Three continents, three countries

the remote education by higher education students in the pandemic time

Abstract

The epidemiological situation on a global scale caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the general confinement of the population and the need to close the physical spaces of schools of all levels of education. To overcome this, it was necessary to adopt emergency measures, including Emergency Remote Education (ERE), using technologies to interact synchronously with students. Besides, it was also required to reconfigure educational practices and develop skills in digital literacy to enable the continuity of educational experiences, respecting isolation but maintaining the interaction of teachers and students. This situation has not met borders, so we consider it essential to collect information about the degree of student satisfaction with the (ERE) caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in three countries (Portugal, Brazil and Turkey), located on three continents (Europe, America and Asia). Data were collected in 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 by the researchers who are conducting the study from different countries. The authors use a survey created on Google Forms to collect data, assuring the confidentiality of the data collected. We obtained 566 valid responses in the three countries: Portugal 140, Turkey 359 and Brazil 67. From this collection and subsequent statistical analysis, we can show, from the results obtained, that the models chosen in the three countries did not please in a unanimous way all the students involved. There are significant differences in access, knowledge of the platforms used and even in the methodologies used by different teachers concerning countries. On the contrary, about the possibility of moving to a permanent online model, there is unanimity, verifying from the opinions that face-to-face education is not replaceable by the model that has been used over the last two years.