Education in times of COVID-19: Conditioned access to learning. An exploratory study at a school in Portugal

Abstract

This exploratory study on education in times of COVID-19 sought to understand the political measures implemented in the Autonomous Region of Madeira (RAM), as well as the opinions of a group of secondary school teachers in one of the schools in the municipality of Funchal about these measures, and also about the new emerging contexts of Distance Learning (E@D), namely with regard to the assessment of learning, pedagogical processes, support and monitoring in the implementation of technological procedures, school leadership, strengths and weaknesses.

The research reported here follows a descriptive-interpretative orientation, of a predominantly qualitative nature, in accordance with the guiding question and the formulated objectives. Teachers' testimonies were analyzed using the content analysis technique. This data was also subjected to statistical treatment (quantitative analysis).

The results revealed the adaptability of teachers, in view of the situation emerging from the pandemic crisis. This is despite the registration of the aggravation of the inequalities present in the student body, in what concerns the quality of learning. It was possible to verify, in this distance learning system, that the traditional way of evaluating (only) knowledge is not adequate. It is necessary to readjust this model.