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Learning online is surging due to the Covid-19 pandemic (Bates, 2020), and becoming visible in Ghana because the pandemic has quickly become a catastrophe that threatens millions of lives, livelihoods, well-being, and the educational access of people throughout the world (Smith et al, 2020). Covid-19 is making it impossible for students to congregate in lecture halls and learn as it has been the case previously. OECD (2020) asserts that the Covid-19 crisis has resulted in a significant increase in online learning by adults. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are using Zoom, Moodle, Sakai Learning Management System (LMS) and other digital learning platforms to facilitate students’ learning remotely (Biney, 2021). This constructivist approach in which learners’ are encouraged and empowered to construct their own meaning and understanding through discussion and reflection is the kind of teaching and learning (Atwell & Hughes, 2010; Bates & Poole, 2003) that is being employed at University of Ghana.
The purpose of this paper is to determine the coping strategies adult learners used to successfully engage in online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is little research in Ghana on the strengths, challenges, and coping strategies for online learning during Covid-19.
Allen and Seaman (2017) characterise distance education as “education that uses one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor synchronously or asynchronously” (p. 6). Distance education has proved to be a robust and increasingly relevant mode of educational delivery (Bates & Poole, 2003). Online education carries with it the connotations that all the learning may be web-based, requiring students to use a connected device in order to access courses and instruction (QAA, 2020).
The University of Ghana adopted a campus-wide blended learning approach (Biney, 2020), using Sakai Learning Management System (LMS) for distance education courses in 11 learning centres in Ghana. The Accra Learning Centre is the largest of the University of Ghana Learning Centres (UGLCs), hosting over 80% of the University’s distance education students. Face-to-face tutorials and materials on the (LMS) enable students to learn through a combination of traditional learning system (face-to-face) and online forms of learning. Lim and Wang (2016) state that blended learning is a fusion of online and face-to-face contact time between teachers and students. Blended learning provides a means to enhance quality, equity, and access to lifelong learning opportunities. This is because blended learning creates opportunity for increased teacher-students’ interactions. Students also enhance their hands-on experiences as they adopt digital learning tools in their learning endeavours. Learning then becomes ubiquitous, and students could learn anywhere at any time at their own convenience. Thus, with minimum guidance from teachers, students’ could acquire the skills of independent study and become self-directed learners.