Perceptions and pedagogical responses of construction educators during COVID-19

COVID-19 impacted academia across the globe. Given the scale and sudden pandemic onset, limited empirical studies identify the transition’s impact on the US construction educators and education imparted. The study determined the pedagogical responses of educators associated with construction programs within the US during COVID-19 and tested six relationships in the areas of university support, technological access and infrastructure, and educator proficiency improvements. An online survey method was utilized with the instrument emailed to nearly 1,883 educators associated with construction programs/departments across the US. The study used 163 complete responses from US educators based on predefined parameters and identified the baseline operational paradigm (pre-COVID) for construction educators and programs across the US. The study determined the changes after the transition and investigated the impacts of the transition on faculty proficiency with online teaching, existing technological infrastructure, and communication with students. The study identified a moderate relationship between the University’s level of support and educators’ experiences in developing and delivering online materials during the transition. A moderate relationship was also identified between proficiency with online content delivery and total teaching experience. Finally, only a few respondents felt construction education could be delivered entirely online, based on their experiences.