Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how hospitality management instructors at a college of management in the Northeastern United States describe their attitudes towards the effects on instruction of the COVID-driven compulsory virtualization of their courses that occurred in Spring 2020. The Theory of Technology Acceptance, the Extended Theory of Technology Acceptance, and the Unified Theory of the Use and Acceptance of Technology jointly constituted this study’s theoretical foundations. Data collection was guided by three research questions, namely: (i) How do hospitality management instructors describe their attitudes towards the effects on teaching of the COVID-driven virtualization of instruction that occurred in Spring 2020? (ii) How do such instructors describe the setbacks created by said virtualization? (iii) How do such instructors describe the benefits of said virtualization? Data was acquired through 14 semistructured interviews and two semi-structured focus groups. Thematic analysis of the data yielded eight themes: (i) Virtual instruction was relatively convenient in some respects; (ii) Student-on-student interaction was limited; (iii) Instructor-student interaction was limited; (iv) Complex material was hard to teach; (v) Students disengaged; (vi) Virtual courses came to resemble correspondence courses; (vii) Courses involving labs and lab-like components could not be taught properly: (viii) Virtual instruction had more downsides than upsides. Conclusion: In order for the virtualization of hospitality management courses to succeed, the technology being used must allow the emotional dynamics that govern inperson instruction to govern virtual instruction.

Rights

© by Nicholas Makris, 2022 All rights reserved.

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