Living experience of mothers educating their children with online education in Corona Pandemic

The purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences of mothers whose children have benefited from virtual education during the corona. The research method is qualitative and phenomenological. The study population is all mothers with primary school children in Tehran. 18 of these mothers participated in the study by purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews were used to examine the mothers' lived experience and data analysis was performed by thematic content analysis. The research findings were obtained in four categories: online education challenges (economic, infrastructure and family), disadvantages of online education (technology, education and psychology), advantages of virtual education (family, individual) and solutions (interactive and educational). The results showed that virtual education does not have the necessary infrastructure for complete and appropriate education and it is better to provide appropriate solutions and contexts for this type of education and to benefit families in promoting education..
Introduction
Following the outbreak of the Corona virus in December 2019, the World Health Organization classified the virus as a global epidemic in March 2020 (World Health Organization 2020) and the disease represented a global health crisis (Vanley and Sochinta, 2020; Dejalente et al., 2020; Van Bowl et al., 2020). Reports indicate that more than 1.5 billion students of all ages around the world have been affected by the closure of schools and universities due to the Corona virus (UNESCO, a2020; UNICEF, 2020). Changes in learning systems are forcing schools to implement distance or online education, e-learning, television and radio education, flexible learning and extensive online courses (MOOCs).
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020), e-learning programs, including digital and distance learning options, have been implemented as a way to ensure that students continue their education during the coronary heart disease. We have now seen that the education system as a whole is not ready and is vulnerable to external threats. The current situation, especially the closure of schools, has led to children receiving education at home through electronic devices. In this situation, the teachers have less contact with the students and only teach the lessons and the rest of the activities are left to the individual. Students are not able to do all their homework without parental help and participation. Janez (2007) in her research showed that elementary schools value parental involvement more than secondary schools. To this end, parents - especially mothers with elementary school students - are involved in activities such as homework, tests, questions and answers, additional activities, taking and sending videos and photos, and so on.
Studies show that every culture has a different perspective on this challenge, and therefore such extensive research is needed to shed light on the dark spots of the problem. For this reason, researchers intend to examine the challenges of mothers with elementary school students in coronary conditions in order to explain the objectives of the study, which are "psychological challenges of mothers in the face of circumstances" and "mothers' perception of this situation".
Methodology
A qualitative and phenomenological approach has been used to investigate the challenges of parents. This research is applied in terms of purpose. In this process, the relevant articles were first examined in order to extract questions that have not been fully explored and there is a gap in those areas. In the first part of the research, according to the theoretical foundations and research background, as well as the use of purposive sampling method and semi-structured in-depth interviews with follow-up questions, 18 mothers with primary school children were interviewed. Criteria for entering the interview: 1- Having at least one elementary school child, 2- Living in Tehran and 3- Having sufficient satisfaction and motivation to cooperate. Finally, the indicators extracted from the analysis of the interviews continued according to the principle of theoretical saturation and the lack of extraction and emergence of a new concept of data.
Results
The average age of mothers is 34.33 years and their education varies from diploma to master's degree. The average number of children is 1 child and 9 parents had a son and the other 9 parents had a daughter. An attempt was made to have a sample of all the basics. The average interview with mothers is approximately 28 minutes. After the interview with the mothers, the challenges, disadvantages, advantages and strategies mentioned in the interview were extracted, which were classified into the following categories:
Discussion and conclusion
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020), educational programs have been conducted to continue education during the corona, so the student definitely needs online communication tools for this educational program, including earphones and lipsticks. Even in interviews, the economic category in Sentences such as increasing the cost of the Internet, replacing an old phone and buying a tablet and phone can be traced.
In the field of infrastructure, a study has been conducted by Bahmani et al. (2020) which shows that there is not enough response to the needs of students. School closures have also led to inequality in learning and harm to vulnerable people (UNICEF, 2020), which in the meantime, due to the digital divide, will have unpredictable consequences for school dropouts (UNESCO, 2020). In the interviews, this is shown by the fact that mothers acknowledged that their children could easily cheat or that the speed of the Internet did not open many videos and photos.
In each study, researchers faced limitations, and due to corona learning and social distance, we had difficulty accessing sample members and parents. On the other hand, there was no face-to-face communication between the researchers themselves to plan and carry out, which made the research time longer. Finally, researchers have suggested suggestions, communication and interaction between school officials and parents in the presence of children, the use of up-to-date software and teaching aids for teaching in schools, providing advice and simple solutions to parents for prevention at the primary level.