Abstract
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency remote teaching (ERT) in vocational colleges has become a point of attention in the academic community. This study adopts qualitative research methods, including content analysis and multiple case studies, to examine the implementation path and encountered problems of ERT in vocational colleges. It examines 326 textual materials and 37 teaching cases related to ERT during a period of home isolation in 89 vocational colleges in Province J, China. The findings revealed that vocational colleges have developed an adaptive path to the construction of ERT spaces, guided by the principles of usability, usefulness, and ease-of-use. The study identified problems related to the construction and implementation of ERT activities. Furthermore, vocational colleges have developed diverse and pragmatic strategies, forming an integrated approach to ERT. This study provides insight on improving the resilience of the higher vocational education system in response to educational crises.
Introduction
As the COVID-19 pandemic has become rampant worldwide, education in many countries has been repeatedly disrupted (Alismaiel et al., 2022; Mustafa, 2020). According to statistics, more than 1.7 million students worldwide have been affected (OECD, 2020), and as of February 28, 2022, 40 million students had not yet returned to their campus (UNESCO, 2022). During this period, remote teaching became an important measure to maintain students’ learning. As online teaching during the pandemic was characterized by passive participation of teachers and students, prolonged long-distance experience, and inadequate preparation (Mo et al., 2022; Ye et al., 2022), contrary to online teaching before the pandemic, some studies have used different terms to distinguish them, including emergency distance education (Babacan & Dogru Yuvarlakbas, 2022; Hodges et al., 2020) and emergency online learning (Bozkurt & Sharma, 2020; Murphy, 2020). Based on this, this study adopted emergency remote teaching (ERT) to refer to prolonged remote teaching from home during the COVID-19 pandemic (Yu et al., 2023). As a place for training highly skilled personnel, vocational colleges, whose regular teaching modes involve blended learning (Robertson, 2008; Shen et al., 2011) but mainly face-to-face teaching (Brinthaupt et al., 2011), face various challenges due to the sudden shift to ERT (Griffin & Mihelic, 2019; la Velle et al., 2020). Consequently, understanding the implementation path and problems faced in ERT in vocational colleges is not only helpful in identifying and promoting effective practices but also in accurately defining and improving subsequent work in response to the identified problems. This lays the foundation for subsequent responses to public education crises.
Literature Review
Although there were relatively rich online teaching practices that could be referenced before the pandemic (Anderson, 2008; Cattaneo et al., 2015; Catterall & Davis, 2013; Kitsiou & Vlachopoulou, 2008), review of these studies on ERT in vocational education was conducted using external support in terms of human and material resources. Additionally, pre-pandemic campus teaching was not conducted entirely in a fully online and remote home-based situation. Therefore, the relevant research conducted before the pandemic is not only difficult to adapt to the needs of ERT practices, but is also unable to present the true situation of ERT during the pandemic.
Research on ERT during the pandemic focused on three main themes: first, the supporting conditions for ERT, including the development and application of ERT platforms (Görl-Rottstädt et al., 2021; Suprapto et al., 2020; Winaldi et al., 2020), the development of ERT courses (Zou et al., 2020), and improvement recommendations (Babacan & Dogru Yuvarlakbas, 2022); second, the implementation of ERT, including suggestions for ERT (Kovacs et al., 2021), ERT models (Liu et al., 2020), and challenges faced by regular university teachers in ERT (Jiang et al., 2023); and third, the effects and value of ERT, including teachers and students’ satisfaction with ERT (Ng et al., 2021), their perspectives on ERT (Babacan & Dogru Yuvarlakbas, 2022; Faltynkova et al., 2021; Syauqi et al., 2020), the effectiveness of ERT (Suprapto et al., 2020), impact of ERT on the development of teachers and students (Hargaš et al., 2021), and advantages and disadvantages of ERT (Ang & Zhang, 2021).
In summary, despite the growing body of research ERT, there is a lack of focus on vocational education in the field of ERT. Existing studies mainly revolved around the support conditions, models, recommendations, effects, and value of ERT, with limited relevance to vocational education. The study by Han et al. (2020) is closely related to this research. They combined questionnaire surveys with case studies to investigate the effectiveness and challenges of ERT in vocational education. However, their study did not reveal the specific ERT practices in vocational colleges from a theoretical perspective. Moreover, their interpretation of the challenges focused more on management and support mechanisms rather than on the pedagogical aspects of ERT. Considering the unique characteristics of vocational education, it is crucial to address the specific practices and challenges of ERT in vocational colleges to bridge the research gap and respond to the demand for sustainable development in vocational education (Cox & Prestridge, 2020; Bandias et al., 2022; Hadriana et al., 2021).
In light of this, this study considers all 89 vocational colleges in J Province, China, as the sample and uses their real textual data on ERT as the research object. It explores the implementation path and potential issues of ERT in vocational colleges from the perspectives of constructing an ERT space and implementing its activities. This study provides theoretical references for vocational colleges to conduct ERT and offers insight on identifying the problems faced in the construction of ERT spaces and the implementation of activities. This, in turn, can promote the optimization of the ERT space and activity system and enhance the resilience of the vocational education system in responding to uncertain public educational crises. Based on the above, this study primarily focused on four research questions:
RQ1: What is the construction path of ERT spaces in vocational colleges?
RQ2: What are the current problems in the ERT spaces in vocational colleges?
RQ3: What is the specific implementation path of ERT in vocational colleges?
RQ4: What problems do vocational colleges face in the implementation of ERT?
Methodology
Method
This is a qualitative study that employed content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which may be in the form of texts of various formats, pictures, audio, or videos. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic manner (Bell et al., 2022). This study used content analysis to analyze text materials used in ERT by vocational colleges based on the micro-supportive conditions of ERT (ERT space) and captured the implementation path and problems encountered during ERT in vocational colleges. This approach has several advantages: it is easier to yield the implementation path of ERT activities and the construction path of an ERT space that meets the requirements of actual teaching; it helps to clarify the current problems of ERT; and it encourages timely countermeasures, the construction of software and hardware, and the theoretical system of ERT in handling major education crises.
Research Samples
Respondents comprised 89 vocational colleges in China’s Province J. Province J was chosen as the context setting because its overall educational quality in higher vocational colleges is at the forefront in China. Therefore, analyzing ERT practice in Province J captures effectively the implementation path of ERT and helps to comprehensively diagnose common problems in every aspect of ERT.
Data Collection
To obtain textual materials on ERT practice from the 89 vocational colleges, three main methods were employed: autonomous collection, provision by colleges, and data provided by relevant departments. First, we autonomously collected 368 ERT news, notices, and documents published by 89 colleges in their official websites from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic until March 29, 2020. Second, instructors from 35 vocational colleges provided data on the 37 ERT cases. Third, the Vocational Education Teaching and Instruction Committee in Province J provided updates on the ERT data from all 89 colleges during the study period, including information on courses offered, online platforms used, digital resources, and assessment methods, which were updated daily in the same collaborative online document.
Theoretical Framework
The delivery of ERT requires the construction of a learning space, followed by the design and implementation of teaching activities (Kong, 2021). Therefore, the present study explored the implementation path and problems encountered during ERT in vocational colleges from two aspects: the construction of an ERT space and the implementation of ERT activities.
In terms of constructing an ERT space, Jing and Shen (2021) proposed that the three essential elements of a learning space are place, resources, and tools. In addition, virtual learning places, digital resources, and digital tools are the key components of virtual learning spaces (Jing et al., 2022). Other scholars have suggested that learning spaces provide a place (platform), materials, and tools for learning (Gros, 2016; Spector, 2014; Wahlstedt et al., 2008). Based on these viewpoints, this study used virtual places, digital resources, and digital tools as the theoretical framework for analyzing ERT spaces (i.e., the Level 1 node in content coding).
In terms of implementing ERT activities, De la Fuente and Martínez-Vicente (2007) proposed that a standardized teaching process includes four elements: teaching, learning, interaction, and evaluation, which are considered by many as crucial factors for evaluating educational quality (Cardelle-Elawar, 1997; Harvey & Green, 1993; Mukhopadhyay, 2020; Seyfried & Pohlenz, 2018). Balula and Moreira (2014) submitted that learning, interaction, and technology are the three dimensions of online teaching. In view of this, teaching, learning, interaction, and evaluation were considered in the theoretical framework for analyzing ERT activities (i.e., Level 1 nodes in content coding).
Therefore, this study developed the following ERT analysis framework, as shown in Figure 1.
ERT analysis theoretical framework.
Data Analysis
To ensure the credibility of the content analysis, this study employed two researchers to independently conduct three levels of coding of text materials and then evaluated the credibility through intercoder agreement and reliability values. The specific analysis process strictly followed the general steps of the content analysis method (Bengtsson, 2016): first, materials were imported into Nvivo11; then, virtual places, digital resources, and digital tools were considered the core coding results of the construction of the ERT space (Level 1 node); and teaching, learning, interaction, and evaluation were considered the core coding results of the implementation of ERT activities (Level 1 node). Second, two experienced researchers independently coded the materials, retrieving 108 Level 3 nodes, among which 94 nodes agreed on coding with an intercoder agreement (K) of 0.870, and reliability (R) of 93.1%, which is acceptable (Gaur & Kumar, 2018; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Subsequently, nodes with low connectivity were categorized, combined, and rejected, and 95 Level 3 nodes were obtained, of which 39 nodes belonged to the construction of ERT spaces and 59 nodes were the implementation of ERT activities. Later, the relational coding of Level 3 nodes generated 10 Level 2 nodes for the construction of ERT spaces and 15 Level 2 nodes for the implementation of ERT activities. Finally, a qualitative comparative analysis was conducted on the results of the three-level coding to analyze the paths and problems faced by vocational colleges in implementing ERT.
Research Ethic
In this study, some of the ERT text materials from 89 vocational colleges were open-source materials from the colleges’ official websites, some were provided by the colleges themselves, and the remainder were provided by relevant educational authorities, who received a report from the colleges and approved it. Therefore, ethical issues related to this study were addressed.
Results
The Construction of ERT Spaces
The coding results for the ERT spaces in the 89 vocational colleges are presented in Table 1.
The Coding Results of the Construction of ERT Spaces in Vocational Colleges.
Virtual Places
This study further presents the types of platforms that provide virtual places, as listed in Table 2. From Table 2, it can be observed that some of these platforms are intended for education and others for non-educational purposes (e.g., work, social, entertainment, live streaming, etc.). Nevertheless, all of them were used by teachers practicing ERT for their support of the ERT function. In terms of type, they mainly consist of online teaching platforms and systems, which include education department promotions, enterprise promotions, self-built by schools, and social deployment, digital workplace platforms/software, social media, entertainment community/tools, and video websites (Al-Rahmi et al., 2022). An analysis of descriptive statistics reveals that 89.9% of the colleges simultaneously used various platforms, with a mean of 6.5. Regarding function, digital workplace platform platforms are designed to offer virtual places and digital resources, live-streaming and interactive experiences, support for real practical training, recording of processes and learning performance analysis, and teaching management. As Table 2 shows, to livestream, interact with students, and post messages, teachers far more frequently use digital workplace platforms and social media than online teaching platforms, and rarely are these platforms equipped with the function of providing online practical training.
Types and Functions of Digital Workplace Platforms Used by the 89 Vocational Colleges.
Digital Resources
Digital resources are important favorable conditions for ERT as a medium that carries a cognitive object. We identified five major sources of digital resources used by vocational colleges: first, online open courses and digital repositories have already been built by education departments at the national, provincial, municipal, and school levels. Second, there are many kinds of digital resources in online teaching platforms (e.g., educational apps, websites, etc.). Third, internal enterprise or digital resources are built via school-enterprise cooperation. Fourth, provisionally built digital resources revolve around teaching goals and demands for teaching activities by teachers. Fifth, resources are automatically generated during ERT. The representations of these resources include audio, video (short video, video recording), images, text (WORD, PDF, and PPT), and animation (2D and 3D animations). The content that has been mapped contains new knowledge that promotes the acquisition of knowledge and skills, knowledge of pandemic prevention that is conducive for mental and physical health, and patriotic and life education that boosts moral cultivation and rational knowledge.
Digital Tools
Digital tools contribute to an individual’s interaction with a platform, other people, and resources (Pappas, 2012) and make learning more effective (Jisc, 2016). From the perspective of support for the teaching and learning process, there are five main categories of digital tools used in ERT applications in vocational colleges: (1) tools for providing and producing resources. The former includes various online teaching platforms with embedded online courses and digital resources, whereas the latter comprises PPT and screen recorders. (2) Tools for teaching and learning involve information terminals that input and output information and encourage interaction and are capable of livestreaming, interaction, collaboration, and training. (3) Tools for process recording and learning performance analysis are predominantly add-on functions embedded in online teaching platforms mostly used for the recording and visual analysis of simple behavioral data (e.g., number of learners, views of resources, and number of posts from students). (4) The fourth category comprises tools capable of teaching evaluation, including tests, exercises, questionnaires, and other theoretical tools designed by teachers and platforms and software that provide or support the release of these tools (make them available to students). (5) Tools for teaching management that can bolster teacher-student communication efficiency. They comprise social media that support online attendance checks, sending notifications, creating class groups, online course selection, workplace software, and classroom management software.
Implementation of ERT Activities
The coding results for the implementation of ERT activities in the 89 vocational colleges are shown in Table 3.
The Coding Results of the Implementation of ERT Activities in Vocational Colleges.
Teaching
Teaching is the process in which teachers design and implement by focusing on learning goals to help learners master new knowledge and improve their skills. As shown in Table 3, the implementation of ERT by vocational college teachers is as follows: first, teachers chiefly adopt three course delivery methods, namely livestreaming, pre-recording videos, and others (e.g., texting in chat boxes, voice messages/calls, etc.). In actual teaching practice, the three methods are used together. Second, regarding the organizational form of teaching, teachers mainly employ collective teaching (students attend courses together as a class) and tutoring, which are delivered through teaching new knowledge and answering questions in the form of livestreaming, pre-recording videos, and synchronous or asynchronous personalized communication online. Third, teaching behavior consists primarily of teaching, tutoring, demonstration (e.g., remote assistance, screen sharing, on-the-spot livestreaming, playing recordings of operation scenes of enterprises, etc.), Q&A sessions (e.g., raising questions, answering questions, feedback, etc.), assignments (e.g., distributing materials, issuing notice, assigning homework, etc.), and conversation (e.g., leaving a message online, bullet comment, etc.). Of the six types of behavior, demonstrations and assignments (including offline practice) are crucial ways for teachers to organize practical teaching. Fourth, teaching strategies include careful planning of activities, enhancing presence, fortifying the learning space, and building a collaborative team, all of which ensure that ERT progresses smoothly and effectively, see Table 4.
The Concrete Embodiment and Excerpts of Collected Text Materials.
Learning
Learning is the process by which students master new knowledge and upgrade their skills through activities designed and organized by teachers. From Table 3, student learning in ERT is as follows: first, regarding learning styles, students principally learn synchronously online (e.g., attending online class), asynchronously online (e.g., peer review and independent study), and synchronously offline (e.g., using the materials they have on hand to perform offline practice autonomously). Second, in terms of organizational forms of learning, students undertake collective, collaborative, and differentiated (independent) learning. The target of collective learning is achieved by attending an online course with the entire class, which unifies the pace of learning and teamwork. Third, there are mainly seven types of learning behavior, including acquisition (e.g., preparing for the lesson, watching video, and reading), observation for emulation (e.g., watching operation live-stream, recording of enterprises’ cases, etc.), feedback (e.g., report, presentation, and vote), competition (e.g., between-group competition, fast answer race, and debate), collaboration (e.g., brainstorm, mutual assistance, and peer review), interaction (e.g., discussion, on-demand video, bullet comment, and comment), and practice (e.g., exploration, experiment, homework, exercise, and exam).
Interaction
Interaction is a cognitive process in which learners engage with each other. Emergency online interaction in vocational colleges was observed as follows: first, there are primarily two response mode types—synchronous interaction and asynchronous interaction. Depending on the actual teaching needs, teachers often mix and apply both types during the teaching process. Second, interaction subjects includes interactions between school-enterprises and local school teachers and students, interactions between teachers and students within the school, and interactions among students. Third, the interaction channels include voice, remote assistance, videos, bullet comments, real-time messages (often relying on chat boxes and virtual community discussion areas), and comments. Finally, there are five main types of interaction functions: inspiration, diagnosis, cooperation, competition, and redundancy (aiming to liven the learning atmosphere by appropriately interspersing relaxed topics).
Evaluation
Evaluation is a significant part of teaching that diagnoses results and clarifies the start of a new task (OECD, 2010). As listed in Table 3, the evaluation can be described in terms of several aspects. First, in terms of response modes, it can be divided into two types: synchronous evaluation, which often takes place in the teaching section when the whole class learns together and aims to assess students’ knowledge of new things; and asynchronous evaluation, which mostly takes place when learning is at a customized pace and is intended for differentiated tutoring. Second, regarding the evaluation mechanism, equal attention can be paid to two aspects in three ways: attention to both the learning process and outcome (i.e., formative evaluation and summative evaluation), attention to both assessment and encouragement (e.g., displaying excellent work and setting points as reward), and attention to both multi-subject and multi-dimension. Third, the subjects of the evaluation are primarily comprised teachers, students, parents, and machines. Finally, for the contents of the evaluation, the evaluation subjects mainly assess the learning effects via students’ learning performance (achieved by online teaching rounds, releasing questionnaires, consulting background data, interviewing students, and receiving feedback), and academic grades, as well as learning products (e.g., design plan, homework, model, and software).
Discussion
In the practice of ERT, higher vocational colleges were found to have formed a dynamic path for constructing ERT spaces that are guided by usability, usefulness, and ease-of-use and that aggregate multiple types of platforms, resources, and tools. Thus, the ERT provides functions that support different courses and activities with different requirements. In addition, vocational colleges have formed an ERT pattern featuring interactions that serve as the connection between teaching and learning, combination of learning and practice, evaluation stretching throughout the teaching process, and integration of theory and practice, as shown in Figure 2. However, restricted by the inadequacy of platforms’ function, quality professional resources, intelligent analysis of learning performance, and teachers’ capability of ERT, the overall current situation of ERT in vocational colleges is “surviving but not thriving,” consistent with the opinion of Kovacs et al. (2021).
The theory-practice integrated ERT pattern in China’s vocational colleges. T = teaching; I = interaction; L = learning; P = practice; E = evaluation.
The Construction Path of an ERT Space
Virtual Places: Aggregate Varied Platforms That are Usable, Useful, and Easy to Use and Update the Spaces With More Features
Teachers constructed virtual places by aggregating all types of platforms and software designed for educational or non-educational purposes and are functionally complementary. Among them, online teaching platforms, social media (e.g., WeChat and QQ), and digital workplace platforms are widely used. As aforementioned, the main reason teachers choosing online teaching and digital workplace platforms (which are intended for education) is their usefulness (i.e., meeting the demands of and appropriate for teaching and learning). Social media was chosen because of its ease-of-use. Teachers alternated between or coordinately used platforms that are functionally complementary (e.g., College S mentioned that every course was matched with the most suitable online teaching platform). And built a dynamic online learning space that supports different teaching content and activities, which can equip the virtual space with features that support learning. Meanwhile, backup plans for teaching platforms were drafted to fortify online learning spaces in ERT. Overall, guided by the ideas of usability, usefulness, and ease-of-use, teachers created dynamic virtual places to support ERT using a place that incorporates teaching as an add-on feature.
Digital Resources: Aggregate, Improve, and Self-Build Resources to Serve ERT
Teachers provided resource support for the orderly implementation of ERT activities in 3,114 public foundational courses, 21,076 professional practical courses, and temporarily added pandemic prevention courses. They achieved this by aggregating existing resources from different channels, improving resources as needed, creating new resources, and utilizing the generated resources. Throughout this process, teachers focused on representational forms and content mapping of resources, focusing on new knowledge and pandemic prevention needs. This reflects a digital resource supply concept that considers meeting different learning needs and the new dynamic demands of education during crises. It aims to help students master new knowledge and skills while prioritizing their physical and mental well-being and fostering high-quality and skilled individuals. Vocational college teachers employed various methods to design emergency online teaching resources. This differs from the findings of Aslan et al. (2021) regarding middle school teachers’ dislike for independently designing resources. The main conclusion regarding the use of existing relevant resources in ERT is not entirely consistent with previous research. There may be two core reasons for this: first, compared to middle school education, vocational education focuses more on skills development (Allais, 2012; Oviawe, 1970), resulting in weaker transferability of digital resources; second, digitized resources for vocational education are not sufficiently abundant, making it difficult for teachers to fully design activities that match the needs of ERT based solely on existing digital resources.
Digital Tools: Using Different Tools Collaboratively to Support the Entire Teaching Process
Based on the results, it can be observed that teachers utilize various types of tools for emergency online teaching. This is because although digital tools are available with corresponding teaching functionalities, their tool capabilities and certain features differ (Yang et al., 2022). Consequently, teachers have adopted a method of synchronously or alternately combining complementary tools with different functionalities. This enables the ERT space to support the design and creation of learning resources, organization of teaching activities, analysis of learning situations, evaluation of teaching effectiveness, and teaching management, and providing comprehensive and systematic support in the entire process of ERT practice.
In summary, vocational college teachers have created a dynamic ERT space by integrating multiple platforms and improving and building resources and tools to support the teaching process. During teaching, a dynamic ERT space adapted to the teaching needs was constructed by combining different platforms, resources, and tools. This finding is consistent with the description of Bandias et al. (2022) of a highly unstable learning environment during the pandemic. Building on this foundation, this study proposes a method for constructing dynamic spaces.
The Problems Encountered in the ERT Space
Virtual Places: Insufficient Integration and Immersive Experience Capabilities
It is worth noting that the teachers’ construction of a dynamic virtual space via aggregation to satisfy the basic requirements of ERT reflects the current problems of virtual space. First, platforms lack the capability to integrate. Aggregating various platforms not only brings teachers and students the load of choosing and using platforms, but also results in difficulty in connecting learning performance data on different platforms, which poses challenges to data-driven targeted teaching. Second, teaching platforms are still not sufficiently effective in their live-streaming and interactive features, as they either lack real-time interactive features (e.g., live-streaming, voice message/call, etc.) or such features are not sufficiently powerful. Compared with online teaching platforms, the situation in which multifunctional digital workplace platforms and social media are used for live-stream, interaction, and making announcements can easily cause generative resources to suffer structural loss or even difficulty in being stored, which weakens the platform’s capability of creating the chance of repetitive learning and producing irrelevant information that disturbs the teaching process. Third, platforms that support online training are scarce. From the paucity of training platforms (a type of representative platform) and the fact that the current training platforms mentioned by teachers in the text materials cannot yet meet teaching requirements, it can be concluded that practical teaching in ERT faces potential severe challenges. In terms of virtual space, online teaching platforms require further improvement in some features, namely integration, livestreaming and interaction, and immersive experience—the authentic learning experience created for learners by designing a scene parallel to the real world.
Digital Resources: Lack of Quality Digital Resources and Practical Training Resources
Although the method of aggregating, improving, self-building, and using generative resources considerably contributes to the orderly implementation of ERT in vocational colleges, it reflects the current problems of digital resources. First, shortage of quality resources causes challenges to the quality of ERT. A combination of digital resources repository research and teachers’ feedback in text materials shows that certain types of digital resources, such as class recording, PPT slides, and teaching notes are plentiful, but qualified resources, namely different representations of resources with the same contents, a form of resource that adapts to different terminals, and resource focusing on the science of remote teaching that are carefully designed are still scarce. Second, the lack of online training resources makes it difficult to guarantee the effectiveness and quality of practical teaching. An analysis revealed that although vocational colleges have alleviated difficulties in emergency remote practical teaching by resorting to self-built resources, enterprise resources, social resources, at-hand resources, physical resources in live-streaming, and giving priority to theory, this solution is problematic. This would potentially waste teachers’ time and energy in resource selection and aggregation, and the aggregated resources would be ill-matched or not adaptive to practical teaching. If vocational colleges’ ERT requires effective support, quality, and online training resources should be better designed and developed further to form a digital resource system that fits and collaboratively supports theory and practice.
Digital Tools: Insufficient Functionalities of Interactivity, Collaborativeness, Professionalism, and Intelligence
This study revealed the deficiencies of digital tools and challenges with their usage. First, there is a severe lack of tools capable of online training. Information and cases analyses revealed that no school had mentioned tools supportive of online training (e.g., sensing equipment and wearables). It is certainly possible that these resources are difficult to deploy in ERT; however, providing training in ERT is difficult. Second, the tools with interactive and collaborative features that facilitate student learning are not sufficiently diverse. From the representative tools with these features, the interactive and collaborative features of the online learning space in ERT largely are provided by social media and workplace software. Teachers’ preferences are not ruled out, but we discovered that tools used for professional interaction and collaboration in teaching are in shortage, which brings potential disruptions to teacher-student, student-student interaction, and collaboration quality. Third, tools for professional intelligent learning performance, teaching evaluation, and management are in shortage. Furthermore, descriptive statistical analysis showed that no more than 10% of the colleges have professional big data analysis platforms. As shown in the text materials, current learning performance analysis, teaching evaluation, and management depend mainly on online teaching platforms with relevant add-on features or other tools that have limited features (e.g., not capable of recording students’ learning and thinking processes), and it is difficult to intelligently determine the meaning and value of education.
Therefore, the accuracy and personalization of ERT are challenging. From the standpoint of effective contribution to ERT, an online training tool that can create a scene parallel to the real world requires further development and refinement to enable online training be fully implemented. In addition, efforts are needed to improve the interactive and collaborative features of teaching tools and avoid possible interruptions to online interaction and collaboration by social media and workplace software. Meanwhile, the professionalism and intelligence in learning performance analysis, teaching evaluation, and management tools require promotion. It is essential to go beyond the limitation that most of the records are explicitly scattered data and create tools that can intelligently track, connect, and diagnose multimodal data of learning performance during teaching. Therefore, decision-making, comments, and management in data-based targeted ERT can be offered with assistance, thereby assisting the decision-making, comments, and management of data-based targeted ERT.
However, the ERT space still faces some challenges, such as the lack of integration and immersive experience of virtual spaces, quality of digital resources, quantity of practical training resources, and lack of interactivity, collaboration, professionalism, and intelligence of digital tools. This viewpoint is consistent with that proposed by Han et al. (2020) regarding the multiple challenges faced by the current online teaching technology environment in vocational education.
The Implementation Path of ERT Activities
Teaching: Devise Diverse and Expedient Strategy, Strive for the Synchronous Implementation of Theory Teaching and Training
A view of the course delivery method, teaching behavior, and teaching strategy shows that owing to the limitations within the online learning space and remote teaching, teachers strive to synchronously perform theory and practical teaching by developing diverse and expedient strategies (diverse strategies are outlined in Section 4.2.1). Expedient strategy refers to the teaching method adopted by teachers considering all factors to overcome handicaps. The strategy includes the following elements. First, mixed course delivery methods are deployed. Livestreaming boasts real-time interactions but is demanding in terms of broadband networks. Pre-recording is weak in real-time capability but requires little broadband network and offers replay unlike others that have either limited real-time capability or weak presence but are convenient for communication. Therefore, the combination of the three methods serves as a cushion and improves the supportive conditions for ERT. Second, practical teaching can be delivered in various ways, which can serve as a cushion for students without access to online courses (due to lack of electronic devices or other reasons). A series of methods, including livestreaming, playing recordings of operation scenes of enterprises for case teaching, practicing offline with at-hand materials, courses delivered by enterprise mentors, and prioritizing theory teaching over practice, are adopted for practical teaching. Although students cannot gain professional training experience, this method ensures orderly practical teaching in an emergency context. Third turning on the camera in rotation is effective. Turning on the camera enhances the presence of remote teaching but increases the load on the computer and network, resulting in choppy or laggy streaming. Therefore, teachers invite students to turn on the camera and answer questions in rotation. Despite the suboptimal effects of expedient strategies in certain aspects (such as the potential risks associated with nonprofessional design and lack of authentic experiential training methods), they provide support for key steps in ERT in vocational colleges, including overcoming network instability (Shrestha et al., 2022), enhancing the sense of presence, and facilitating the smooth implementation of online practical training.
Learning: Implement OMO Learning, Emphasize Theory-Practice Integration, and Enhance Learning Engagement
The three factors (students’ learning style, organizational form of learning, and learning behavior) considered together demonstrate that students accomplish learning tasks about theory and training by relying on collective and independent learning activities designed by teachers (mapping interaction, cooperation, competition, and operation) and through synchronous or asynchronous online-merge-offline (OMO) learning. This suggests that the offline space is designed into students’ learning sessions to play a collaborative role and act as a place for training, which creates conditions and opportunities for theory-practice integrated learning. In addition, learning activities that feature competitiveness, collaboration, interaction, and operation have two advantages. First, it defeats the dullness of remote learning via a rich variety of activities, adds interest to learning, and incentivizes students to learn, thus increasing their learning engagement. Second, it compensates to some extent for the loss of emotion in remote teaching (Sun et al., 2012; Sun & Wang, 2022), encouraging students to master new knowledge and enhance their skills.
Interaction: Develop Omnidirectional Interaction Pattern to Promote Learning Engagement in the Whole Process
Interaction is a crucial component of ERT (Toklucu et al., 2022). The study results show that, based on the response mode, subject of evaluation, evaluation channel, and evaluation feature, teachers devise an omnidirectional interaction pattern that stretches throughout the teaching process and focuses on multi-subject and multi-dimensional content. Thus, teachers change the teaching pattern to be unidirectional, provide students with support during the entire process, contribute to the enhancement of teaching presence, and boost learning engagement and the realization of theory-practice integrated teaching. This interaction pattern and its effects received credit from all teachers.
Evaluation: Multi-Evaluation Method to Guarantee the Effects of ERT
Compared to regular classroom teaching, ERT evaluation is a challenging task. From the results, it can be observed that teachers built diverse evaluation approaches based on the response mode, subjects, mechanisms, and content of the evaluation. This approach included both synchronous and asynchronous evaluations involving multiple evaluation subjects and diverse evaluation content. It not only serves the diagnostic and motivational functions of evaluation but also provides support for a comprehensive examination of the effectiveness of ERT. Based on this evaluation method, the vocational education sector, as a whole, considers ERT as achieving satisfactory results.
In summary, it was found that there were multiple themes, methods, channels, and functions of interaction in ERT, and teachers’ mentioning interaction was a key means of enhancing their sense of presence, improving online learning participation, and diagnosing students’ learning performance. This finding is consistent with the views of Kovacs et al. (2021). However, this study further revealed how interaction worked and constructed an integrated ERT pattern that combined learning with practice and evaluation throughout, with interaction as the connection between teaching and learning. In other words, this study clarified and revealed a path to organizing ERT activities in vocational colleges.
The Problems With Implementation of ERT Activities
Teaching: Challenges in Practical Training and Low Teaching Satisfaction
By employing diverse and adaptive strategies, teachers have created scenarios, processes, and experiences that mimic face-to-face instruction, thereby mitigating the shortcomings of ERT and fully leveraging the advantages of online teaching to support the synchronization of theoretical and practical courses. Practice has also demonstrated the effectiveness of these strategies, with the majority of students from institutions, such as Z University, perceiving ERT to be comparable to or even surpassing face-to-face teaching. However, it is important to not overlook the fact that some colleges have been unable to conduct practical training due to various reasons, and some students have expressed lower satisfaction with ERT. For example, the satisfaction levels of students from institutions Y, W, X, S, H, and N were 80.0%, 87.4%, 86.0%, 73.9%, 70.0%, and 23.6%, respectively. This conclusion is consistent with that of Yazgan (2022). In this regard, to better promote and implement blended learning or online teaching on a larger scale in vocational colleges, it is important to explore the reasons behind the low levels of student satisfaction and acceptance. Consequently, designing ERT methods that ensure high levels of student satisfaction and acceptance has become a crucial research topic that deserves attention.
Learning: Insufficient Practical Training Coverage and Student Engagement
Overall, the vocational education sector believes that students have achieved expected learning outcomes. However, 3.5% of colleges explicitly expressed concerns about student attendance, engagement, and motivation. Moreover, when relying on methods such as local resource utilization and recorded case studies for practical training, although they can partially meet the needs of ERT, they are unsuitable for all majors and students. Compared with actual practical training settings, the learning outcomes of these methods may be compromised. Therefore, to establish a high-quality vocational education system and effectively implement ERT, attention must be paid to the development of online training methods tailored to different professions. Building on effective practices that enhance online learning engagement, personalized approaches should be developed based on students’ learning styles and characteristics to improve attendance, engagement, and motivation issues that currently exist in ERT (Bandias et al., 2022; Han et al., 2020).
Interaction: The Effect Needs to be Confirmed
Although teachers have designed various interactive methods that have been positively acknowledged, our analysis revealed that teachers mainly focused on the effects of interaction in terms of student engagement, teaching presence, and learning atmosphere. However, the specific effects of these interactions have not been fully explored. For example, what are the specific relationships between interactions and teaching presence, student engagement, and other factors? Specifically, what role do different interaction channels and functionalities have on enhancing teaching presence and improving student engagement? Additionally, the actual impact of interactions on students’ mastery of knowledge and skills remain uncertain. For instance, how do different interaction methods affect online learning outcomes? Specifically, does the inclusion of redundancy in interactions have a positive impact on knowledge acquisition? If so, what mechanisms or strategies are involved? What level of redundancy is most suitable for ERT scenarios? These questions urgently require further empirical research to guide vocational education teachers in designing online interactions that are adaptable to different contexts. This conclusion is similar to that of Yazgan (2022) regarding the weakened interaction in ERT and the emergence of new effects.
Evaluation: Lack of a Corresponding Evaluation System
In light of the evaluation results, the higher vocational education community of Province J agreed with the opinion that ERT was a satisfying achievement, but schools showed a slight difference in their satisfaction with ERT. For example, College C believed that the outcomes of ERT were better than those of face-to-face teaching. While College N approved of the outcomes of ERT, it had a student satisfaction rate of only 23.6%. This finding aligns with mixed outcomes regarding the effectiveness of ERT in vocational education, as mentioned in previous studies (Griffin & Mihelic, 2019). Our analysis revealed that the main reason for this phenomenon is the lack of a systematic ERT evaluation system. For instance, those who affirm the effectiveness of ERT often evaluate it from a relative perspective, focusing on the smooth implementation of teaching work during a crisis, improvement of teachers’ and students’ abilities, and the creation of uninterrupted learning opportunities. However, those with a lower level of recognition of ERT effectiveness tended to evaluate it from an absolute comparative perspective. They compared the experience and outcomes of ERT with face-to-face teaching and highlighted the disadvantages of online teaching compared to the advantages of face-to-face teaching. However, this approach was unconventional. Therefore, further research is required to determine the focal points for evaluating the effectiveness of ERT. Should face-to-face teaching be the reference point for the evaluation? Otherwise, which are other reference points that should be considered? These questions should be explored to promote a more objective and accurate understanding of ERT within the academic community. These are also crucial for the healthy development of online teaching in vocational education. This conclusion further highlights the key areas that should be considered in the subsequent design of an evaluation system for ERT (Aslan et al., 2021), building upon additional evidence of the lack of such an evaluation system.
This study identified the problems faced by vocational colleges in ERT, such as inadequate online training, low teaching satisfaction, unsatisfactory learning engagement and effects, the need to verify the effectiveness of online interaction, and the lack of an ERT evaluation system.
Conclusions, Implications, and Limitations
This study examined the text materials of ERT in 89 vocational colleges in China’s Province J and performed content analysis. Based on the construction of ERT space and the organization of ERT activities in vocational colleges, we analyzed the implementation paths and problems encountered during ERT. This study found that in the face of a major crisis, the construction path of a dynamic ERT space that meet the teaching demands and adaptable to different schools is formed by vocational colleges, which is guided by the ideas of usability, usefulness, and ease-of-use. They integrated platforms, refined and built digital resources, and used tools in collaboration (RQ1) as well as diversified, expedient strategies, following the general idea that the implementation path of ERT activities combines learning with practice and evaluation, with interaction as the connection between teaching and learning (RQ3). However, much effort remains to be made in terms of vocational colleges’ ERT space, including integration design, professionalism (e.g., quality professional resources, immersive experiences, and professional data analysis performance), interactivity, and intelligence (RQ2). In addition, vocational colleges face grave challenges in terms of satisfaction, effects, learning engagement, practical teaching, and other ERT aspects. Furthermore, the effects of the interaction have not been confirmed and an evaluation system has not been established (RQ4).
The construction path of the ERT space in vocational colleges and the associated problems, as well as the implementation path of ERT activities and the associated problems, suggested in this study can help improve the resilience of the higher vocational education system in response to educational crises from the aspects of the online teaching space, online teaching activities, and teachers’ professional development. First, the study’s findings provide guidance for vocational teachers in building ERT spaces that support online teaching and hybrid learning at the methodological level. Meanwhile, they offer direction for the follow-up improvement of software and hardware in the higher vocational education system to improve the performance of ERT spaces. Second, in terms of the organization of online teaching activities, they provide theoretical references for vocational teachers to organize online teaching and blended learning at the method level, help researchers and practitioners clarify the shortcomings of ERT theory and practice, further enriching the theoretical research system, and optimize the practice methods and effects. Finally, we clarify the focus of vocational teachers’ online teaching abilities with the help of the implementation path of ERT, providing a reference for subsequent work, such as improving teachers’ online teaching abilities and formulating online teaching ability evaluation index systems. Meanwhile, we provide a reference for further targeted improvement of teachers’ online teaching abilities based on the problems identified. Overall, this study provides a reference for constructing online teaching spaces, organizing online teaching activities, improving teachers’ ERT abilities in the higher vocational education field, and supporting the higher vocational education system in improving its resilience in response to major public education crises.
This study mainly used content analysis and static text materials, such as notices, news, and key data, as study subjects. Although 37 ERT cases were also analyzed in depth, there is still the possibility that some typical characteristic tools, practices, and problem causes may have been missed or not fully explored, and it is difficult to conduct an in-depth analysis of the reasons behind some practices and problems, owing to the limitations of static text materials. The aforementioned problems are limitations of this study. In subsequent studies, in-depth tracking of causes of problems can be conducted by combining questionnaire surveys and interviews with teachers, while constructing corresponding solutions.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the reviewers and editor for their valuable suggestions, to Zhejiang University of Technology for providing places for learning and researching.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, Y.J.; methodology, K.Z., C.W.; software, X.C., Y.J.; writing-original draft preparation, Y.J., S.S., X.C.; writing-review and editing, Y.J., S.S., K.Z.; visualization, C.W., K.Z.; supervision, Y.J.; project administration, C.W.; funding acquisition, Y.J. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was the research outcome of the Zhejiang Provincial Social Science Planning Project, “Mechanisms and Pathways for Empowering Classroom Teaching through Learning Spaces under the Strategy of High-Quality Education Development,” and the 2022 National Social Science Foundation Education Youth Project “Research on the Strategy of Creating Learning Space Value and Empowering Classroom Teaching under the background of ‘Double Reduction’” (Grant No. CCA220319).
Data Availability Statements
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.