Distance Learning Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moroccan University Students’ Perceptions

Abstract

In March 2020 and following the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic, Morocco decided to stop classroom learning and replace it with distance learning, thus ensuring the continuity of learning for all Moroccan students. The challenge for the Moroccan legislator, now and then, is to institutionalize the practice of education through mediated forms of technology, thereby encouraging both teachers and students to integrate technology in their teaching and learning practices. While adopting a qualitative case study method, this article highlights the experience of 113 students of a Moroccan English department with distance learning during the COVID-19 lockdown. Four themes emerged from the dataset: uncertainty, technical and logistical hurdles, inequality, and lack of intimacy. Though this research takes as its case study an example of an experience rather than a unique experience, it has international relevance in considering students’ experience, which can help improve and maximize the application of distance learning and teaching in places with the same conditions such as Morocco.