Measuring online classroom self-efficacy of lecturers in public universities in Uganda

Abstract

The Covid-19 disease that broke out in 2019 spread worldwide not only affecting health systems but also the other fields including education. Due to its high probability of infection through physical contact, educational institutions implemented physical social distancing by adopting online methods of providing education. However, in Uganda implementation of online teaching and learning was virtually resisted by lecturers and students. Up to today, online teaching and learning has failed to become fully entrenched in education delivery in public universities in Uganda with many lecturers preferring on campus face to face classrooms. Against this background, this was attracted to measure online classroom self-efficacy of lecturers. Anchoring on Self-Efficacy Theory by Bandura (1977), lecturers self-efficacy in online classrooms was measured in terms of instructional methods, classroom management and student engagement. This cross-sectional study involved a sample of 327 lecturers from four public universities in Uganda. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and analysed quantitatively. Data analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling (SEM) using SmartPLS for partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Descriptive statistics revealed that online classroom self-efficacy of lecturers was high on all the aspects of instructional methods, classroom management and student engagement. The results indicated the different online classroom self-efficacies of lecturers namely; instructional methods, classroom management and student engagement were high. PLS-SEM indicated that the three measures appropriately measured online classroom self-efficacy of lecturers. It was concluded that university lecturers have the self-efficacy necessary for conducting online teaching and instructional methods, classroom management and student engagement measure online classroom self-efficacy. Therefore, it was recommended that university managers should exploit the online classroom self-efficacy of lecturers to increase the level of e-learning implementation in the universities. University managers should also put in place programmes for regularly enhancing online classroom self-efficacy of lecturers because online teaching technologies continuous evolve and change. Further, researchers can use the instructional methods, classroom management and student engagement as measures of online classroom self-efficacy of lecturers.