidly recently due to the pandemic, the quantity of research on this issue

is still relatively limited As Downing & Dyment (2013) stated, there is only a modest body of research reporting on academics’ perceptions of their preparedness

to teach online and their beliefs in the online learning environment’s effectiveness Therefore, this leads to limitations in the search for reference resources and definitions of terms For example, there is no clear definition of online teaching readiness from prior studies

Another issue drawn from previous studies is that they focused a lot on elearning in general audiences, such as Chapnick’s study (2000), or for students, such as Nguyen’s study (2015); however, there is a lack of types of research conducted on teachers Moreover, when doing research, due to the diversity of disciplines in higher education, research on teacher readiness is often varied and cannot be cross-applied between disciplines

In Vietnam, there are not many studies on readiness for EFL teachers in general and EFL lecturers at universities and colleges in Vietnam in particular There has been

a study of this by Nguyen & Nguyen (2010), but they only outlined the essential factors for teachers to successfully teach online, but not an assessment method to check whether the teacher has been equipped with those factors or not Simultaneously, this study’s implementation will be a basis for assessing EFL

teachers’ readiness in Vietnam for online teaching, precisely synchronous online teaching, for many different learning levels

With respect to the research as mentioned above, this study is designed to identify the factors that influence teacher readiness for an online environment and measure the factors achieved and university lecturers’ needs to teach synchronously in an online environment successfully

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Setting

This study is conducted at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE) at the University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU) in Hanoi, in early 2021 Considering ULIS is one of the earliest universities to have adapted online teaching into the university curriculum, this is an appropriate environment for the research The policy related to digitizing the educational content and developing distance education is one of the approaches

of the university Moreover, synchronous online teaching has been operated at the faculty since the beginning of COVID-19 in February 2020; and it is now being used

as one of the alternative methods to educate learners in special circumstances Thanks to the online teaching period due to the pandemic, a considerable number of lecturers at FELTE, ULIS had the opportunity to familiarize with the new teaching approach; even so, some lecturers have equipped particular experience in teaching synchronously in an online environment from that teaching period

as well as the unbiasedness as it “eliminates or minimizes subjectivity of judgment” (Kealey & Protheroe, 1996, 141-165) Onthe other hand, the qualitative approach is more subjective, as it “produces the thick description of participants’ feelings, opinions, and experiences; and interprets the meanings of their actions” (Denzin,

1989) Together, these two methods create an overview, both subjective and objective, while minimizing each method’s shortcomings

3.3 Sampling and Participants

This study population is approximately 130 people, who are currently teaching lecturers at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, VNU, Hanoi This can be attributed to the fact that, as previously said, lecturers at FELTE, ULIS are working in an ideal and supportive environment to promote distance education, as a majority of them have opportunities to teach online synchronously, and broaden their experience of this new educational method

During the survey collection, the author chose proportional stratified random sampling to ensure that the percentage of representatives from different divisions is equal, based on the quantity of lecturers in each division Their division sorts the participants at the faculty, namely English 1 division, English 2 division, Translation and Interpretation division, English Language teaching methodology division, Fast-track division and English for Specific purposes division The sample size is calculated by using Yamane’s formula (1967) with the level of precision being 7% and the required sample size needing 78 participants

For the interview section, because the number of surveys collected is relatively overwhelming, conducting interviews with all participants is burdensome and unnecessary Therefore, purposeful sampling, by selecting participants who have strong opinions, such as strongly agreeing or disagreeing on specific criteria in the questionnaire for interviewing, is a more beneficial and less time-consuming way The number of interviewees is approximately 5 to 7 people

in numerical form or short answers, time-saving and cost-effective (Griffith, 2012) After analyzing prior research, the researcher decided to adapt and modify the questionnaire form designed by Oketch to measure teachers’ readiness for e-learning

in higher education institutions associated at the University of Nairobi

The original questionnaire consists of 45 questions and is divided into five sections, named after the aforementioned framework, including Respondent demographic details, online teaching readiness, content readiness, technology readiness, and culture readiness Before collecting the data, the original questionnaire is adapted to collect data from FELTE, ULIS lecturers To fit the research environment, which is concentrated on foreign language lecturers at FELTE, ULIS, and the condition, as the research is conducted in the 2020-2021 academic year, some modification is adapted to increase the relevance when collecting data for the current study

After considering the similarities in the environment, population, objectives, and criteria of interest of the two studies, the researcher believes this framework is suitable and adaptable when conducting at FELTE, ULIS, as the questionnaire is concise and covered the factors of teaching readiness at the online environment as mentioned in the literature review

3.4.1.2 Interview

Regarding the criteria from the questionnaire, the interview consists of eight questions based on four factors stated in the questionnaire To conduct the interview session, the author adapted and modified the interview questions designed by Nguyen & Nguyen (2010) about factors that ULIS lecturer required to achieve to be

successful in the online teaching environment Five participants who usually show strongly agreeing or disagreeing opinions about a specific criterion are selected for

the interview (See Appendix C)

3.4.2 Procedure

The research process follows this sequence: from quantitative surveys through questionnaires to deep-end interviews to ensure the results’ consistency and accuracy Before surveying a large scale, a lecturer from the faculty would conduct

a pilot survey The purpose of this is to check the suitability and reliability of the survey in Vietnam The survey was then distributed in both online and offline forms The researcher can directly meet the lecturers then collect the survey offline at a suitable time, such as during class breaks At the same time, the online form via Google Form is also used to reach participants who cannot participate in the offline survey The online survey was delivered to the lecturers via email This process takes approximately 7 to 10 days After analyzing the results from the questionnaire, the research team conducted interviews on the most notable cases, such as those who strongly agree or disagree about a criterion in the study The interviews were recorded, and the identities of the interviewees were kept confidential After the interview session, the audiotape was transcribed and used for later data analysis

3.5 Data analysis

3.5.1 Analyzing the quantitative data

Once data has been collected from the questionnaire, the data were presented on SPSS (Statistics Package for Social Science) software For 43 Likert scale questions, the data were converted from "Strongly agree", "Agree", “Neutral”, "Disagree" and

"Strongly disagree" into numbers from 5 to 1 This way, the data were expressed in

an intuitive way and can arrange from highest to lowest, as well as find important indicators such as variance and standard deviation, from which the opinion of the participants can be judged easily Similarly to prior research, the assessment model from Aydin & Tasci (2005) is used to assess the respondents’ readiness In their research, Aydin and Tasci described their assessing model by this figure below, and

determined the expected level of readiness of 3.41 out of 5 The short answers were analyzed by selecting keywords, identifying the content of the answers and arranging about the appropriate groups, combined with the answers above to give the views of the participants and consider later interviewing

Figure 3: Assessing readiness model (Ayden & Tasci, 2005)

3.5.2 Analyzing the qualitative data

With quantitative data, particularly recordings from participants, these data were processed through Transana software After transcribing and selecting keywords, transcription were filtered according to the topics mentioned, namely the content, the people, the technology and the institution

3.6 Ethical considerations

Measures are taken to ensure that the research was carried out in adherence to ethical standards of the highest order All of the participants in the project are voluntary At the beginning of the project, the study purpose is stated clearly to the participants Each participant is known as anonymous or he/she is assigned a pseudonym, which

is to be used whenever he/she is mentioned in the research report They are also able

to quit participating in the research at any time Before the interview sessions, necessary preparations are made to make sure that the interviewee feels comfortable when sharing their reflection on his/her experience The participants can complete the survey and interview at any time that they feel at ease, and via any platform (face-to-face interview or via online platforms such as Zoom or Google Meet) After

each interview, the transcriptions are sent to the interviewee to proofread before being analyzed All the data collected from the surveys and during the interviews are carefully stored in password-protected folders.

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS

After collecting the data through questionnaire and interview sessions, the result from the data collection procedure will be presented with discussions in this chapter This result and discussion will be used to investigate the readiness level of synchronous teaching in the online environment; therefore, the outline of this chapter will follow from aspects mentioned in the literature review

A Analysis of the questionnaire

1 Summary of survey collection procedure and Participants’ demographic factors

After the questionnaire was distributed, the researcher received a total of 75 responses, or about 63% response rate This is a satisfactory figure for data analysis, according to Mugenda (2003), claiming that a ratio above 60% is “sufficient for analysis and representative of the population.” Furthermore, 75 is already close to the number of samples to collect as mentioned in the sample size in the previous chapter The figures below will report basic information about participants, including their age, gender, highest degree, and seniority

Figures 4 and 5 describe the gender and age of the participants A total of 69 participants were female, accounting for more than 90% of the total number of participants Regarding participants’ age, according to the report, the participants were between 25 and 52 years old and divided into three age groups In which, the group from 30 to 39 years old accounts for half of the survey participants

Figure 4: Participants’ gender

Figure 5: Participants’ age groups

Figures 6 and 7 illustrate the participants' highest degree and their seniority at the Faculty The majority of lecturers participating in the survey have a master's degree, accounting for up to 80% Approximately 15% of the participants hold a doctorate and only 5% have a bachelor’s degree Regarding the number of years working at FELTE, according to figure 6, the number of people working for the Faculty under

5 years accounts for the highest proportion with 36%, while the other seniority groups have a relatively even distribution, from 20% to 23%

Figure 6: Participants’ highest degree

Figure 7: Participants’ seniority groups

2 Readiness level in personal factors

In this section, the researcher investigates the readiness of teachers on three factors, namely knowledge, skills about STOE, and lecturers’ attitudes about this teaching approach The following table shows that the participants have acquired considerable knowledge and preparation relating to synchronous online teaching The majority of teachers reported that they have enough information about this form

of teaching (M = 3.81 with SD = 0.562); as well as they are ready to “move beyond