Demystifying the effectiveness of emergency remote teaching during global pandemic: Evidence from India

Abstract

Given the adverse impacts of the global pandemic COVID-19 on higher educational institutions worldwide, this study aims to examine the effectiveness of emergency remote teaching (ERT), especially in the developing country context, India. In addition, this study investigates the antecedents and consequences of academic performance and explores social media use as a moderator in these relationships. A carefully crafted survey instrument was distributed. Data was collected from 719 respondents from the affiliated arts and science college of a renowned university in southern India. After checking the psychometric properties of the constructs using the Smart Partial Least Squares (Smart-PLS) of structural equation modelling, and hierarchical regression was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results of this research indicate that course content, instructor-learner interaction, and student expectation are positively associated with academic performance; social media use moderate the relationship between (i) course content and academic performance, (ii) student expectation and academic performance, and (iii) learning platforms and academic performance. The results also support the positive relationship between academic performance and students’ satisfaction with ERT.