The effectiveness of using digital platforms to practice English during the COVID-19 crisis as perceived by Ecuadorian students

Abstract

PurposeThis mixed-methods research aimed to investigate students’ opinions on the effectiveness of using digital platforms to carry on their learning process.Design/methodology/approachThis is a mixed-methods research. One hundred students, registered in the last English course of their curriculum, took part in the investigation. They filled out a Likert-scale survey using the criteria for CALL evaluation. During the data analysis of the quantitative section of the research, a chi-square of 15.0672 and a p-value of 0.519719 were obtained, making this result not significant at p < 0.05. A Levene test of variance equality was performed on the resulting data to confirm the results. Personal interviews were carried out to triangulate the previous results.FindingsThis study determined that Ecuadorian undergraduate students have a negative perception of the usefulness of using a digital class to learn English. These results have important implications for teachers who must work harder during these times of COVID-19 to attain students' attention.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is limited by its conception of qualitative methods. This limitation also opens the door for further studies. The quantitative and mixed methods studies are suggested to confirm the results obtained here.Practical implicationsThis study has practical implications for teachers and language center managers. They can use the information attained to adapt their teachings in order to improve these results. Managers will benefit from it as they can plan for teacher training considering the comments given by students.Social implicationsThe social implication of this study is that the students, through their comments, have implied the need of having some sort of socialization and ERT does not permit such.Originality/valueThis paper has value as it closes the gap of information regarding the use of this new teaching modality attained from Latin American countries and more specifically from Ecuador.