An Evaluation of Online Courses in English Departments at Palestinian Universities during COVID-19 Pandemic Using the IHEP 2000 Quality Benchmarks

Abstract

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of educational institutions made a dramatic move from face-to-face (traditional) learning and teaching to online delivery. Accordingly, similar to other universities, Palestinian universities had to cope with this global pandemic and transform from traditional teaching and learning to online learning. This study aims to explore Palestinian university students' and instructors' attitudes toward the shift to online delivery. Precisely, this study aims to explore whether Palestinian Universities fulfilled the international standards of online learning. The researchers utilized two sets of questionnaires to collect data from the various Palestinian universities. The first questionnaire was used to collect data from university students and the second aimed to gather data from university instructors. The participants of the study were 375 students and instructors. The researchers found that those Palestinian university instructors have a tendency to agree that their universities met most IHEP benchmarks for online learning. However, the findings revealed that students had a tendency to have less agreement that online learning met IHEP benchmarks. Finally, the researchers suggested some recommendations.