A Framework for Transitioning to Virtual Classes During Life-Threatening Pandemics Like COVID-19

This research explains the benefits and challenges of virtual classes as experienced by university students during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The limited research on university students' experiences in virtual classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted physical classes and forced educational institutions to blindly switch from physical classes to virtual classes, served as the inspiration for this study. The absence of a framework for smoothly transitioning from physical classes to virtual classes challenged this process. Furthermore, relatively few studies have been done on the empirical context of a developing nation with distinct social and economic circumstances, concerning university students' experiences of virtual classrooms during COVID-19. Thus a quantitative study using a single case study of a university in Southern Africa was guided by the duality of structure in Giddens Structuration Theory, which explains students' experiences by highlighting both positive aspects-such as flexibility, collaboration, accessibility, and availability of course materials-and negative aspects-such as high costs, boredom, and a lack of resources and training. Analysis was done using Microsoft Excel and the findings also showed how, during the COVID-19 epidemic, structures of dominance, signification, and legitimacy formed as a result of behaviors related to leadership, resources, empowerment, and adoption, which both facilitated and hampered the smooth transition to virtual classrooms. The paper concluded by proposing a framework for transitioning to virtual classes during life-threatening situations like the COVID-19 pandemic. Although not generalizable across all university contexts, these findings provide a foundation for understanding the university students' experiences in virtual classes during COVID-19. These findings have both practical and theoretical implications since they both provide an explanation of experiences in virtual classes as well as propose a framework for guiding the process of moving away from physical classes towards virtual classes during life-threatening situations.