Investigating University Language Teacher Efficacy in the Adoption of Emergency Remote Teaching during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Hong Kong: A Mixed Methods Research

Abstract

During the pandemic, university teachers have been tasked to maintain teaching activities through alternative formats using online teaching. Unlike others, learning in language education occurs mainly through classroom interactions between human agencies which are disrupted in the online environment. Grounded on the teacher efficacy framework, this study investigated university language teacher efficacy in the adoption of emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong. A mixed methods approach was adopted in response to the calls from academia for narrative studies on the topic. A sample of 84 university language teachers retrospectively reported their online teaching capabilities during the pandemic for descriptive and inferential analyses, through which three groups were identified via two-step clustering. 13 follow-up interviews were subsequently conducted for thematic analysis. Three groups were found to adapt differently to the online environment. This study unveiled that teacher efficacy in ERT is related to that in face-to-face teaching because of intact curricula during ERT, and suggested language centers acting as an intermediary between high-inertia universities and teachers to provide timely conditions for learning for reskilling and upskilling teachers on engaging pedagogies and to facilitate the organic growth of the community of practice for better formal and informal peer-to-peer learning.