Transitioning from Physical Classroom to Distance Education during the COVID-19 Crisis: A Lebanese Case Study in Higher Education

Distance education (DE) is neither a new concept nor process. Learning through postal correspondence can be traced back to more than 150 years. The avenues of DE have evolved from postal correspondence, videotaped lessons, electronic communications, to distance teaching higher education institutes. Up until the start of 2020, DE was an educational process of choice or preference. However, when WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020, DE was no longer an option but rather the only choice and educational avenue for the majority of the universities worldwide; Lebanon is no exception. This chapter considered the case study of DE at Phoenicia University, Lebanon, studying instructors’ attitudes and perceptions about some of the quality attributes of DE such as interactivity, inclusiveness, and immediacy prior to and after their first online semester. A mixed methods approach was adopted, where pre- and post-test surveys were administered with 54 instructors in Spring 2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 instructors toward the end of that semester. This study found that the participants held a more positive stance when it came to instructor immediacy following their first online semester. On the contrary, instructors’ attitudes and perceptions toward interactivity and inclusiveness did not significantly change between the pre- and post-test results, maintaining a less favorable stance of DE for these particular attributes in comparison to physical classroom education. The study concluded that overall, participants perceived DE as an efficient approach given the unprecedented crisis; nonetheless, the effectiveness of such an approach was challenged by many obstacles and limitations due to internet connection issues and the unreliable power infrastructure.