EMERGENCY ONLINE LEARNING & THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19 ON MINORITY STUDENTS

ABSTRACT

With the innovation and integration of technology within society, post-secondary education has adapted by offering online classes. This has allowed university students to obtain their degrees through digital learning. Benefits such as reduced costs, flexibility, convenience, and greater accessibility have driven this change in modality. Yet, some advocates for online learning have not considered inequalities among minority students who do not have access to technology, face social isolation, greater technical difficulties, and lack support. Though these inequalities have been studied over the past two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the landscape that university students operate in with emergency online learning. We conducted an exploratory survey to examine the impact of this shift on minority students. The results reveal the experiences and perceptions of university minority students within emergency online learning through the lens of the digital divide. We found accessibility was neither a positive nor a negative barrier that minority students face, and that minority students could not connect with peers socially. However, minority students encountered fewer technical difficulties and felt they were more technologically literate because of the shift online. This paper concludes with ideas for marketing educators and professionals, as well as directions for future research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10528008.2022.2136498