Perception on the development of competences in online synchronic environments in higher education

Abstract

Online education in El Salvador is currently taught in two modalities: synchronous and asynchronous; the latter refers to a virtual teaching-learning model; the former indicates a model where the online class is taught and taken in real time. This implies, for both the professor and the student, the mastery of certain skills that allow teaching and learning online effectively. Being this phenomenon relatively recent in our country, the research aimed to identify the competencies that influence the achievement of learning in students of the synchronous modality at the Higher Education level. For this purpose, a study was carried out in order to measure the perception that the faculty has about how much they master their online teaching competencies and the impact that these have on the teaching-learning process of the students; the perception their students have about said competencies was also measured. The results showed that the faculty consider to have mastery of their online skills in areas like online research and good verbal skills during online classes; on the other hand, the areas addressing their online methodology, their teaching skills and how they work in synchronous environments showed lower averages; these vary, though, depending on the area of knowledge. As of the students, they validated this perception, showing high levels of satisfaction with the implementation of the online synchronous modality.