Communication barriers of teachers and students in distance learning

CARILLO, LANTANO, LOPEZ, MENGOTE, VERGARA, ALFREDO

 
 
 
 
 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  INTRODUCTION
 
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
It is still undeniable that the Coronavirus
Disease 2019 has been extremely and
rapidly spreading throughout the world.  prevents
Covid-19 has been a highlight in the year of
2020 and until now, an outbreak that shocks
the world and threatens the world. The
Covid-19 is a disease that can be
transmitted to humans from animal and
human to human. It is a virus that causes
humans to experience different kinds of
illnesses. This virus spreads through
physical contact to any human who is
infected with Covid-19. With the news that
blows out, there are a handful of human
coronaviruses that are known to be deadly
(Kohut, 2020).
 In the Philippines, the government has
declared an enhanced community
quarantine or restrictive measures such as
lockdown, stay at home orders and travel
ban to slow down the spread of the Covid-
19.  In that, the businesses, churches and
schools were closed (Viray, 2020). also, it
has rapidly changed the way we live, work,
and learn. Henceforth, the world has
entered a “new normal” in the midst of the
pandemic.
New normal, the mentality of the people
during quarantine has worsened as their
usual routine has been changed and their
actions restricted especially in school. Life
in quarantine has drastically altered the
system of education affecting many
students and school personnel. There is no
doubt that Covid-19 has resulted in us being
irresponsible and carefree during school
days for the reason of us being imprisoned
by the four corners of our room with no
division between home and school, work
and relaxation. Furthermore, attending
school through an online meeting can result
in many discrepancies including slow to no
access on internet connection, absence of
usable gadgets, a fair educational
environment. Thus, causing a Philippines confronted several interrelated
communication barrier between student-
student and student- teacher during class
discussions and meetings (Karunathilake,
2020).
A communication barrier is anything that
us from receiving and
understanding the messages others use to
convey information, ideas and thoughts. It
can interfere with or block the message you
are trying to send (Rani, 2016).
 
According to Berge (2013), there are
various opportunities and barriers to
effective communication. An exhaustive
review of literature regarding
communication barriers to distance learning
summarizes the technical, psychological,
social, cultural, and contextual challenges
leading to a significant conclusion:  that as
technology used for distance learning
improves so does both the opportunities to
overcome many of the barriers to ineffective
communication and the complexity of the
barriers that are faced by the participants.
The hierarchy of this structure is described.
Lorma Colleges Senior Highschool commits
to provide an alternative means of
education in the form of “Flexible Online
Learning” wherein students will not have to
be physically present in school that all of the
classes will be done online whether it is
asynchronous or synchronous. With the
new environment and the use of different
online tools in dealing with the alternative
online classes, there are different obstacles
and barriers in communicating that both
teachers and students will be facing during
the process. This may lead them to
encounter and experience the difficulty of
having this new mode of learning,
furthermore understanding about the
different communication barriers of teachers
and students in the midst of pandemic. 
Schools and Universities experience this
kind of situation due to distance learning. A
research by Baticulon et. al (2020)
explained that medical students in the
barriers as these students tried to adapt to
online learning. By implementing student-
centered interventions, medical schools and
educators play a significant role in
addressing these challenges during the
COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.  communication barriers?
According to Moore & kearsely (2012),
problems related to switching from
traditional face-to-face teaching styles to
virtual classroom teaching that requires
different communication practices such as
course preparation and presentation
peculiar to distance learning programs are
significant challenges. The difficulties in
adopting this new role led to instructors’
mishandling or poor management of online
communication process and ineffective
delivery of course contents (Rienties et al.,
2016)
The researchers will aim to know and
determine the various barriers of
communication of students and teachers in
distance learning. Specifically, the
researchers will find and know the different
communication barriers that affect the
student and teacher’s communication to find
answers on how to cope up with these kinds
of obstacles and aims on how to have a 
communication strategy for this kind of
problem in the area of asynchronous and
synchronous. 
1.2 Statement of the problem
               This study aims to determine the
different communication barriers of students
and teachers and on how to deal with it
specifically to answer the following question:
1.What are the communication
barriers that affect the students and
teacher’s communication in distance
learning?
 
2.What do students and teachers do
to               cope with interacting
through their respective social media
platforms despite the communication
barrier?
3.What are the proposed
interventions to address the
 1.3 Theoretical Framework
Diffusion of Innovation
(E.M. Rogers, 1967) defined behavior of
people toward a new idea in technology, the
process of adaptation to it and the way in
which innovation is communicated through
certain channels over time among the
members. The theory also explains how
people with strong opinions influence the
masses through the media. New ideas and
innovations frighten people and cause
frustration. This is due to the fear that new
ideas may fail. Similarly, in the case of
people who are changing their teaching-
learning process from the traditional face-to-
face to a technologically mediated
education encounter these difficulties.
1.Innovators: ability to understand and apply
complex technical knowledge.
2.Early adopters: greatest degree of opinion
leadership in most systems. 
3.Early majority: interact frequently with
peers.
4.Late majority: cautious and skeptical. 
5. Laggards: suspicious of innovations.
Knowledge Gap Theory
The Knowledge Gap theory was originally
created by three professors which described
the theory “as the infusion of mass media
information into a social system increases
higher socioeconomic status segments tend
to acquire this information faster than lower
socioeconomic status population segments.
Hence, the gap in knowledge between the
two tends to increase rather than decrease.”
(P.J. Tichenor, G.A. Donohue, & C.N. Olien,
1970) It stated also that the reasons exist is
it cause communication skills, stored
information, relevant social contact,
selective exposure and media target
market. Moreover, wealthier and more
educated people acquire information from
mass media faster than lower
socioeconomic classes. They have
greater access to media information and
benefit more from it. Therefore, as mass
media grows, so too does the gap in
knowledge between the higher and lower
social classes and lower social classes.
Uses and Gratification
A theory which explains the ability of a
media use in satisfying different needs of
people. (Blumer and Katz 1974) suggest
that media users take an active role in the
communication process by choosing and
using the media. They use the media which
has the most influence on them. So,
different media have different influences on
people that use them with different degrees.
In distance learning nowadays, the most
popular media in conveying the instruction
is the Internet via computers. Since the
students do not choose these media
themselves these technological devices
influence students in different ways. These
diverse influence levels are other barriers in
communication to distance education. So,
methods to eliminate these communication
barriers, by increasing the ability of Internet
access, student to student interactions,
student to instructor interactions and
student/instructor motivations which makes
the distance education program more
effective, interactive, and even more
attractive should be explored.
METHODOLOGY
2.1 Research Design
The study will conduct qualitative-
descriptive research design. According to
Kumar (2011), it is a study in which the
main focus is on description wherein a
descriptive study attempts systematically to
describe a situation, problem, phenomenon,
service, or provides information about, say,
the living conditions of a community, or
describes attitudes towards an issue. It can
answer questions like what, who, where,
and when. The study will conduct this
research design because it approaches the
context and content analysis and focuses
on collecting descriptive information before
conducting experiments or surveys
regarding the question on what are the
different communication barriers being
experienced by the teachers and students. 
2.2 Participants of the Study 
The researchers will use simple random
sampling that includes the senior highschool
students and faculty teachers within the
area of Lorma Colleges Senior highschool
for the reason that both experience different
obstacles in distance learning. The number
of participants are 15 random faculty
teachers and students. It depends on the
quality of information that the respondents
will provide regarding what are the barriers
in distance learning, how they will cope up
and the possible interventions to address
the communication barriers. 
2.3 Data Gathering Tools
The instruments that will be used for the
data gathering are open-ended
questionnaires wherein it composes a list of
questions to be answered by the
respondents through the use of google
forms that are designed to get the facts that
are needed for the study. Open-ended is a
free-form survey question that allows
respondents to answer in open text format
for them to answer based on their complete
knowledge, feeling, and understanding.
With the use of google forms it allows
people to do things such as forms and
surveys, wherein the method to be used in
gathering the data is the survey method. 
This may allow the respondents to complete
the forms online that is more convenient
and easier to access with.
2.4 Data Gathering Procedures and
Ethical Considerations
The researchers will have sought the
consent of the current academic heads of
the Lorma Senior Highschool as well as the  
chosen respondents for the online
questionnaire. The respondent’s answers  
are to be treated with confidentiality and be
used for academic purposes only. The
survey questionnaire will be conducted
through google forms. The researchers will
examine and evaluate the answers
thoroughly.

 2.5 Analysis/Treatment of Data

For analyzing the data the researchers will

apply thematic analysis that aims to
discover conscientiously the connection
between concepts and compare them with
the duplicate data. Thematic Analysis
focuses on identifying and describing both
 
implicit and explicit ideas within the data.
Codes are then typically developed to
 
represent the identified themes and applied
or linked to raw data as summary markers
 
for later analysis. Such analysis may or may
not include the following code frequencies,  
identifying code co-occurrence and
graphically displaying relationships between  
codes within the data set. (Guest et al.,
2012) Thematic Analysis is considered the  
most appropriate for any study that seeks to
discover using interpretations. It provides a  
systematic element to data analysis. It
allows the researcher to associate an  
analysis of the frequency of a theme with
one of the whole contents. This will confer  
accuracy and intricacy and enhance the
research’s whole meaning. Qualitative  
research requires understanding and
collecting diverse aspects and data. The  
method gives an opportunity to understand
the potential of any issue more widely
(Marks and Yardley 2004).

 
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