DEFINITION OF TERMS

Pedagogy - : the study of teaching methods, including the aims of education and the
ways in which such goals may be achieved.

Synchronous - : happening, existing, or arising at precisely the same time.

Taxonomy - : the study of the general principles of scientific classifications.

Counteract - : to make ineffective or restrain or neutralize the usually ill effects of by

means of an opposite force, action, or influence.

Modality - : the classification of logical propositions according to their asserting or

denying the possibility, impossibility, contingency, or necessity of their content.

Confinement - : the situation in which a person or animal is kept somewhere, usually by

force.

Affiliated - : closely associated with another typically in a dependent or subordinate

position.

Dissonance - : an instance of such inconsistency or disagreement.

Paradigm - : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype.

Competences - : the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.

 Chapter ꞮꞮ

Review of Related Literature and Studies

This chapter includes the ideas, generalization or conclusions, methodologies and

other. Those that were included in this chapter helps in familiarizing information that are
relevant and similar to the present study.

Foreign Literature

According to Aminuddin Hashemi (2021) The unexpected outbreak of the

coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic has affected almost every sector, including the
Higher Education Institutions around the world (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020). During this
critical moment of the COVID-19 Pandemic, most of the countries around the world
shifted to online teaching (Bokayev et al., 2021). Like many other countries around the
globe, the government of Afghanistan has also decided to dismiss all the educational
institutions to contain the huge spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic (Orfan & Elmyar,
2020). Due to the closure of all the academic institutions across the country, the ministry
of Higher Education of Afghanistan decided to compensate for the teaching process
through an online teaching system.

The transformation process of face-to-face teaching began to online teaching

where thousands of teachers and students were allowed to employ this platform.
College and university lecturers are more interested in teaching and learning with online
approaches where the learning process can be done more at a lower cost (Green,
2010). Besides, Green (2010) stated that online teaching can provide more
opportunities of saving time and money since no one drive to seek knowledge. Despite
this growing interest in online teaching, students’ satisfaction level remains the most
concentrated indicator of online teaching experience.

Hence, one of the affected outcomes of COVID-19 can be the academic

performance of students as they experience their first attempt towards online teaching
and therefore, their level of satisfaction from online teaching can also be significant to
be measured.
Local Literature

According to Simbulan (2020) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), both public

and private, have also had to adjust to the new situation where face-to-face interaction
and mass gatherings are prohibited. Committed to their mandate, the leading
universities and colleges in the Philippines, particularly those affiliated with the ASEAN
University Network – such as the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila
University and De la Salle University, found innovative ways to fulfill their three-pronged
tasks of education, research and service. Everyone, from the operations and support
service units to administrators and teachers, adjusted to work-from-home
arrangements.

From the confines of their homes, teachers and administrators were put to the task
of revising and adapting course syllabi and requirements as they shifted to alternative or
remote teaching modalities, both synchronous and asynchronous. Where students and
teachers had access to electronic devices and reliable Internet connections, learning
management systems such as Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, and applications like
Google Hangouts, Zoom and Skype, were used. But where students had limited access
to computers or unreliable access to the Internet, teachers and students used
smartphones to exchange messages, notes, and materials, through text messaging,
e-mail, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter.

In some instances, these arrangements became unsustainable and some universities

had to suspend remote or online classes because the uneven socioeconomic status of
students affected their access to these modalities of learning. Also, concerns regarding
the mental health of both students and teachers affected by the uncertainty, became
another reason to suspend online classes.
Foreign Studies

A study conducted by Gonzalez, Rubia, et al. (2020) examined the impacts of

COVID-19 confinement on the performance of students at the higher education level.
They used field experimental research with 458 learners by two groups: control and
experimental. Surprisingly, their research revealed that COVID-19 confinement left a
positive impact on the performance of the students and helped them to enhance the
learning strategies of the students. Similarly, another study carried out by
Realyvásquez-Vargas et al. (2020) explored whether the environmental factors affect
students’ academic performance during COVID-19. To do this research, they found that
students’ academic performance has been affected by environmental factors during the
COVID-19 pandemic.

Local Studie

A study conducted by Nymia Pimentel Simbulan (2020) , Higher Education

Institutions (HEIs), both public and private, have also had to adjust to the new situation
where face-to-face interaction and mass gatherings are prohibited. Committed to their
mandate, the leading universities and colleges in the Philippines, particularly those
affiliated with the ASEAN University Network – such as the University of the Philippines,
Ateneo de Manila University and De la Salle University, found innovative ways to fulfill
their three-pronged tasks of education, research and service. Everyone, from the
operations and support service units, to administrators and teachers, adjusted to
work-from-home arrangements.

From the confines of their homes, teachers and administrators were put to the
task of revising and adapting course syllabi and requirements as they shifted to
alternative or remote teaching modalities, both synchronous and asynchronous. Where
students and teachers had access to electronic devices and reliable Internet
connections, learning management systems such as Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, and
applications like Google Hangouts, Zoom and Skype, were used. But where students
had limited access to computers or unreliable access to the Internet, teachers and
students used smartphones to exchange messages, notes and materials, through text
messaging, e-mail, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter.
Synthesis

According to Cooper H.M., Hedges L.V., Valentine J.C. third ed. Russell Sage
Foundation; New York: 2019. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-analysis.
The included studies presenting noise level changes (either reduction, increase, or
unchanged) due to the COVID-19 Pandemic were subsequently used for aggregative
descriptive statistics in a quantitative synthesis of this review. Differences in noise levels
between pre, during, and/or post-COVID-19 measures have been defined and reported
in various ways. The terms of noise reduction/increase were used uniformly throughout
the review. Averaged noise-level changes in traditional acoustic parameters (e.g.,
equivalent sound pressure level: L eq, day-evening-night level: L den) in dB(A) were
extracted to make studies comparable with others for analysis. Since the studies have
reported noise-level changes in largely different ways, acoustical results in dB(A) were
extracted either from the direct description by authors was used if approximated
numerical values cannot be directly extracted from figures; otherwise excluded from the
meta-analysis.

According to Oxford University Coronavirus government response tracker. 2022.

During the pandemic, governments imposed different levels of restrictions and called
them various titles (e.g., full/partial lockdown, night curfew, state of emergency, circuit
breaker). Therefore, we need clear indices to measure the strictness of their restrictions
and logically compare it across multiple different areas. To estimate severity levels of
COVID-19 containment and closure policy measures imposed by governments from
different countries in a consistent manner, stringency index was collected from the
Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker. Stringency index represents the
strictness of ‘lockdown style’ policies that primarily restrict people's behavior. Country
names and dates of data collections (i.e., measurement dates) were used to extract
values of the index. Maximum differences in the indices (from 0 to 100) between pre
and during COVID-19 periods were computed and used for the meta-analysis.

The measurement information compiled through the data extraction were carefully
reviewed regarding the comparability and homogeneity of the collected studies.
Meta-regression analyses were conducted, where the effect estimate (i.e., mean
noise-level reduction) was predicted according to the values of the exploratory variable
(i.e., stringency index). Overall aggregation will provide summary estimates of the
extracted individual estimates containing homogenous measurements. These individual
estimates were displayed as a function of the severity of the COVID-19 measures (i.e.,
OxCGRT stringency index) to seek whether drastic noise changes were associated with
greater severity of the COVID-19 measures. IBM Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS version 26) was used for the analyses.

Given that the effects of acoustic parameters, location types, noise sources, or
geographical areas might differ, subgroup analysis was conducted to investigate how
these summary estimates might be affected by the heterogeneity of the study
characteristics by presenting “category-wise” summary estimates.

To determine whether any measurement uncertainty (e.g., number of measurement

locations, instrumentation, measurement durations) affected the total uncertainty in the
analysis outcomes, sensitivity analysis was conducted by changing one input factor at a
time.

Theoretical Framework/ Conceptual Frameworks

This study is supported by Mezirow (1997) theory of transformative learning. This

theory explains that the learning begins when the learners experience an anticipated
situation or discomfort position. The outbreak of the Covid-19 Pandemic created
dissonance in the education system around the world, and caused paradigm shifts and
transformation in higher education. Transformative learning is the expansion of
conscience through self-adaptation to a changing situation. Mezirow believes that the
disorienting dilemma causes alterations that lead to cognitive differences and dramatic
changes in the education system.

This theory is suitable for the current paper because it examines students’
experience of teaching and learning during a sudden transformation in Afghan higher
education. The theory of transformative learning focuses on experiences of a person to
the learning situation. It states that when students experience learning, they create
meaning which causes transformation in their attitudes, behavior, and understanding.
This theory proposes that learners experience challenging tasks during the paradigm
shifts so that they should be encouraged to think critically and rationally to measure
their understanding of the learning process ( Hashemi et al.,2021).

Mezirow points out that transformative leaning happens when the learners interact with
the environment and integrate with the learning process. Learners may face problems
accessing resources in developing countries because the facilities are limited. This
restrict is understandable and highly affects students’ learning outcome in higher
education. In order to enhance students’ learning during a cognitive dissonance,
educators should utilize useful techniques and shift the learning process to new norms.
This change will lead to a sense of control and self-awareness among the learners. As a
result, these variations will lead to innovation and transformation in the learning
process.