research paper about new normal

Information

• Author Services

Initiatives

You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .

Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.

Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Original Submission Date Received: .

• Active Journals
• Find a Journal
• Proceedings Series
• For Authors
• For Reviewers
• For Editors
• For Librarians
• For Publishers
• For Societies
• For Conference Organizers
• Open Access Policy
• Institutional Open Access Program
• Special Issues Guidelines
• Editorial Process
• Research and Publication Ethics
• Article Processing Charges
• Testimonials
• Preprints.org
• SciProfiles
• Encyclopedia

Article Menu

• Subscribe SciFeed
• Recommended Articles
• Author Biographies
• Google Scholar
• on Google Scholar
• Table of Contents

Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.

Please let us know what you think of our products and services.

Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.

JSmol Viewer

Navigating the new normal: adapting online and distance learning in the post-pandemic era.

1. Introduction

1.1. background, 1.2. purpose of the review.

• Highlighting the multifaceted impact of the pandemic on education, including the disruptions caused by school closures and the subsequent shift to remote learning [ 1 ].
• Exploring innovative approaches and strategies employed by educators to ensure effective online teaching and learning experiences [ 2 , 4 ].
• Examining the role of technological solutions and platforms in facilitating remote education and their effectiveness in supporting teaching and learning processes [ 4 ].
• Investigating strategies for promoting student engagement and participation in virtual classrooms, considering the unique challenges and opportunities presented by online and distance learning [ 2 , 3 ].
• Evaluating the various assessment and evaluation methods employed in online education, considering their validity, reliability, and alignment with learning outcomes [ 4 ].
• Discussing the importance of supporting student well-being and academic success in the digital environment, addressing the social and emotional aspects of remote learning [ 3 ].
• Examining the professional development opportunities and resources available for educators to enhance their skills in online teaching and adapt to the changing educational landscape [ 4 ].
• Addressing equity and accessibility considerations in online and distance learning, developing strategies to ensure equitable opportunities for all learners and mitigate the digital divide [ 1 , 2 ].
• Identifying key lessons learned and best practices from the experiences of educators and students during the pandemic, providing insights for future educational practices [ 1 , 4 ].
• Discussing the potential for educational innovation and transformations in teaching and learning practices in the post-pandemic era, considering the lessons learned from the rapid transition to online and distance learning [ 4 ].

1.3. Significance of the Study

• To provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the pandemic on education. UNESCO (2020) reported that the widespread school closures caused by the pandemic disrupted traditional education practices and posed significant challenges for students, educators, and families [ 1 ]. As such, understanding the multifaceted impact of the pandemic is crucial for effective decision making and policy development.
• To highlight innovative approaches to online teaching and learning. Hodges et al. [ 4 ] emphasized the importance of instructional design principles and the use of educational technology tools in facilitating effective online education [ 4 ] by examining strategies employed by educators during the pandemic. This review paper aims to identify successful practices that can be applied in future online and blended learning environments.
• To explore the role of technology in supporting remote education. The rapid transition to online and distance learning has required the use of various technological solutions and platforms. With reference to this subject, Hodges et al. (2020) discussed the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning, highlighting the importance of leveraging technology to create engaging and interactive virtual classrooms [ 4 ].
• To address equity and accessibility considerations. The pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities in access to education and technology. On this line, UNESCO (2020) emphasized the need to address equity issues and bridge the digital divide to ensure equitable opportunities for all learners. This review paper examines strategies and interventions aimed at promoting equitable access to online and distance learning.
• To provide insights for future educational practices by analyzing experiences, challenges, and successes encountered during the transition to online and distance learning. This review paper aims to provide valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and researchers. So, lessons learned from the pandemic can inform the development of effective educational policies, teacher training programs, and support systems for students.

1.4. Methodology of Search

2. impact of the covid-19 pandemic on education, 3. transitioning from traditional classrooms to online and distance learning, 4. challenges faced by educators during the lockdown period, 5. strategies for effective online teaching and learning, 6. technological solutions and platforms for remote education, 7. promoting student engagement and participation in the virtual classroom, 8. assessments and evaluation methods in online education, 9. supporting student well-being and academic success in the digital environment, 10. professional development for educators in online teaching, 11. addressing equity and accessibility in online and distance learning, 12. lessons learned and best practices for future educational practices, 13. innovations and transformations in education post-pandemic, 14. policy implications and recommendations for effective online education, 15. ethical considerations in online and distance learning, 16. innovations and practical applications in post-pandemic educational strategies.

• Impact Analysis Tools: Develop analytical tools to quantify the educational disruptions caused by the pandemic, focusing on metrics like attendance, engagement, and performance shifts due to remote learning.
• Online Pedagogy Workshops: Create workshops for educators to share and learn innovative online teaching strategies, focusing on interactivity, student-centered learning, and curriculum adaptation for virtual environments.
• Tech-Integration Frameworks: Develop frameworks for integrating and evaluating the effectiveness of various technological solutions in remote education, including LMS, interactive tools, and AI-based learning supports.
• Engagement-Boosting Platforms: Create platforms or tools that specifically target student engagement in virtual classrooms, incorporating gamification, interactive content, and real-time feedback mechanisms.
• Assessment Methodology Guides: Develop guidelines or toolkits for educators to design and implement valid and reliable online assessments aligned with learning outcomes.
• Well-being Monitoring Systems: Implement systems to monitor and support student well-being in digital learning environments, incorporating mental health resources and social-emotional learning components.
• Professional Development Portals: Develop online portals offering continuous professional development opportunities for educators, focusing on upskilling in digital pedagogy, content creation, and adaptive learning technologies.
• Equity and Accessibility Strategies: Formulate and implement strategies to ensure equitable access to online and distance learning, addressing the digital divide through resource distribution, adaptive technologies, and inclusive curriculum design.
• Best Practices Repository: Create a repository of best practices and lessons learned from the pandemic’s educational challenges, serving as a resource for future educational planning and crisis management.
• Post-Pandemic Educational Innovation Labs: Establish innovation labs to explore and pilot new teaching and learning practices in the post-pandemic era, emphasizing the integration of traditional and digital pedagogies.

17. Conclusions: Navigating the Path Forward in Online Education

Author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

• Reuge, N.; Jenkins, R.; Brossard, M.; Soobrayan, B.; Mizunoya, S.; Ackers, J.; Jones, L.; Taulo, W.G. Education response to COVID 19 pandemic, a special issue proposed by UNICEF: Editorial review. Int. J. Educ. Dev. 2021 , 87 , 102485. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Wang, C.; Cheng, Z.; Yue, X.-G.; McAleer, M. Risk Management of COVID-19 by Universities in China. J. Risk Financ. Manag. 2020 , 13 , 36. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bao, W. COVID-19 and Online Teaching in Higher Education: A Case Study of Peking University. Hum. Behav. Emerg. Technol. 2020 , 2 , 113–115. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Hodges, C.B.; Moore, S.; Lockee, B.B.; Trust, T.; Bond, M.A. The Difference between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning ; Educause: Boulder, CO, USA, 2020. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bashir, A.; Bashir, S.; Rana, K.; Lambert, P.; Vernallis, A. Post-COVID-19 Adaptations; the Shifts towards Online Learning, Hybrid Course Delivery and the Implications for Biosciences Courses in the Higher Education Setting. Front. Educ. 2021 , 6 , 310. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Akpa, V.O.; Akinosi, J.R.; Nwankwere, I.A.; Makinde, G.O.; Ajike, E.O. Strategic Innovation, Digital Dexterity and Service Quality of Selected Quoted Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria. Eur. J. Bus. Innov. Res. 2022 , 10 , 15–35. [ Google Scholar ]
• Loades, M.E.; Chatburn, E.; Higson-Sweeney, N.; Reynolds, S.; Shafran, R.; Brigden, A.; Linney, C.; McManus, M.N.; Borwick, C.; Crawley, E. Rapid Systematic Review: The Impact of Social Isolation and Loneliness on the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in the Context of COVID-19. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 2020 , 59 , 1218–1239.e3. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Van Lancker, W.; Parolin, Z. COVID-19, School Closures, and Child Poverty: A Social Crisis in the Making. Lancet Public Health 2020 , 5 , e243–e244. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Brooks, S.K.; Webster, R.K.; Smith, L.E.; Woodland, L.; Wessely, S.; Greenberg, N.; Rubin, G.J. The Psychological Impact of Quarantine and How to Reduce It: Rapid Review of the Evidence. Lancet 2020 , 395 , 912–920. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Padmanabhanunni, A.; Pretorius, T.B. Teacher Burnout in the Time of COVID-19: Antecedents and Psychological Consequences. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023 , 20 , 4204. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Al Lily, A.E.; Ismail, A.F.; Abunasser, F.M.; Alhajhoj Alqahtani, R.H. Distance Education as a Response to Pandemics: Coronavirus and Arab Culture. Technol. Soc. 2020 , 63 , 101317. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Means, B.; Toyama, Y.; Murphy, R.; Bakia, M.; Jones, K. Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies ; Centre for Learning Technology: Hong Kong, China, 2009. [ Google Scholar ]
• Picciano, A.G. Theories and Frameworks for Online Education: Seeking an Integrated Model. In A Guide to Administering Distance Learning ; Brill: Leiden, The Netherlands, 2021; pp. 79–103. [ Google Scholar ]
• Burgstahler, S.E.; Cory, R.C. Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice ; Harvard Education Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nicol, D.J.; Macfarlane-Dick, D. Formative Assessment and Self-regulated Learning: A Model and Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice. Stud. High. Educ. 2006 , 31 , 199–218. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Stodel, E.J.; Thompson, T.L.; MacDonald, C.J. Learners’ Perspectives on What Is Missing from Online Learning: Interpretations through the Community of Inquiry Framework. Int. Rev. Res. Open Distrib. Learn. 2006 , 7 , 1–24. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Richardson, J.C.; Maeda, Y.; Lv, J.; Caskurlu, S. Social Presence in Relation to Students’ Satisfaction and Learning in the Online Environment: A Meta-Analysis. Comput. Hum. Behav. 2017 , 71 , 402–417. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Mayer, R.E. Using Multimedia for E-learning. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 2017 , 33 , 403–423. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Swan, K. Building Learning Communities in Online Courses: The Importance of Interaction. Educ. Commun. Inf. 2002 , 2 , 23–49. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Sato, S.N.; Condes Moreno, E.; Villanueva, A.R.; Orquera Miranda, P.; Chiarella, P.; Bermudez, G.; Aguilera, J.F.T.; Clemente-Suárez, V.J. Psychological Impacts of Teaching Models on Ibero-American Educators during COVID-19. Behav. Sci. 2023 , 13 , 957. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Dennen, V.P.; Burner, K.J. The Cognitive Apprenticeship Model in Educational Practice. In Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology ; Routledge: Oxfordshire, UK, 2008; pp. 425–439. [ Google Scholar ]
• Alturki, U.; Aldraiweesh, A. Application of Learning Management System (LMS) during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Sustainable Acceptance Model of the Expansion Technology Approach. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 10991. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Sun, A.; Chen, X. Online Education and Its Effective Practice: A Research Review. J. Inf. Technol. Educ. 2016 , 15 , 157–190. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• AIKTC; CITEL. Three Days National Conference on Innovative Teaching & Exuberant Learning (NCiTeL 2021) ; AIKTC: Navi Mumbai, India, 2021. [ Google Scholar ]
• Coggi, C. Innovare La Didattica e La Valutazione in Università: Il Progetto IRIDI per La Formazione Dei Docenti. In Innovare la Didattica e la Valutazione in Università ; Franco Angeli Edizioni: Milano, Italy, 2019; pp. 1–361. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hawa, D.M.; Ghoniem, E.; Saad, A.M. Integrating Problem-Based Learning Into Blended Learning To Enhance Students’ Programming Skills. J. Posit. Sch. Psychol. 2022 , 6 , 4479–4497. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee, E.; Hannafin, M.J. A Design Framework for Enhancing Engagement in Student-Centered Learning: Own It, Learn It, and Share It. Educ. Technol. Res. Dev. 2016 , 64 , 707–734. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Mayer, R.E. How Multimedia Can Improve Learning and Instruction. In The Cambridge Handbook of Cognition and Education ; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2019. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dillenbourg, P.; Järvelä, S.; Fischer, F. The Evolution of Research on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning BT-Technology-Enhanced Learning: Principles and Products ; Balacheff, N., Ludvigsen, S., de Jong, T., Lazonder, A., Barnes, S., Eds.; Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2009. [ Google Scholar ]
• McNair, D.E.; Palloff, R.M.; Pratt, K. Lessons from the Virtual Classroom: The Realities of Online Teaching ; SAGE Publications: Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2015. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baran, E.; Correia, A.-P. A Professional Development Framework for Online Teaching. TechTrends 2014 , 58 , 95–101. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gikandi, J.W.; Morrow, D.; Davis, N.E. Online Formative Assessment in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature. Comput. Educ. 2011 , 57 , 2333–2351. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Conole, G. Designing for Learning in an Open World ; Springer Science & Business Media: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2012; Volume 4. [ Google Scholar ]
• Black, P.; Wiliam, D. The Formative Purpose: Assessment Must First Promote Learning. Yearb. Natl. Soc. Study Educ. 2004 , 103 , 20–50. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ruiz-Primo, M.A.; Briggs, D.; Iverson, H.; Talbot, R.; Shepard, L.A. Impact of Undergraduate Science Course Innovations on Learning. Science 2011 , 331 , 1269–1270. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Ismail, S.M.; Rahul, D.R.; Patra, I.; Rezvani, E. Formative vs. Summative Assessment: Impacts on Academic Motivation, Attitude toward Learning, Test Anxiety, and Self-Regulation Skill. Lang. Test. Asia 2022 , 12 , 40. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Nitko, A.J. Educational Assessment of Students ; ERIC: Washington, DC, USA, 1996. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cherner, T.; Halpin, P. Determining the Educational Value of Virtual Reality Apps Using Content Analysis. J. Interact. Learn. Res. 2021 , 32 , 245–280. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pirker, B.; Smolka, J. International Law and Linguistics: Pieces of an Interdisciplinary Puzzle. J. Int. Disput. Settl. 2020 , 11 , 501–521. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Panda, S. Analyzing Effectiveness of Learning Management System in Present Scenario: Conceptual Background and Practical Implementation. Int. J. Innov. Res. Adv. Stud. 2020 , 7 , 40–50. [ Google Scholar ]
• Coghlan, S.; Miller, T.; Paterson, J. Good Proctor or “Big Brother”? Ethics of Online Exam Supervision Technologies. Philos. Technol. 2021 , 34 , 1581–1606. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Shute, V.J.; Rahimi, S. Review of Computer-based Assessment for Learning in Elementary and Secondary Education. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 2017 , 33 , 1–19. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Landers, R.N.; Callan, R.C. Casual Social Games as Serious Games: The Psychology of Gamification in Undergraduate Education and Employee Training. In Serious Games and Edutainment Applications ; Springer: London, UK, 2011; pp. 399–423. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hattie, J.; Timperley, H. The Power of Feedback. Rev. Educ. Res. 2007 , 77 , 81–112. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Schraw, G.; Crippen, K.J.; Hartley, K. Promoting Self-Regulation in Science Education: Metacognition as Part of a Broader Perspective on Learning. Res. Sci. Educ. 2006 , 36 , 111–139. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Przybylski, A.K.; Murayama, K.; DeHaan, C.R.; Gladwell, V. Motivational, Emotional, and Behavioral Correlates of Fear of Missing Out. Comput. Hum. Behav. 2013 , 29 , 1841–1848. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Bereznowski, P.; Atroszko, P.A.; Konarski, R. Work Addiction, Work Engagement, Job Burnout, and Perceived Stress: A Network Analysis. Front. Psychol. 2023 , 14 , 1130069. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Brock, A. Mitigating Burnout and Promoting Professional Well-Being in Advisors. In Academic Advising Administration ; Routledge: Oxfordshire, UK, 2023; pp. 332–344. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rovai, A.P.; Barnum, K.T. On-Line Course Effectiveness: An Analysis of Student Interactions and Perceptions of Learning. Int. J. E-Learn. Distance Educ. Int. Du E-Learn. La Form. Distance 2003 , 18 , 57–73. [ Google Scholar ]
• Topping, K.J. Trends in Peer Learning. Educ. Psychol. 2005 , 25 , 631–645. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Shea, P.; Li, C.S.; Pickett, A. A Study of Teaching Presence and Student Sense of Learning Community in Fully Online and Web-Enhanced College Courses. Internet High. Educ. 2006 , 9 , 175–190. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Wiggins, G. Educative Assessment. Designing Assessments To Inform and Improve Student Performance ; ERIC: Washington, DC, USA, 1998. [ Google Scholar ]
• Yukselturk, E.; Bulut, S. Predictors for Student Success in an Online Course. J. Educ. Technol. Soc. 2007 , 10 , 71–83. [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci, E.L.; Ryan, R.M. The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychol. Inq. 2000 , 11 , 227–268. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Locke, E.A.; Latham, G.P. A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance ; Prentice-Hall, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 1990. [ Google Scholar ]
• Salmon, G. E-Tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning ; Routledge: Oxfordshire, UK, 2013. [ Google Scholar ]
• Koehler, M.; Mishra, P. What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)? Contemp. Issues Technol. Teach. Educ. 2009 , 9 , 60–70. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Petretto, D.R.; Carta, S.M.; Cataudella, S.; Masala, I.; Mascia, M.L.; Penna, M.P.; Piras, P.; Pistis, I.; Masala, C. The Use of Distance Learning and E-Learning in Students with Learning Disabilities: A Review on the Effects and Some Hint of Analysis on the Use during COVID-19 Outbreak. Clin. Pract. Epidemiol. Ment. Health 2021 , 17 , 92–102. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Lodder, J.; Heeren, B.; Jeuring, J. A Comparison of Elaborated and Restricted Feedback in LogEx, a Tool for Teaching Rewriting Logical Formulae. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 2019 , 35 , 620–632. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Kocdar, S.; Bozkurt, A. Supporting Learners with Special Needs in Open, Distance, and Digital Education. In Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education ; Springer: Singapore, 2022; pp. 1–16. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tsai, Y.-S.; Rates, D.; Moreno-Marcos, P.M.; Muñoz-Merino, P.J.; Jivet, I.; Scheffel, M.; Drachsler, H.; Kloos, C.D.; Gašević, D. Learning Analytics in European Higher Education—Trends and Barriers. Comput. Educ. 2020 , 155 , 103933. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ladson-Billings, G. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: Aka the Remix. Harv. Educ. Rev. 2014 , 84 , 74–84. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Means, B.; Bakia, M.; Murphy, R. Learning Online: What Research Tells Us about Whether, When and How ; Routledge: Oxfordshire, UK, 2014. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gray, J.A.; DiLoreto, M. The Effects of Student Engagement, Student Satisfaction, and Perceived Learning in Online Learning Environments. Int. J. Educ. Leadersh. Prep. 2016 , 11 , n1. [ Google Scholar ]
• Garrison, D.R.; Cleveland-Innes, M. Facilitating Cognitive Presence in Online Learning: Interaction Is Not Enough. Am. J. Distance Educ. 2005 , 19 , 133–148. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Darling-Hammond, L.; Hyler, M.E.; Gardner, M. Effective Teacher Professional Development ; Learning Policy Institute: Palo Alto, CA, USA, 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
• Garrison, D.R.; Vaughan, N.D. Blended Learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles, and Guidelines ; John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2008. [ Google Scholar ]
• Vygotsky, L.S.; Cole, M. Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes ; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1978. [ Google Scholar ]
• Burlacu, M.; Coman, C.; Bularca, M.C. Blogged into the System: A Systematic Review of the Gamification in e-Learning before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Sustainability 2023 , 15 , 6476. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Yamani, H.A. A Conceptual Framework for Integrating Gamification in eLearning Systems Based on Instructional Design Model. Int. J. Emerg. Technol. Learn. 2021 , 16 , 14. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Siemens, G.; Baker, R.S.J.d. Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining: Towards Communication and Collaboration. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 29 April–2 May 2012; pp. 252–254. [ Google Scholar ]
• Li, L. Reskilling and Upskilling the Future-Ready Workforce for Industry 4.0 and Beyond. Inf. Syst. Front. 2022 . [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Lythreatis, S.; Singh, S.K.; El-Kassar, A.-N. The Digital Divide: A Review and Future Research Agenda. Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change 2022 , 175 , 121359. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Tawfik, A.A.; Shepherd, C.E.; Gatewood, J.; Gish-Lieberman, J.J. First and Second Order Barriers to Teaching in K-12 Online Learning. TechTrends 2021 , 65 , 925–938. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Muñoz, F.; Matus, O.; Pérez, C.; Fasce, E. Blended Learning y El Desarrollo de La Comunicación Científica En Un Programa de Especialización Dental. Investig. En Educ. Médica 2017 , 6 , 180–189. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Barbour, M.K. Introducing a Special Collection of Papers on K-12 Online Learning and Continuity of Instruction after Emergency Remote Teaching. TechTrends 2022 , 66 , 298–300. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Khalil, M.; Slade, S.; Prinsloo, P. Learning Analytics in Support of Inclusiveness and Disabled Students: A Systematic Review. J. Comput. High. Educ. 2023 , 1–18. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Prinsloo, P.; Slade, S. Student Privacy Self-Management: Implications for Learning Analytics. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA, 16–20 March 2015; pp. 83–92. [ Google Scholar ]
• Watson, G.R.; Sottile, J. Cheating in the Digital Age: Do Students Cheat More in Online Courses? Online J. Distance Learn. Adm. 2010 , 13 , 798–803. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhattacharya, S.; Murthy, V.; Bhattacharya, S. The Social and Ethical Issues of Online Learning during the Pandemic and Beyond. Asian J. Bus. Ethics 2022 , 11 , 275–293. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Yadav, K.K.; Reddy, L.J. Psychological effects of technology on college students. J. Clin. Otorhinolaryngol. Head Neck Surg. 2023 , 27 , 1805–1816. [ Google Scholar ]
• Martin, F.; Bolliger, D.U. Engagement Matters: Student Perceptions on the Importance of Engagement Strategies in the Online Learning Environment. Online Learn. 2018 , 22 , 205–222. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Clemente-Suárez, V.J.; Dalamitros, A.A.; Beltran-Velasco, A.I.; Mielgo-Ayuso, J.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F. Social and psychophysiological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic: An extensive literature review. Front. Psychol. 2020 , 11 , 3077. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Clemente-Suárez, V.J.; Navarro-Jiménez, E.; Jimenez, M.; Hormeño-Holgado, A.; Martinez-Gonzalez, M.B.; Benitez-Agudelo, J.C.; Perez-Palencia, N.; Laborde-Cárdenas, C.C.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic in Public Mental Health: An Extensive Narrative Review. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 3221. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Clemente-Suárez, V.J.; Navarro-Jiménez, E.; Moreno-Luna, L.; Saavedra-Serrano, M.C.; Jimenez, M.; Simón, J.A.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F. The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Social, Health, and Economy. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 6314. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Rodriguez-Besteiro, S.; Beltran-Velasco, A.I.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F.; Martínez-González, M.B.; Navarro-Jiménez, E.; Yáñez-Sepúlveda, R.; Clemente-Suárez, V.J. Social Media, Anxiety and COVID-19 Lockdown Measurement Compliance. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023 , 20 , 4416. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Clemente-Suárez, V.J.; Navarro-Jiménez, E.; Simón-Sanjurjo, J.A.; Beltran-Velasco, A.I.; Laborde-Cárdenas, C.C.; Benitez-Agudelo, J.C.; Bustamante-Sánchez, Á.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F. Mis–Dis Information in COVID-19 Health Crisis: A Narrative Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022 , 19 , 5321. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Clemente-Suárez, V.J.; Navarro-Jiménez, E.; Ruisoto, P.; Dalamitros, A.A.; Beltran-Velasco, A.I.; Hormeño-Holgado, A.; Laborde-Cárdenas, C.C.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F. Performance of Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis of Emergency System in COVID-19 Pandemic. An Extensive Narrative Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021 , 18 , 5208. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Sato, S.N.; Condes Moreno, E.; Rico Villanueva, A.; Orquera Miranda, P.; Chiarella, P.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F.; Clemente-Suárez, V.J. Cultural Differences between University Students in Online Learning Quality and Psychological Profile during COVID-19. J. Risk Financ. Manag. 2022 , 15 , 555. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Nomie-Sato, S.; Condes Moreno, E.; Villanueva, A.R.; Chiarella, P.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F.; Beltrán-Velasco, A.I.; Clemente-Suárez, V.J. Gender Differences of University Students in the Online Teaching Quality and Psychological Profile during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022 , 19 , 14729. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Williamson, B.; Macgilchrist, F.; Potter, J. COVID-19 controversies and critical research in digital education. Learn. Media Technol. 2021 , 46 , 117–127. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Brammer, S.; Clark, T. COVID-19 and management education: Reflections on challenges, opportunities, and potential futures. Br. J. Manag. 2020 , 31 , 453. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Peytcheva-Forsyth, R.V.; Aleksieva, L.K. The effect of the teachers’ experience in online education during the pandemic on their views of strengths and weaknesses of e-learning (SU case). In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies, Ruse, Bulgaria, 18–19 June 2021; pp. 1–11. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nguyen, T.; Netto, C.L.M.; Wilkins, J.F.; Bröker, P.; Vargas, E.E.; Sealfon, C.D.; Puthipiroj, P.; Li, K.S.; Bowler, J.E.; Hinson, H.R.; et al. Insights into students’ experiences and perceptions of remote learning methods: From the COVID-19 pandemic to best practice for the future. Front. Educ. 2021 , 6 , 91. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Goudeau, S.; Sanrey, C.; Stanczak, A.; Manstead, A.; Darnon, C. Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap. Nat. Hum. Behav. 2021 , 5 , 1273–1281. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Zhang, J.; Ding, Y.; Yang, X.; Zhong, J.; Qiu, X.; Zou, Z.; Xu, Y.; Jin, X.; Wu, X.; Huang, J.; et al. COVID-19′s impacts on the scope, effectiveness, and interaction characteristics of online learning: A social network analysis. PLoS ONE 2022 , 17 , e0273016. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Munoz-Najar, A.; Gilberto, A.; Hasan, A.; Cobo, C.; Azevedo, J.P.; Akmal, M. Remote Learning during COVID-19: Lessons from Today, Principles for Tomorrow ; World Bank: Washington, DC, USA, 2021. [ Google Scholar ]

Share and Cite

Sato, S.N.; Condes Moreno, E.; Rubio-Zarapuz, A.; Dalamitros, A.A.; Yañez-Sepulveda, R.; Tornero-Aguilera, J.F.; Clemente-Suárez, V.J. Navigating the New Normal: Adapting Online and Distance Learning in the Post-Pandemic Era. Educ. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010019

Sato SN, Condes Moreno E, Rubio-Zarapuz A, Dalamitros AA, Yañez-Sepulveda R, Tornero-Aguilera JF, Clemente-Suárez VJ. Navigating the New Normal: Adapting Online and Distance Learning in the Post-Pandemic Era. Education Sciences . 2024; 14(1):19. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010019

Sato, Simone Nomie, Emilia Condes Moreno, Alejandro Rubio-Zarapuz, Athanasios A. Dalamitros, Rodrigo Yañez-Sepulveda, Jose Francisco Tornero-Aguilera, and Vicente Javier Clemente-Suárez. 2024. "Navigating the New Normal: Adapting Online and Distance Learning in the Post-Pandemic Era" Education Sciences 14, no. 1: 19. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010019

Article Metrics

Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.

Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals

Teaching and Learning in the New Normal: Responding to Students’ and Academics’ Multifaceted Needs

• Conference paper
• First Online: 09 July 2023
• Cite this conference paper

• Andriani Piki   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0376-1713 9 &
• Magdalena Brzezinska   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4213-8636 10  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14026))

Included in the following conference series:

• International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

690 Accesses

2 Citations

Alongside the prolonged social and economic instability and the escalating demands for upskilling, Covid-19 pandemic had a detrimental impact on students’ and academics’ mental health and wellbeing. Social isolation and the emergency transition to remote education caused high levels of psychological distress, hindering students’ self-efficacy and academic performance. The pandemic also induced sudden changes affecting academics’ personal and professional lives, leading to mental disorders and risk of burnout. While recent research focuses on addressing the effects of the pandemic on either students or academics, this paper presents a collective analysis. The key themes that emerged by examining the experiences of both students and academics in higher education are framed in a multi-layered support system embracing qualities such as: self-efficacy, wellbeing, equality, diversity, and inclusion, social interactions, human-centred technologies, and authentic pedagogical methods. The findings are discussed with the aim to extract informed recommendations for enhancing teaching and learning experiences in the post-pandemic era.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Abu Elnasr, E.S., Hasanein, A.M., Abu Elnasr, A.E.: Responses to COVID-19 in higher education: Social media usage for sustaining formal academic communication in developing countries. Sustainability 12 (16), 6520 (2020)

Google Scholar  

Al Miskry, A.S.A., Hamid, A.A.M., Darweesh, A.H.M.: The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on University Faculty, Staff, and Students and Coping Strategies Used During the Lockdown in the United Arab Emirates. Frontiers in Psychology 12 (2021)

Al-Taweel, D., et al.: Multidisciplinary academic perspectives during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Int. J. Health Planning Manag. 35 (6), 1295–1301 (2020)

Aucejo, E.M., French, J., Araya, M.P.U., Zafar, B.: The impact of Covid-19 on student experiences and expectations: Evidence from a survey. Journal of public economics, 191 (2020)

Bates, A.W.: Teaching in a Digital Age, 2nd edn. Tony Bates Associates Ltd., Vancouver, B.C. (2019)

Berger, T.: How to Maslow Before Bloom, All Day Long. Edutopia (2020). https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-maslow-bloom-all-day-long/

Bożykowski, M., Izdebski, A., Jasiński, M., Konieczna-Sałamatin, J.: Nauczanie w dobie pandemii i perspektywa powrotu do normalności, Pracownia Ewaluacji Jakości Kształcenia Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego (University of Warsaw) (2021)

Brzezinska, M., Cromarty, E.: Emergency Remote Teaching in the University Context: Responding to Social and Emotional Needs During a Sudden Transition Online. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media: Applications in Education and Commerce. HCII 2022. LNCS, vol. 13316. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05064-0_3

Brzezinska, M.: Global skills in the global pandemic: how to create an effective bichronous learning experience during an emergency shift to remote instruction. In: Auer, M.E., Pester, A., May, D. (eds.) Learning with Technologies and Technologies in Learning. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol. 456. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04286-7_32

Cassibba, R., Ferrarello, D., Mammana, M.F., Musso, P., Pennisi, M., Taranto, E.: Teaching mathematics at distance: a challenge for universities. Educ. Sci. 11 (1), 1 (2020)

Czaja, K., et al.: Zdalne kształcenie na Wydziale Humanistycznym Uniwersytetu Śląskiego w Katowicach. Report (March-April 2020). (A Report. Remote Education at the Department of Humanities of the University of Silesia in Katowice), Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach 2020, https://us.edu.pl/wydzial/wh/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/Nieprzypisane/ZDALNE-KSZTAŁCENIE-NA-WYDZIALE-HUMANISTYCZNYM-RAPORT.pdf

Darby, F., Lang, J.M.: Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes (1st ed.). Jossey-Bass (2019)

Dewey, J.: How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. DC Heath (1933)

Dinu, L.M., et al.: A case study investigating mental wellbeing of university academics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Educ. Sci. 11 (11), 702 (2021)

Article   Google Scholar  

Engelbrecht, J., Borba, M. C., Llinares, S., Kaiser, G.: Will 2020 be remembered as the year in which education was changed? ZDM – Math. Educ. 52 (5), 821–824 (2020)

Flaherty, C.: Faculty pandemic stress is now chronic. Inside Higher Ed, 19 (2020)

France, P.E.: Reclaiming Personalized Learning: A Pedagogy for Restoring Equity and Humanity in Our Classrooms (First). Corwin (2020)

France, P.E.: Humanizing Distance Learning: Centering Equity and Humanity in Times of Crisis (First). Corwin (2021)

Gewin, V.: Pandemic Burnout Is Rampant in Academia. Nature Publishing Group (2021). https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-021-00663-2/d41586-021-00663-2.pdf

Gierdowski, D.C.: ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology (Research report). Louisville, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, October 2019 (2019). http://www.educause.edu/ecar

Halabieh, H., et al.: The future of higher education: identifying current educational problems and proposed solutions. Educ. Sci. 12 (12), 888 (2022)

Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., Bond, A.: The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. EDUCAUSE Rev. 2020 , 3 (2020)

Hughes, G.J., Byrom, N.C.: Managing student mental health: the challenges faced by academics on professional healthcare courses. J. Adv. Nurs. 75 (7), 1539–1548 (2019)

Joosten, T., Weber, N., Baker, M., Schletzbaum, A.: Planning for a Blended Future: A Research-Driven Guide for Educators (2021). Available online: https://eduq.info/xmlui/handle/11515/38291

Kara, M.: Revisiting online learner engagement: exploring the role of learner characteristics in an emergency period. J. Res. Technol. Educ., 1–17 (2021)

Killen, C., Langer-Crame, M., Penrice, S.: Teaching Staff Digital Experience Insights Survey 2020: UK Higher Education Findings (2021). https://www.jisc.ac.uk/reports/teaching-staff-digital-experience-insights-survey-2020-uk-higher-education

Kita, Y., Yasuda, S., Gherghel, C.: Online education and the mental health of faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Sci. Rep. 12 (1), 1–9 (2022)

Kukulska-Hulme, A., et al.: Innovating Pedagogy 2022: Open University Innovation Report 10. Milton Keynes: The Open University (2022)

Kumar, S., Martin, F., Budhrani, K., Ritzhaupt, A.: Award-winning faculty online teaching practices: Elements of award-winning courses. Online Learning 23(4) (2019)

Leone, V., Brzezinska, M.: Transatlantic Educators Dialogue (TED) Program for Global Citizenship. Idee in Form@Zione, 99–115 (2021)

Leong, K., Sung, A., Au, D., Blanchard, C.: A review of the trend of microlearning. J. Work-Appl. Manage. 13 (1), 88–102 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-10-2020-004

Ma, X., Liu, J., Liang, J., Fan, C.: An empirical study on the effect of group awareness in CSCL environments. Interactive Learning Environments, 1–16 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2020.1758730

Marinoni, G., van’t Land, H.: The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Higher Education. International Higher Education. Special Issue 102, pp. 7–9 (2020)

McGaughey, F., et al.: This can’t be the new norm’: academics’ perspectives on the COVID-19 crisis for the Australian university sector. Higher education research & development, 1–16 (2021)

McKee, C., Ntokos, K.: Online microlearning and student engagement in computer games higher education. Res. Learn. Technol. 30 (2022). https://doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v30.2680

McKenzie, L.: Bridging the Digital Divide: Lessons From Covid-19. Inside Higher Ed (2021). https://www.insidehighered.com/content/bridging-digital-divide-lessons-covid-19

Meletiou-Mavrotheris, M., Eteokleous, N., Stylianou-Georgiou, A.: Emergency remote learning in higher education in Cyprus during COVID-19 lockdown: a zoom-out view of challenges and opportunities for quality online learning. Educ. Sci. 12 (7), 477 (2022)

Muñoz-Carril, P.C., Hernández-Sellés, N., Fuentes-Abeledo, E.J., González-Sanmamed, M.: Factors influencing students’ perceived impact of learning and satisfaction in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning. Comput. Educ. 174 , 104310 (2021)

Peters, D., Calvo, R.A., Ryan, R.M.: Designing for motivation, engagement and wellbeing in digital experience. Front. Psychol. 9 , 797 (2018)

Piki, A.: An exploration of student experiences with social media and mobile technologies during emergency transition to remote education. In: The Proceedings of the 19th World Conference on Mobile, Blended and Seamless Learning (mLearn 2020), November 2–4, 2020, Cairo, Egypt (2020)

Piki, A.: Re-imagining the distributed nature of learner engagement in computer-supported collaborative learning contexts in the post-pandemic era. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds.) Social Computing and Social Media: Applications in Education and Commerce. HCII 2022 (June 26-July 1, 2022). LNCS, vol. 13316. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05064-0_13

Piki, A., Andreou, L., Markou, M.: Students’ perspectives on the emergency transition to online education – a case study in mathematics education. In: 16th Annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED2022), March 7–2, 2022 (2022)

Raygoza, M., Leon, R. Norris, A.: Humanizing Online Teaching (2020). https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/school-education-faculty-works/1805

Rifkin, J.: The Empathetic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World of Crisis. Penguin, New York, NY (2009)

Shaw, A.: Authentic Assessment in the Online Classroom. Center for Teaching and Learning. Wiley Education Services (2020)

Stefan, I.A., Gheorghe, A.F., Stefan, A., Piki, A., Tsalapata, H., Heidmann, O.: Constructing seamless learning through game-based learning experiences. Int. J. Mob. Blended Learn. (IJMBL) 14 (4), 1–12 (2022)

UUK (Universities UK) (2021). Stepchange Mentally Healthy Universities. https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/policyand-research/publications/stepchange-mentally-healthy-universities

Urbina-Garcia, A.: What do we know about university academics’ mental health? a systematic literature review. Stress. Health 36 (5), 563–585 (2020)

Veluvali, P., Surisetti, J.: Learning management system for greater learner engagement in higher education—a review. High. Educ. Future 9 (1), 107–121 (2022)

Vijayan, R.: Teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: a topic modeling study. Educ. Sci. 11 , 347 (2021)

Vlachopoulos, D.: COVID-19: threat or opportunity for online education? High. Learn. Res. Commun. 10 (1), 16–19 (2020)

Wang, Y., Cao, Y., Gong, S., Wang, Z., Li, N., Ai, L.: Interaction and learning engagement in online learning: the mediating roles of online learning self-efficacy and academic emotions. Learn. Individ. Differ. 94 , 102128 (2022)

Watchorn, D., Heckendorf, E., Smith, C.: Locked down, burned out: Publishing in a pandemic: The impact of Covid on academic authors. De Gruyter, Germany (2020)

Watermeyer, R., Crick, T., Knight, C., Goodall, J.: COVID-19 and digital disruption in UK universities: afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration. High. Educ. 81 (3), 623–641 (2021)

Whitman, G., Kelleher, I.: Your Checklist for Virtual Project-Based Learning. Edutopia (2020). https://www.edutopia.org/article/your-checklist-virtual-project-based-learning

WHO/UNESCO (2021). Making every school a health-promoting school: implementation guidance. Geneva: World Health Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2021). https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240025073

Wray, S., Kinman, G.: Supporting Staff Wellbeing in Higher Education (ISBN 978-1-7399860-1-8). Education Support, London (2021)

Yiapanas, G., Constantinou, M., Marcoulli, E.: The readiness of higher education academic staff in cyprus for shifting the instructional delivery mode from face-to-face to emergency remote teaching. In: Handbook of Research on Digital Innovation and Networking in Post-COVID-19 Organizations, pp. 301–323. IGI Global (2022)

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Central Lancashire – Cyprus, Larnaca, Cyprus

Andriani Piki

WSB University, Poznan, Poland

Magdalena Brzezinska

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Magdalena Brzezinska .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

Adela Coman

University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

Simona Vasilache

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Cite this paper.

Piki, A., Brzezinska, M. (2023). Teaching and Learning in the New Normal: Responding to Students’ and Academics’ Multifaceted Needs. In: Coman, A., Vasilache, S. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14026. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35927-9_9

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35927-9_9

Published : 09 July 2023

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-031-35926-2

Online ISBN : 978-3-031-35927-9

eBook Packages : Computer Science Computer Science (R0)

Share this paper

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• DOI: 10.1007/s11125-020-09521-x
• Corpus ID: 227152447

The “new normal” in education

• Published in Prospects 24 November 2020
• Education, Philosophy

61 Citations

Decoding new normal in education for the post-covid-19 world: beyond the digital solution, digital literacy and communicative competence in the new normal education, the "new normal" in education and the future of schooling, idea of pandemic-pedagogy: reflexive rumination on teaching and learning practices, the mobility paradigm in higher education: a phenomenological study on the shift in learning space, covid-19 – a boundary crossing event for teacher educators, the impact of remote learning on the social and emotional needs of students with exceptionalities, the lived experience of the faculty of polytechnic university of the philippines in the implementation of flexible technology- enhanced learning (flextel), secondary teachers' preparation, challenges, and coping mechanism in the pre-implementation of distance learning in the new normal, discoveries through challenges: collective autoethnographic study of teacher educators in the covid‘19 situation, 55 references, the worldliness of a cosmopolitan education: passionate lives in public service, the future of the curriculum: school knowledge in the digital age, education and the covid-19 pandemic, global citizenship education, trends shaping education 2019, the slow professor: challenging the culture of speed in the academy, curriculum theory.

• Highly Influential
• 10 Excerpts

Preventing violent extremism through universal values in curriculum

The kairos of philosophy, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 21 December 2020

Transitioning to the “new normal” of learning in unpredictable times: pedagogical practices and learning performance in fully online flipped classrooms

• Khe Foon Hew   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4149-533X 1 ,
• Chengyuan Jia 1 ,
• Donn Emmanuel Gonda 1 &
• Shurui Bai 1  

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education volume  17 , Article number:  57 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

469k Accesses

96 Citations

12 Altmetric

Metrics details

The COVID-19 outbreak has compelled many universities to immediately switch to the online delivery of lessons. Many instructors, however, have found developing effective online lessons in a very short period of time very stressful and difficult. This study describes how we successfully addressed this crisis by transforming two conventional flipped classes into fully online flipped classes with the help of a cloud-based video conferencing app. As in a conventional flipped course, in a fully online flipped course students are encouraged to complete online pre-class work. But unlike in the conventional flipped approach, students do not subsequently meet face-to-face in physical classrooms, but rather online. This study examines the effect of fully online flipped classrooms on student learning performance in two stages. In Stage One, we explain how we drew on the 5E framework to design two conventional flipped classes. The 5E framework consists of five phases—Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. In Stage Two, we describe how we transformed the two conventional flipped classes into fully online flipped classes. Quantitative analyses of students’ final course marks reveal that the participants in the fully online flipped classes performed as effectively as participants in the conventional flipped learning classes. Our qualitative analyses of student and staff reflection data identify seven good practices for videoconferencing - assisted online flipped classrooms.

Introduction

“It’s now painfully clear that schools ought to have had more robust disaster-preparedness plans in place in the event of interruptions in their campus operations. But because many schools did not have such plans in place…online learning is about to get a bad reputation at many campuses, I suspect.” Michael Horn, cited in Lederman ( 2020 ), ‘Inside Higher Ed’.

In early January 2020, scientists identified a new infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread disruptions to schools and universities. According to UNESCO, as of April 10, 2020, more than 188 countries had implemented nationwide school and university closures, impacting over 91% of the world’s student population (UNESCO n.d.).

During these school closures, all face-to-face lessons were cancelled, compelling many institutions, including our own university, to immediately transition from face-to-face in-person learning to completely online lessons. The abrupt switch to fully online learning has been particularly stressful for many instructors and students who prefer in-person instruction. Online learning is often stigmatized as a weaker option that provides a lower quality education than in-person face-to-face learning (Hodges et al. 2020 ). Indeed, such negative attitudes to fully online learning were revealed by a large EDUCAUSE survey (Pomerantz and Brooks 2017 ). The survey of 11,141 faculty members from 131 U.S. institutions found that only 9% of faculty prefer to teach a fully online course. In other words, a whopping 91% of faculty do not wish to teach in a completely online environment. Students’ opinions of fully online courses are not much better; a recent student survey by EDUCAUSE of more than 40,000 students across 118 American universities revealed that as many as 70% of the respondents mostly or completely prefer face-to-face learning environments (Gierdowski 2019 ).

Clearly, many faculty members and students do not see the value of fully online learning, despite the fact that online learning has been around for many decades. During the current health crisis, many instructors have had to improvise quick online learning solutions (Hodges et al. 2020 ). For example, in our own university, there are anecdotal reports of a myriad of emergency online methods. Some instructors, for example, merely uploaded their PowerPoint slides or papers onto a learning management system such as Moodle and asked students to read them on their own. Any questions were asked asynchronously on the Moodle forum. Other instructors recorded their own lectures (usually at least one hour long) and asked students to asynchronously watch the video lectures and then ask individual questions later. Still others talked for more than two hours via synchronous video platforms watched by students in their own homes. Although these online methods may be an efficient method of delivering content, they are not particularly effective in promoting active learning and interest (Bates and Galloway 2012 ). As one student remarked, “Sitting in front of my computer to watch a 2-h live lecture without any active learning activities such as group work is pretty boring!” Indeed, without any active learning activities such as peer interaction, a fully online course will feel more like an interactive book than a classroom (Sutterlin 2018 ).

Well-planned active online learning lessons are markedly different from the emergency online teaching offered in response to a crisis (Hodges et al. 2020 ). One promising strategy for promoting online active learning is the fully online flipped classroom pedagogical approach, hereafter referred to as the online flipped classroom approach. An online flipped classroom is a variant of the conventional flipped model. A conventional flipped classroom model consists of online learning of basic concepts before class, followed by face-to-face learning activities (Bishop and Verleger 2013 ). The conventional flipped model has become very popular in recent years due to its association with active learning, which emphasizes students’ active learning (Xiu and Thompson 2020 ). Active learning activities such as peer discussions can help students construct better understandings of the subject material (Deslauriers et al. 2019 ). Recent meta-analyses have provided consistent overall support for the superiority of the conventional flipped classroom approach over traditional learning for enhancing student learning (e.g., Låg and Sæle 2019 ; Lo and Hew 2019 ; Shi et al. 2019 ; van Alten et al. 2019 ).

The online flipped classroom is similar to the conventional flipped classroom model in that students are encouraged to prepare for class by completing some pre-class activities (e.g., watching video lectures, completing quizzes). However, unlike the conventional flipped classroom approach, students in online flipped classrooms do not meet face-to-face, but online (Stohr et al. 2020 ). Although the online flipped classroom appears to be gathering momentum in higher education, very few studies have examined its effectiveness (for an exception, see Stohr et al. 2020 , who compared the online flipped classroom format with a conventional non-flipped teaching format). So far, we are not cognizant of any research that evaluated the efficacy of the fully online flipped classroom relative to the conventional flipped classroom. Establishing the effectiveness of online flipped classrooms is important, as practitioners need to know whether this active learning approach can be used during prolonged school closures.

Against this backdrop, this study compares the effects of online flipped classrooms versus conventional flipped classrooms on student learning outcomes. To this end, two conventional flipped classes in the Faculty of Education are transformed into online flipped classrooms. Students in both the online and flipped classes participated in the online pre-class activity asynchronously using a learning management system. However, students in the online flipped classes joined the online in-class learning synchronously using a video conferencing app whereas their counterparts in the conventional flipped classes attended face-to-face classes. The online flipped courses were designed using the 5E conceptual framework and used a cloud-based video conferencing app. We used the Zoom application after careful consideration of many different videoconferencing platforms. Our reasons for doing so are given in the Section of “Stage Two: Transforming conventional flipped classes into online flipped classes”.

The 5E framework consists of five phases—Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate (Bybee et al. 2006 ).

Engage—The first phase aims to engage students in the learning process. Methods to engage students usually include using a real-world scenario, or problem, asking students questions that allow them to brainstorm or think critically, and helping them to create connections to their past experiences.

Explore—In the exploration phase, the teacher, who works as a facilitator or coach, gives the students time and opportunity to explore the content and construct their own understanding of the topic at hand.

Explain—This phase starts with students attempting to explain specific aspects of the engagement and exploration experiences. Based on these explanations, the teacher introduces terminology in a direct and explicit manner to facilitate concept building.

Elaborate—In this phase, the teacher provided more detailed information about the subject content through the use of mini lectures and/or whole class discussions. Students are also given the opportunity to apply what they have learned and receive feedback from the teacher and their peers.

Evaluate—Formative assessments (e.g., quizzes) can be used to evaluate students’ mastery of the subject material at the beginning and throughout the 5E phases, and teachers can complete a summative assessment after the elaboration phase (e.g., final exams).

We adopted the 5E framework for the following reasons. First, the 5E framework, which is based on various educational theories and models (e.g., Herbart’s instructional model, Dewey’s instructional model, Atkin-Karplus Learning Cycle) (Bybee et al. 2006 ), provides a sound instructional sequence for designing a course and planning activities. The 5E framework can help instructors organize and integrate both the in-class and out-of-class learning activities (Lo 2017 ).

Second, previous research has shown the positive effect of the 5E framework on student achievement. These positive effects were initially established in science education (e.g., Akar 2005 ; Boddy et al. 2003 ). Recently, the 5E model has yielded positive results when applied to various subject areas and when used to design inquiry- and interaction-based learning activities. Mullins ( 2017 ), for example, found that undergraduate students in a 5E-supported class outperformed their peers in a traditional lecture setting. Hew et al. ( 2018 ) designed two postgraduate courses based on the 5E model in order to foster students’ active learning. Ninety-two percent of the participants agreed that the 5E supported courses were more engaging than traditional classroom instruction.

The rest of this paper is structured as follows. First, we describe our study design and methodology. This is followed by a description of our two stages of research. In Stage One, we explain how we use the 5E framework to design our two conventional flipped classes; In Stage Two, we describe how we transformed the two conventional flipped classes into fully online flipped classes, using a cloud-based video conferencing app. We describe the various pedagogical practices that Zoom videoconferencing can facilitate before and during online flipped classes. In this paper, we use the term “pedagogical practices” to refer to specific activities that are used to structure teaching and learning. This study is guided by the following two questions.

What effect does the change from a conventional flipped classroom format to an online flipped format have on student learning performance?

What are the good practices for videoconferencing - assisted online flipped classrooms, as perceived by students and/or teaching staff?

This study was conducted in a large public Asian university. Four classes were involved: (a) conventional flipped Course 1, (b) conventional flipped Course 2, (c) online flipped Course 1, and (d) online flipped Course 2. Conventional flipped Courses 1 and 2 were the control group. Online flipped Courses 1 and 2 were the experimental group. To avoid any potential instructor confounding bias, the same professor and teaching assistants (TAs) taught the conventional and online flipped formats of each class. Ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Hong Kong and consent forms from all participants in the study were collected.

Data collection and analysis

To reiterate, this study had two purposes: (a) to determine the effect of an online flipped classroom on student learning performance as determined by student final course marks, and (b) to determine good practices for videoconferencing - assisted online flipped classrooms, as perceived by the participants (students and teaching staff). We adopted a mixed methods involving quantitative and qualitative approaches to provide a deeper understanding of the research problem (Ivankova et al. 2006 ).

The data collection spanned across two semesters, which corresponded to the aforementioned two stages of the research. The conventional flipped classes were implemented in conventional flipped Courses 1 and 2 during the semester of 2019 Fall before the pandemic (Stage One). Due to the outbreak of Covid-19, all courses were required to be delivered online in our university in the 2020 Spring semester. Therefore, the online flipped classes were conducted in online flipped Courses 1 and 2 during the pandemic in 2020 Spring (Stage Two). Students’ knowledge and skills of the course content were checked at the beginning of the each course. Students final course marks in each course were collected and used as measure of the student learning outcomes at the end of the semester (See Fig.  1 for the research timeline).

Timeline of data collection: 2019 Fall (before the pandemic), 2020 Spring (during the pandemic)

To address the first purpose, we compared the students’ final course marks in the online flipped classrooms and conventional flipped classrooms. Quantitative data from 99 students were collected (see Table 1 ). We used the students’ final course marks to measure performance.

To identify the perceived good practices for videoconferencing - assisted online flipped classrooms, we invited students and the teaching staff to complete a self-reflection exercise based on the following question: “What do you perceive as good practices in a videoconferencing-supported online flipped classroom?” The qualitative data collected from students and instructors were analyzed as follows. The first step was an initial reading of all of the response data to obtain an overall impression. The first author then applied the grounded approach (Strauss and Corbin 1990 ) to the qualitative data to generate relevant codes. Similar codes were organized into themes. In order to increase the consistency of coding, several exemplary quotes that clearly illustrated each constructed theme were identified. We also allowed new themes (if any) to emerge inductively during the coding process. The second author coded the data. There was perfect agreement with the coding. Table 2 summarizes how the data for each research question were collected and analyzed.

Stage one: designing conventional flipped classes using the 5E framework

In this section, we first describe how we use the 5E framework to design our two conventional flipped classes (Course 1: E-Learning Strategies , and Course 2: Engaging Adult Learners ). In the next section, we describe how we transform these two conventional flipped classes into fully online flipped classes. Figure  2 shows the 5E framework that guided our design of the conventional flipped classes. Table 3 shows some of the teaching and learning activities used in each of the 5E phases.

5E framework used to design the two conventional flipped classes

Conventional flipped course 1: E-learning strategies

This course discussed the various e-learning strategies that can be employed to foster six types of learning, including problem-solving, attitude learning, factual learning, concept learning, procedural learning, and principle learning. There were eight sessions in the course. The first seven sessions were flipped—each consisting of an online pre-class learning component and a 3-h face-to-face in-class component. The last session was devoted to students’ presentations. Figure  3 shows an example of how the 5E framework was used in Course 1.

Example of a pre-class activity in Course 1

For instance, in the pre-class phase of Session 2: Instructional Design—Part 1 , we posted a video that posed the question “What do we mean by ‘understand’”. This video engaged students’ curiosity about the importance of writing clear and measurable learning objectives. The instructor in the video highlighted the pitfalls of using vague words such as “know” and “understand” when writing learning objectives. Students then explored and explained their own individual learning objectives using the ABCD model (audience, behavior, condition, degree). Students were able to use a mobile instant messaging (MIM) app such as WeChat to ask questions of their peers or instructor. When a message arrived, a notification appeared on the receiver’s phone screen, encouraging timely feedback and frequent interaction (Rosenfeld et al. 2018 ).

During the face-to-face in-class session, the instructor re-engaged students’ attention by discussing basic instructional design issues such as “How do we write good lesson objectives?” The instructor conducted short debriefing sessions to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of students’ pre-class work. The instructor also facilitated class or small group discussions to build students’ understanding of how to write measurable lesson objectives that help students to achieve specific learning outcomes (e.g., factual learning). These discussions allowed students to elaborate on good lesson objectives practices. To evaluate the students’ understanding, the instructor asked them to work in groups of four on an instructional design scenario (e.g., teaching participants how to deal with angry customers), and then write a learning objective for the lesson in an online forum; their peers then commented on the posted learning objectives (Fig.  4 ).

Example of an in-class activity in Course 1

Conventional flipped course 2: engaging adult learners

This course discussed the key principles of adult learning, as well as strategies used in adult education (e.g., transformational learning theory). There were eight sessions in the course, each session lasted three hours. An example of how the 5E instructional model was used is shown in Fig.  5 .

Example of a pre-class activity in Course 2

For example, in the pre-class session for Session 3: Motivation, we uploaded a four-minute video that briefly described the concepts of reinforcement and punishment. The aim of the video was to engage students’ attention on the focal topic. To help students explore the topic in further, they were asked to respond to the following question: “After watching the video, can you think of other positive reinforcers, negative reinforcers, and punishment methods?” Students posted their opinions ( explained ) on a discussion forum. Students also used the WeChat app to ask questions of their peers or instructor.

During the subsequent face-to-face lesson (Fig.  6 ), the instructor facilitated whole class discussions using relevant questions to elaborate on the topics covered in the pre-class video. An example of a question used was ‘When should we employ positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, or punishment?’ Based on the students’ responses, the instructor was able to provide more in-depth explanation of the subject matter, or correct any student misunderstanding. This will help enhance students’ comprehension of the subject content. The instructor also discussed the notion of intrinsic motivation (e.g., the self-determination theory). In addition to elaborating on the content, the instructor also evaluated the students’ understanding by asking students to complete small group discussion activities. An example of a small group discussion activity was ‘Did you have any experience where you did not like learning a subject or doing an activity? How would you motivate yourself in that situation? Please try to use a mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors.’ Upon completion of the small group activity, students from each group presented their views to the whole class. The instructor, as well as the rest of the classmates provided feedback.

Example of an in-class activity in Course 2

Stage two: transforming conventional flipped classes into online flipped classes

The outbreak of COVID-19 inspired us to transform the two conventional flipped classes discussed above into fully online flipped classes. After careful consideration, the Zoom videoconferencing app was used for the synchronized online meetings (see Table 4 ). The whole transformation process took about one week with the bulk of the time was spent on exploring and testing the features of Zoom.

Zoom is a Web videoconferencing service that allows users to communicate online with individuals in real time via computer, tablet, or mobile device. We chose Zoom because of its ease of use (Kim 2017 ; Sutterlin 2018 ), its lower bandwidth requirements (Sutterlin 2018 ), and its ability to record and store sessions without recourse to third-party software (Archibald et al. 2019 ). More importantly, Zoom was chosen because its functions could easily support the implementation of our online flipped classroom. For instance, it allows instructors to easily create breakout rooms for group discussions. It also makes team-teaching possible by allowing more than one host and giving all of the hosts administrative capabilities such as sharing screens and remote control over shared screens (Johnston 2020 ).

To keep our online meetings secure, we activated the “ only authenticated users can join ” option. Specifically, we only allowed participants using our own university’s email domain to join the online meetings. In addition, we enabled the “ waiting room ” feature so that we could screen all of participants in the “ waiting room ” and admit only students officially enrolled in our classes into the online meeting. After all of the participants had entered, we then locked the meeting using the “ Lock the meeting ” feature. Once we had locked a meeting, no new participants could join.

The same learning materials used in the conventional flipped classes were used in the online flipped classes. Table 4 shows some of the teaching and learning activities. Students in the online flipped classes completed pre-class activities that were similar to those used in the conventional flipped classes, but these were not followed by face-to-face meetings, but by online meetings conducted on the Zoom videoconferencing app.

Online flipped course 1: E-learning strategies

Like the conventional flipped course, the online flipped Course 1 consisted of eight sessions. The first seven sessions were flipped—students were encouraged to complete a set of pre-class sessions asynchronously (similar to Fig.  3 ). Students also used the WeChat MIM app to ask questions of their peers or instructors. However, unlike the conventional flipped approach, the “in-class” session for the online flipped students was conducted completely online through Zoom videoconferencing. In the final session (Session 8), the online flipped students also presented their work on Zoom. Each online “in-class” session lasted three hours—similar in duration to the in-class component of the conventional flipped format.

In the online synchronous “in-class” sessions, the instructor started by reminding students to switch on their webcams and to mute their microphones when not speaking. Next, the instructor lead a short class debriefing session to elaborate on the materials covered in the pre-class session. This was similar to the structure of the conventional flipped class format. For example, the instructor might discuss the students’ completed pre-class work and highlight the overall strengths and weaknesses. The main purpose of these short debriefing sessions was to clarify students’ initial doubts or misconceptions. Following the debriefing sessions, the instructor facilitated class discussions that delved deeper into the subject content. To evaluate students’ understanding of the materials, students were asked to work individually or participate in small group discussions on specific questions similar to those used in the conventional flipped classes. Students then presented their work online to the whole class, and received peer and instructor feedback.

To engage the participants, the instructor used a number of features of the Zoom videoconferencing system. For example, the instructor posed questions during the whole class discussion and used the polling feature to rapidly collect and analyze student responses. The polling feature provided a function similar to a clicker or student response system. Based on the poll results, the instructor then addressed students’ misunderstandings. To enable small group discussions, the instructor used the breakout rooms feature of Zoom . Each student was assigned to one of several groups. Each group consisted of four to five students. Other students could not “drop” into other groups, but the instructor could drop into any group and participate in the discussions. When it was time for the small groups to return to the whole class, students would receive a time indicator reminding them that they were rejoining the whole class. Table 5 shows how the specific features of Zoom helped support the online “in-class” teaching and learning activities. Figure  7 illustrates some of the Zoom features used in the course.

Examples of Zoom features used in Course 1

Online flipped course 2: engaging adult learners

Similar to the conventional flipped course, the online flipped course had eight sessions. The pre-class and in-class activities used in the conventional flipped course were also used in the online flipped course (see Fig.  5 for an example of a pre-class activity). Students also used the WeChat MIM app to ask questions of their peers or instructors. The last three sessions were used for students’ online presentations via videoconferencing. Each online “in-class” session lasted three hours—similar in duration to the in-class component of the conventional flipped class. In the online synchronous “in-class” sessions, the instructor reminded students to switch on their webcams and to mute their microphones when not speaking. The instructor used the features of the Zoom videoconferencing system shown in Table 5 and Fig.  7 .

Results and discussion

Conventional flipped versus online flipped course 1: e-learning strategies.

To address Research Question 1, the learning outcomes of students in the conventional flipped Course 1 and the online flipped Course 1 were measured and compared. The main purpose of both courses was to teach students the skills needed to create an e-learning storyboard and to develop a fully online course based on the 5E framework on Moodle. At the beginning of both the conventional flipped and online flipped classes, students were surveyed if they had any experience creating storyboards or fully online courses. None of the students had any such prior experience. Therefore, we assumed that both groups of students had similar levels of prior knowledge/skill. Next, we used both groups of students’ final course marks as a measure of the student learning outcomes. The maximum final marks in the final assessment was 100.

We first checked the normality of the final course marks data. If there were a significant deviation from normality, the Mann–Whitney U would be the most appropriate test for comparing the groups; otherwise, an independent samples t -test would be appropriate. The results showed that the course marks for both the conventional flipped ( W (23) = 0.920, p  = 0.068) and online flipped classes ( W (26) = 0.964, p  = 0.479) were normally distributed, as assessed by the Shapiro–Wilk’s test. There was also homogeneity in the variances for the course marks, as assessed by Levene’s test for equality of variances ( p  = 0.652). In addition, there were no outliers in the data, as assessed by an inspection of the boxplots (Fig.  8 ).

The boxplots of final marks in Course 1 for conventional flipped class and online flipped class

An independent-samples t -test was therefore conducted to determine if there were differences in the final marks of the conventional flipped and online flipped classes. The results suggested that online flipped participants ( M  = 66.00, SD = 11.63) performed as effectively as participants in the conventional flipped learning format ( M  = 65.04, SD = 11.80), t (47) = 0.285, p  = 0.777.

Conventional flipped versus online flipped course 2: engaging adult learners

The main purpose of both the conventional flipped and online flipped Engaging Adult Learners courses was to introduce students to the key characteristics of adult learners, the key principles of adult learning, and strategies for adult education. First, to test if there were any initial differences in students’ prior knowledge of the course content, a short quiz was administered to both groups at the start of the semester. The Mann–Whitney U test found no significant initial differences between the conventional flipped group ( Mdn  = 0) and the online flipped group ( Mdn  = 0.5), U  = 218.5, p  = 0.06.

Next, we used the students’ final course marks as a measure of the student learning outcomes. The final assessment included individual written reflections on course topics and relevant articles, and a group demonstration of an adult-teaching strategy. The maximum final marks for the final assessment was 100. As in the above analysis, we first checked the normality of the final course mark data. The course marks for both the conventional flipped and online flipped classes were normally distributed, as assessed by Shapiro–Wilk’s test: W (25) = 0.963, p  = 0.470 for the conventional flipped course and W (24) = 0.930, p  = 0.096 for the online flipped course. There was also a homogeneity of variances, as assessed by Levene’s test for equality of variances ( p  = 0.304). In addition, there were no outliers in the data, as assessed by an inspection of the boxplots (Fig.  9 ).

The boxplots of final marks in Course 2 for conventional flipped class and online flipped class

We subsequently carried out an independent-samples t-test to examine if there was any significant difference in the final course marks of the conventional flipped and online flipped classes. The results suggested that online flipped learning participants ( M  = 83.25, SD = 4.56) performed as effectively as participants in the conventional flipped learning classes ( M  = 83.40, SD = 5.51), t (47) = 0.104, p  = 0.918.

What are the good practices for videoconferencing-assisted online flipped classrooms, as perceived by students and/or teaching staff?

The analyses of the participants’ comments identified the following seven good practices for videoconferencing-assisted online flipped classrooms.

Remind participants to mute their microphones when not speaking to eliminate undesirable background noise . According to Gazzillo ( 2018 ), muting participants’ microphones allows the speaker to have center stage while eliminating the distraction of audio feedback. As one teaching staff member said, .

It’s a good practice at the beginning to mute all of the participants by selecting the “Mute All” button at the bottom of the participants panel. This will eliminate all background noise (e.g., television sounds, audio feedback). I will then ask the participants to turn their audio back on if they wish to talk

In terms of Zoom functionality, by pressing and holding the “space bar” allows the participants to temporarily switch on their microphone. We also ask the participants to install an AI-enabled application called “Krisp” to minimize the background noise of the participants.

Remind participants before the online “in-class” session begins to switch on their webcams . Webcams show a person’s face to other people on the video call, which can help to increase online social presence among classmates (Conrad and Donaldson 2011 ). Online social presence is positively correlated with student satisfaction and student perceived learning (Richardson et al. 2017 ). The participants also strongly prefer to see a face during instruction as it is perceived as more educational (Kizilcec et al. 2014 ). Students’ facial expressions are also a valuable source of feedback for the instructor to know whether the students could understand the subject matter (Sathik and Jonathan 2013 ). An instructor can use students’ facial expressions to determine whether to speed up, or slow down, or provide further elaborations. Feedback from the teaching staff included the following comments.

It is important to ask students to turn on their cameras. Students will be more focused and interactive and teaching will be better when teachers can see students’ responses.

As an instructor, I do not feel as if I’m talking to a wall when I can see some actual faces. Students also feel they are talking to someone rather than to an empty black screen. But it’s important to inform the students in advance to switch on their webcams so that they can do their hair properly or put on makeup beforehand—this was what some students actually told me!

During teaching, seeing your students' faces will give you another form of feedback. For example, when they look confused or nod their heads, it allows me to fine-tune the delivery of the content. These reactions give me visual feedback on whether I need further explanations or examples to elaborate on the topic.

Feedback from the students included the following comments.

Showing our faces is really helpful as we can see our classmates’ faces and remember them. Also, it makes the class more alive because we can see their expressions. Showing our faces is very helpful! It can make me feel like I’m in a real class! I enjoy the feeling of having a class with my classmates.

Turning on the camera helps us be more attentive in the online class.

To avoid showing any undesirable background objects (e.g., a messy bedroom) during the video meeting, participants can choose to replace their actual background with a virtual background. The participants can easily do this using the Zoom virtual background feature.

Manage the transition to the online flipped classroom approach for students . Not every student will be familiar with the videoconferencing app or the flipped classroom approach. Therefore, to promote student buy-in of this new pedagogical approach, it is important for the staff to directly address two main issues: (a) the structure and activities of the online flipped course, and (b) the functions of the video conferencing app. Feedback from the students included the following comments.

If teachers would like to use some functions in Zoom, they need to first help students get familiar with it. A brief introduction to Zoom at the beginning of the class is helpful.

First, I informed the students that these two courses would have two components: a pre-class session and an online “in-class” session. This helped students understand the flipped approach better. Next, my teaching assistant and I conducted a short introduction to using Zoom online before the class began. This helped students get familiar with the features we would be using in Zoom.

Constant fine-tuning is also a key element in managing the transition to the online flipped classroom. Asking the students what works and what doesn’t have become our practice every after the lesson. These comments allow us to rethink and re-plan for the next online synchronous session.

Feedback from the teaching staff included the following comments.

Having a technical-related orientation session before the actual class starts helps a lot for students who are not familiar with the videoconferencing tool.

Instructors should use dual monitors to simulate, as close as possible, the look and feel of a face-to-face class—one monitor to view all the participants in “gallery view,” and the other to view the presentation material . It is very useful for instructors and teaching assistants to use the dual-monitor display function, which allows the video layout and screen share content to be presented on two separate monitors. One monitor can be used to view the participants (up to 49) in “gallery view,” and the other to display the presentation materials. In the “gallery view,” the instructor can see thumbnail displays of all of the participants in a grid pattern that expands and contracts automatically as participants join and leave the meeting (Zoom Video Communications 2019 ). The use of a dual monitor feature is also useful for PowerPoint presentations and hiding notes from the participants. Feedback from the teaching staff included:

During the preparation for this course, we would like to simulate, as close as possible, the look and feel of a face-to-face class. This thinking brought us to the dual monitor layout for our Zoom sessions. The first monitor is for the teaching assistant; in this case, it acts as a co-host for the Zoom session. The teaching assistant extends the computer screen to a monitor to show the participants’ faces or the “gallery view.” This monitor acts as a “classroom” in the traditional face-to-face class. During the session, this first monitor also serves as a tool for classroom management. This view is where the “chat” and “raise hand” functions can be seen. The second monitor is where the instructor places the presentation materials. This view acts as the projector in the traditional face-to-face class. Occasionally, we added a third screen, which is an iPad to do real-time annotation. This iPad can is a replacement of the conventional “whiteboard” in a face-to-face class.

Activate and evaluate students’ pre-class learning with a short review. At the beginning of the online “in-class” sessions, instructors should use short formative assessment methods (e.g., a quiz) to activate and evaluate students’ understanding of the pre-class activities. The activation of prior learning enhances student learning because it is the foundation for the new material presented in the classroom (Merrill 2002 ). Indeed, recent meta-analyses have suggested that flipped learning is more effective when formative assessments (e.g., quizzes or reviews) are used before and/or during class time (e.g., Hew and Lo 2018 ; Låg and Sæle 2019 ; Lo et al. 2017 ; van Alten et al. 2019 ). Students in this study reported positive benefits of using short formative assessments such as reviews or quizzes. Examples of student feedback include the following comments.

I find the reviews at the beginning of the “in-class” sessions very helpful! It’s good to start from something we are familiar with, and then go to the new materials. The reviewing of pre-class work is great because we can know what points we do not understand well and how we can improve.

The reviews helped me understand the issue more deeply. I could find out what my misunderstandings of the content are.

I find the teachers’ explanation and review of the pre-class work helpful.

Use an MIM app on mobile phones to foster quicker online response times and to communicate with students during their online breakout sessions . Although students can ask questions via discussion forums or email, the asynchronicity of these apps creates a time lag between postings and replies which can discourage students from communicating with each other (Hew et al. 2018 ). In contrast, MIM apps such as WhatsApp and WeChat allow users to engage in quasi synchronous communications on their mobile phones. When communication needs are urgent, many students may only have their phones available. As soon as an MIM message is sent, a notification automatically shows up on the user’s phone screen, which encourages timely response (Hew et al. 2018 ; Rosenfeld et al. 2018 ). In addition, MIM is more popular than voice calls, emails, and even face-to-face communication among young people (Lenhart et al. 2010 ). As of March 2019, more than 41 million mobile instant messages are sent every minute (Clement 2019 ). Student feedback on using MIM in classrooms included the following comments.

I like using MIM such as WeChat because it allows us to communicate with other people immediately.

I enjoy using WeChat to ask questions and get immediate feedback from my classmates and teaching staff.

Use a variety of presentation media as well as a variety of activities to sustain student interest . No matter how interested a learner is in the topic of a presentation or discussion, that interest will wane in the face of monotony (Driscoll 2000 ). Therefore, it is recommended that instructors sustain student interest by varying the use of presentation media. Instructors, for example, can alternate the use of PowerPoint slides with digital handwriting on an iPad. The instructor in this study made the following comments.

I find continual use of PowerPoint slides to be boring. It’s always the same style: a bullet list of information with some animations or pictures. I find it useful to sustain my students’ attention by writing on an iPad.

Comments from the students were also positive.

I find the instructor writing on an iPad helps to focus my attention better than PowerPoint slides.

Writing on the iPad is like writing on a whiteboard in real face-to-face classrooms. It helps me develop a better understanding of the topic.

Digital writing on an iPad can help learners see the progressive development of the subject content (Hulls 2005 ), and follow the instructor’s cognitive process better than pre-prepared PowerPoint presentations (Lee and Lim 2013 ). Writing on an iPad can also enable an instructor to immediately adjust his or her instruction in response to the students’ needs. Using digital writing can significantly improve students’ understanding of conceptual knowledge when compared to PowerPoint-based presentation lectures (Lee and Lim 2013 ).

In addition to varying the presentation media, an instructor should also use different activities, including guest speakers, during the online class session. Feedback from the students included the following comments.

The use of different functions in Zoom, such as breakout rooms for group activities, voting, and raising hands, is useful because they help us to be involved. It helps increase the learner-learner and learner-instructor interaction, which may be lacking in a fully online class.

During the three-hour online class, we had not only the teacher’s explanations, but also had a guest speaker and online group discussions via breakout rooms, which made the class engaging.

In this study, the instructor invited a United Kingdom-based practicing instructional designer as a guest speaker in the two online flipped courses to talk about her experience in developing e-learning courses and engaging adult learners. Guest speakers enhance students’ educational experience by giving them real-world knowledge (Metrejean and Zarzeski 2001 ). Guest speakers can offer students a different point of view, one that students may better understand. Guest speakers can also alleviate the monotony of listening to a single instructor.

Amidst the burgeoning use of online learning during the unpredictable present, this study evaluates the efficacy of a videoconferencing - supported fully online flipped classroom. It compares student outcomes in four higher education classes: conventional flipped Course 1 versus online flipped Course 1, and conventional flipped Course 2 versus online flipped Course 2. Overall, this study makes three contributions to the literature on flipped classrooms. First, it provides a thick description of the development of the conventional flipped classroom approach based on the 5E framework, and the transformation of the conventional flipped classroom into a fully online flipped classroom. A thick description of the development of the flipped classrooms is provided to encourage replication by other researchers and practitioners. Second, our findings reveal that the online flipped classroom approach can be as effective as the conventional flipped classroom. Third, we identify seven good practices for using videoconferencing to support online flipped classrooms. This set of good practices can provide useful guidelines for other instructors who might be interested in implementing an online flipped approach.

One potential limitation of our study is that it was relatively short in duration (8 weeks). However, according to Fraenkel et al. ( 2014 ), some researchers do collect data within a fairly short time. A short-term data collection period enables researchers to collect and analyze data to see if an intervention is workable before committing to a longer study (Creswell 2015 ). We therefore urge future researchers to examine the use of videoconferencing - supported online flipped classrooms over a longer period of time, such as one year or more, to verify the results of this study.

Another interesting area for future work will be examining how instructors can support learners’ self-regulation during online flipped classroom (Cheng et al. 2019 ), as well as what strategies can best motivate students to complete the pre-class work.

Availability of data and materials

The anonymized datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Akar, E. (2005). Effectiveness of 5e learning cycle model on students’ understanding of acid-base concepts . MS Thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

Archibald, M. M., Ambagtsheer, R. C., Casey, M. G., & Lawless, M. (2019). Using Zoom videoconferencing for qualitative data collection: perceptions and experiences of researchers and participants. Int J Qual Methods, 18, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919874596 .

Article   Google Scholar  

Bates S, Galloway R. The inverted classroom in a large enrolment introductory physics course: A case study. https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/stem-conference/PhysicalSciences/Simon_Bates_Ross_Galloway.pdf (2012)

Bishop, J. L., & Verleger, M. A. (2013). The flipped classroom: A survey of the research. 120 Am Soc Eng Educ Annu Conf Expo, 30, 1–18.

Google Scholar  

Boddy, N., Watson, K., & Aubusson, P. (2003). A trial of the five e’s: a referent model for constructivist teaching and learning. Research in Science Education , 33 , 27–42. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023606425452 .

Bond, M. (2020). Facilitating student engagement through the flipped learning approach in K-12: A systematic review. Computers & Education . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103819

Bybee, R. W., et al. (2006). The BSCS 5E instructional model: origins and effectiveness. Off Sci Educ Natl Inst Health, 2006, 1–80.

Cheng, L., Ritzhaupt, A. D., & Antonenko, P. (2019). Effects of the flipped classroom instructional strategy on students’ learning outcomes: a meta-analysis. Etr&D, 67 (4), 793–824. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-018-9633-7

Clement J. Global number of mobile messaging users 2018–2022. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/483255/number-of-mobile-messaging-usersworldwide/ (2019)

Conrad, R. M., & Donaldson, J. A. (2011). Engaging the online learner: activities and resources for creative instruction . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Creswell, J. W. (2015). Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research . Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Deslauriers, L., et al. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (39), 19251–19257. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821936116

Driscoll, M. P. (2000). Psychology of learning for instruction (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E., & Hyun, H. H. (2014). How to design and evaluate research in education . New York: McGraw-Hill.

Gazzillo L. Tech tip: muting participants in Zoom. Yale Library IT News . https://campuspress.yale.edu/libraryitnews/2018/01/23/tech-tip-muting-participants-in-zoom/ (2018)

Gierdowski DC. 2019 study of undergraduate students and information technology. EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research. https://library.educause.edu/resources/2019/10/2019-study-of-undergraduate-students-and-information-technology (2019)

Hew, K. F., & Lo, C. K. (2018). Flipped classroom improves student learning in health professions education: a meta-analysis. BMC Medical Education . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-018-1144-z

Hew, K., et al. (2018). Examining a WeChat-supported 5E-flipped classroom pedagogical approach. Int J Serv Stand, 12, 224–242.

Hodges C, Moore S, Lockee B, Trust T, Bond, A. The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning (2020)

Hulls CCW. Using a tablet PC for classroom instruction. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of Frontiers in Education, Indianapolis, Indiana, 19–22 October

Ivankova, N. V., Creswell, J. W., & Stick, S. L. (2006). Using mixed-methods sequential explanatory design: From theory to practice. Field Methods, 18 (1), 3–20.

Johnston N. Google Hangouts Meet vs. Zoom: Which conferencing tool is better for you? https://www.androidcentral.com/google-hangouts-meet-vs-zoom (2020)

Kim J. Zoom is hot in higher ed. Inside Higher Ed . Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/zoom-hot-higher-ed (2017)

Kizilcec RF, Papadopoulos K, Sritanyaratana L. Showing face in video instruction: Effects on information retention, visual attention, and affect. In Proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2095–2102). New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery (2014)

Låg, T., & Sæle, R. G. (2019). Does the flipped classroom improve student learning and satisfaction? A systematic review and meta-analysis. AERA Open, 5 (3), 1–17.

Lederman D. Will shift to remote teaching be boon or bane for online learning? Inside Higher Ed . Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2020/03/18/most-teaching-going-remote-will-help-or-hurt-online-learning (2014)

Lee, H. W., & Lim, K. Y. (2013). Does digital handwriting of instructors using the iPad enhance student learning? Asia-Pacific Educ Res, 22 (3), 241–245.

Lenhart A, et al. Social media & mobile internet use among teens and young adults. Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2010 (2010).

Lo, C. K. (2017). Toward a flipped classroom instructional model for history education: a call for research. Int J Cult Hist, 3 (1), 36–43.

Lo, C. K., & Hew, K. F. (2019). The impact of flipped classrooms on student achievement in engineering education: a meta-analysis of 10 years of research. Journal of Engineering Education, 108 (4), 523–546.

Lo, C. K., Hew, K. F., & Chen, G. (2017). Toward a set of design principles for mathematics flipped classrooms: a synthesis of research in mathematics education. Educ Res Rev, 22, 50–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2017.08.002

Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educ Technol Res Dev, 50 (3), 43–59.

Metrejean, C., & Zarzeski, M. (2001). Bring the world to the classroom. J Account, 19 (3), 73–76.

Mullins, M. H. (2017). Actively teaching research methods with a process oriented guided inquiry learning approach. J Teach Soc Work, 37 (4), 309–332.

Pomerantz J, Brooks DC. ECAR study of faculty and information technology. Research report . Louisville, CO: ECAR. https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2017/10/facultyitstudy2017.pdf (2017)

Richardson, J. C., Maeda, Y., Lv, J., & Caskurlu, S. (2017). Social presence in relation to students’ satisfaction and learning in the online environment: a meta-analysis. Computers in Human Behavior, 71, 402–417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.02.001

Rosenfeld, A., Sina, S., Sarne, D., Avidov, O., & Kraus, S. (2018). WhatsApp usage patterns and prediction of demographic characteristics without access to message content. Demographic Research , 39 (22), 647–670. https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2018.39.22 .

Sathik, M., & Jonathan, S. G. (2013). Effect of facial expressions on student’s comprehension recognition in virtual educational environments. SpringerPlus, 2, 455. https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-2-455

Shi, Y., Ma, Y., MacLeod, J., & Yang, H. H. (2019). College students’ cognitive learning outcomes in flipped classroom instruction: a meta-analysis of the empirical literature. J Comput Educ . https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-019-00142-8

Stohr, C., Demaziere, C., & Adawi, T. (2020). The polarizing effect of the online flipped classroom. Computers & Education . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103789

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques . Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Sutterlin J. Learning is social with Zoom videoconferencing in your classroom. eLearn magazine . https://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=3236697 (2018)

UNESCO. (n.d.). COVID-19 educational disruption and response. https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-emergencies/coronavirus-school-closures

van Alten, D. C. D., Phielix, C., Janssen, J., & Kester, L. (2019). Effects of flipping the classroom on learning outcomes and satisfaction: a meta-analysis. Educ Res Rev, 28, 100281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2019.05.003

Xiu, Y., & Thompson, P. (2020). Flipped university class: a study of motivation and learning. J Inform Technol Educ, 19, 41–63.

Zoom Video Communications Inc. Displaying participants in gallery view. https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360000005883-Displaying-participants-in-gallery-view (2019)

Download references

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong SAR

Khe Foon Hew, Chengyuan Jia, Donn Emmanuel Gonda & Shurui Bai

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

KFH conceptualized the study, analysed the data, and wrote the initial draft. CJ analysed the data, and revised the draft. DEG provided critical feedback and edited the manuscript. SB provided Zoom support and critical feedback. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Khe Foon Hew .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Hew, K.F., Jia, C., Gonda, D.E. et al. Transitioning to the “new normal” of learning in unpredictable times: pedagogical practices and learning performance in fully online flipped classrooms. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 17 , 57 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00234-x

Download citation

Received : 24 June 2020

Accepted : 28 September 2020

Published : 21 December 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00234-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Online flipped classroom
• Flipped learning
• Good practices

EDITORIAL article

Editorial: how normal is the new normal individual and organizational implications of the covid-19 pandemic.

• 1 Department of Education, Psychology, Communication, Università “Aldo Moro” di Bari, Bari, Italy
• 2 Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
• 3 Open Universiteit, Heerlen, Netherlands
• 4 Department of Marketing, Innovation, and Organisation, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
• 5 School of Business, Hubei University, Wuhan, China
• 6 Kingston Business School, Kingston University, London, United Kingdom
• 7 Antwerp Management School, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
• 8 Department of Management, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
• 9 Department of Psychology, Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Caserta, Italy

Editorial on the Research Topic How Normal Is the New Normal? Individual and Organizational Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“How normal is the new normal?” The idea of this Research Topic started from this simple question that is tickling our imagination as scholars, employees, and—for some of us—as supervisors. The term “new normal” was coined during the 2008 financial crisis to refer to the dramatic economic, cultural, and social transformations that seriously impacting collective perceptions and individual lifestyles. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the term “new normal” reappeared to point out how the pandemic completely transformed human life, including professional identity, economic subsistence, work and family organization, children's education; and, in turn, demanding a radical revision of the traditional ways, practices and skills used to manage them.

Indeed, since the start of the pandemic, it has been evident that COVID-19 was destined to mark our history, triggering long-term effects for individuals, teams, and organizations. Although we are longing to return to our familiar routines, it is evident that everything has changed, and we still have difficulties adapting to this new normal. Accordingly, the increasing complexity of the present scenario urges us find answers for the most evident implications of the pandemic (e.g., remote working and technostress, distance management, work/life interface, economic, and job insecurity) with other eminent issues that emerged in this “new normal” phase (e.g., research on long-term effects, cross-country comparative research, how to prepare for a new health crisis, how to support workers who suffer from long-COVID, how to accommodate workers who are afraid of getting infected, how to keep the good things that the new normal has brought us, including the increased respect for health workers?).

In view of the above, the present Research Topic aims to answer some of these questions by nurturing an expert discussion on the issue, and by focusing on some emergent challenges that will most likely keep having an impact on the future workplace, conditioning workers' wellbeing and functioning, and consequently organizational performance.

In particular, the pandemic has affected both objective and subjective aspects of work experiences. It has led to the re-organization of working spaces and organizational processes, the restructuration of tasks, herewith demanding individuals to rapidly adapt to change, and having a substantial impact on the person/organization relationship ( Robelski et al., 2019 ; Caligiuri et al., 2020 ; Carnevale and Hatak, 2020 ). Connected to these changes in working spaces and organizational processes, different stakeholders in organizations (e.g., employees, supervisors, and top management) are experiencing several transformations related to new forms of distance management and performance control. Issues like motivation, coaching and mentoring, organizational support, conflict management, and employee development are more important than ever for organizational survival. At the same time, there is still a limited understanding of how objective and subjective aspects of employees' working experiences have been affected by the changes due to COVID-19, let alone what organizations can do to safeguard employee wellbeing and functioning.

We argue that Human Resource Management (HRM) plays a crucial role in helping all parties involved to cope with the enormous challenges posed by the changes triggered by the pandemic. More specifically, HRM professionals should function as key strategic partners, and focus on developing a new culture of change that can inspire workers to adjust to the new normal ( Gould-Williams, 2007 ; Demo et al., 2012 ; Manuti et al., 2020 ). As such, HRM professionals are indispensable in the light of protecting all workers' career sustainability (i.e., happiness, health, and productivity) over time ( De Vos et al., 2020 ).

Most contributions in this Research Topic underline the central role played by management in supporting employees to deal with the effects of the pandemic both in their private and professional life. Supervisors are key figures who can buffer the effects of some negative organizational actions. For instance, the study by Spagnoli et al. highlights that for remote workers a low authoritarian leadership style has a moderating effect on the relationship between workaholism and technostress. The qualitative investigation by Ripamonti et al. underlines managers' responsibility in constructing a positive environment (an HRM ethics of care as the authors write) by adopting a people-based approach wherein employees are supported, trust and engagement are created, and the quality of the relationships within the organization is cherished, especially during times of great change and uncertainty like the one drawn by the pandemic. In a similar vein, Coun et al. make an important contribution by showing the positive relationship between empowering leadership style and employees' innovative work behavior, even in intense remote work contexts. In line with these empirical findings, the theoretical paper by Chen poses an important question analyzing the managerial point of view in dealing with the new normal: How can HR practitioners enhance the role of culture in the new work model, given that they could be important promoters of corporate culture? The author offers a series of reflections on the psychological impact of “working from home” (WFH) on workers wellbeing and on their performance, and addresses what is in his view one of the most urgent challenges for HRM practitioners in this scenario: the need to reformulate traditional training approaches and to develop innovative models that could equip workers with the skills needed to cope with new job demands, in order to reduce stress and work/life conflict.

Parallel to these studies that have mostly focused on the organizational perspective, other studies encompassed in this Research Topic consider the individual's point of view in dealing with the ongoing changes. Adopting the Job Demands-Resources model, these studies show how the pandemic has exacerbated the negative perceptions of some specific job demands (e.g., workload and social isolation), that because of remote working ( Pulido-Martos et al. ) profoundly affected the quality of life of workers ( Barbieri et al. ), resulted in behavioral stress ( Ingusci et al. ), and impacted the work/life interface ( De Simone et al. ), job insecurity ( De Angelis et al. ; Vieira dos Santos et al. ), and financial insecurity ( Rasdi et al. ) have proven to be the most diffused psychological consequences of the pandemic, together with a lower work engagement ( Reinwald et al. ), somatization and distress ( Franck et al. ), and poor wellbeing ( Rus et al. ), especially for healthcare professionals who were among the most challenged category of workers. By adopting an individual perspective, from the scholarly work in our Research Topic, we conclude that fostering job crafting behaviors, that is providing workers with opportunities to rely upon organizational job resources (e.g., organizational, and social support) as well as on their personal resources (self-efficacy, commitment to organizational change, vigor at work), could help workers' attitudes and behaviors in the new normal.

To conclude, the rich scholarly work that is presented in this Research Topic offers several lessons for individuals and organizations for a positive transition to the new normal in the post-pandemic scenario. Yet, as argued earlier and clearly shown by the studies presented above, the huge and radical transformations that have impacted the working context have reshaped not simply the objective conditions of work but also the subjective experiences of work. Specifically, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and practices traditionally linked to one's own professional experience and to the organizational identity have been reformulated. As a matter of fact, organizations, being social systems, need to carefully consider this evidence and to rethink their practices and policies accordingly, to protect and further enhance all workers' health, happiness, and productivity over time, whether in times of crises or not.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Caligiuri, P., De Cieri, H., Minbaeva, D., Verbeke, A., and Zimmermann, A. (2020). International HRM insights for navigating the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for future research and practice. J. Int. Bus. Stud . 51, 697–713. doi: 10.1057/s41267-020-00335-9

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Carnevale, J. B., and Hatak, I. (2020). Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of COVID-19: implications for human resource management. J. Bus. Res . 116, 183–187. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.037

De Vos, A., Van der Heijden, B., and Akkermans, J. (2020). Sustainable careers : towards a conceptual model. J. Voc. Behav. 117:11. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2018.06.011

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Demo, G., Neiva, E., Nunes, I., Rozzett, O., and Kesia, R. (2012). Human resources management policies and practices scale (HRMPPS): exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Brazil. Admin. Rev . 9, 395–420. doi: 10.1590/S1807-76922012005000006

Gould-Williams, J.. (2007). HR practices, organizational climate and employee outcomes: evaluating social exchange relationships in local government. Int. J. Hum. Resour. Manag . 18, 1627–1647, doi: 10.1080/09585190701570700

Manuti, A., Giancaspro, M. L., Molino, M., Ingusci, E., Russo, V., Signore, F., et al. (2020). Everything will be fine: a study on the relationship between employees' perception of sustainable HRM practices and positive organizational behavior during COVID19. Sustainability 12:10216. doi: 10.3390/su122310216

Robelski, S., Keller, H., Harth, V., and Mache, S. (2019). Coworking spaces: the better home office? A psychosocial and health-related perspective on an emerging work environment. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 16:2379. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16132379

Keywords: HRM practices and policies, new normal, impact of the pandemic on individuals, impact of the pandemic on teams, impact of the pandemic on organizations

Citation: Manuti A, Van der Heijden B, Kruyen P, De Vos A, Zaharie M and Lo Presti A (2022) Editorial: How Normal Is the New Normal? Individual and Organizational Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Front. Psychol. 13:931236. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.931236

Received: 28 April 2022; Accepted: 31 May 2022; Published: 21 June 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Manuti, Van der Heijden, Kruyen, De Vos, Zaharie and Lo Presti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Amelia Manuti, amelia.manuti@uniba.it

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Advance Articles
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access Policy
• Self-Archiving Policy
• About Policy and Society
• Editorial Board
• Advertising & Corporate Services
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Coronavirus disease as a catalyst for change: an early arrival of the future of work, the differential impact of coronavirus disease on the labor market, coronavirus disease and wlb: a mixed picture, forecasting key trends for the labor market and wlb, discussion and conclusion, conflict of interest.

• < Previous

“New normal” at work in a post-COVID world: work–life balance and labor markets

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Lina Vyas, “New normal” at work in a post-COVID world: work–life balance and labor markets, Policy and Society , Volume 41, Issue 1, March 2022, Pages 155–167, https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puab011

• Permissions Icon Permissions

The coronavirus pandemic has interrupted labor markets, triggering massive and instant series of experimentations with flexible work arrangements, and new relationships to centralized working environments. These approaches have laid the basis for the “new normal,” likely extending into the organization of work in the post-pandemic era. These new arrangements, especially flexible work arrangements, have challenged traditional relationships with employees and employers, work time and working hours, the work–life balance (WLB), and the relationship of individuals to work. This paper investigates how labor markets have been interrupted due to the pandemic, focusing especially on manual (blue-collar) and nonmanual (white-collar) work and the future of the WLB, along with exploring the projected deviations that are driving a foreseeable future policy revolution in work and employment. This paper argues that although hybrid and remote working would be more popular in the post-pandemic for nonmanual work, it will not be “one size fits all” solution. Traditional work practices will remain, and offices will not completely disappear. Manual labor will continue current work practices with increased demands. Employers’ attention to employees’ WLB in the new normal will target employees’ motivation and achieving better WLB. These trends for the labor market and WLB are classified into three categories—those that are predicated on changes that were already underway but were accelerated with arrival of the pandemic (“acceleration”); those that represent normalization of what were once considered avant-garde ways of work (“normalization”); and those that represent modification or alteration of pre-pandemic set-up (“remodelling”).

Technological, social, and political transformations are powerful forces that radically shape many aspects of our lives, including the world of work, where societies are often forced to take proactive steps to adapt in order to remain competitive and survive. One notable example is the Industrial Revolution, which reshaped societies and economies in lasting ways and drastically changed the way people work, live, and establish a work–life balance (WLB). The ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic is similarly producing fundamental changes in work, work practices, the relationship of workers to co-workers, companies, and localities, as well as WLB. As part of the ongoing efforts to reduce the transmission of coronavirus disease and help protect the health and safety of employees, public and private organizations have generally adopted remote work arrangements, social distancing measures, staggered working hours, and other methods to reduce the presence of employees within work environments while also sustaining organizational activities ( International Labour Organization [ILO], 2020a ; World Health Organization [WHO], 2020 ).

While such practices are now widespread, they have not been uniform, varying between countries not only in terms of the intensity of their adoption and practice, but also in terms of their application across labor markets. For example, white-collar office workers, or those engaged in activities associated with mental work, have enjoyed the health protections of remote work options, while those engaged in physical work activities (consumer and business services, manufacturing, assembly, transportation, and related activities) have had to maintain their physical presence at work, often exposing them to greater health risks ( ILO, 2020c ).

Post-pandemic recovery must address the interruptions in the labor markets around the world, interruptions that have given rise to numerous experimentations with remote work, flexible work arrangements, and new relationships to centralized working environments. However, as far as the long-run diagnosis is concerned, there is a debate on whether coronavirus disease is a unique devastation, after which the work environment will return back to its “old normal” pre-coronavirus disease state, or whether the world is undergoing a sweeping disruption that will give rise to a “new normal,” with researchers and governments speculating about a complete series of different “new normal” future states of the world. Such changes bring up a discussion on what the new normal would be like and what can be foreseen in the post-pandemic world, particularly in the world of work. Therefore, this paper investigates the “new normal” in terms of two key themes—the labor market and WLB. The paper looks at how coronavirus disease has impacted work and the resultant effect on the labor market and WLB currently and in the future (see Figure 1 ). The labor market is explored in terms of the divaricate pathways between blue-collar and nonmanual workers.

Coronavirus pandemic and the labor market.

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, the paper attempts to clarify how coronavirus disease has been a mechanism for change in how work is conducted. The intention is to examine both positive and negative impacts of coronavirus disease on the labor market and WLB. Second, the paper sketches or maps forward an image of the post-coronavirus disease “new normal”, the likely composition of the future labor market, and what WLB might look like, highlighting possible trends and directions. These trends can be classified into one or more of three categories: acceleration, normalization, and remodelling. Acceleration represents those developments that were already underway in the work-world but were thrust onto a higher trajectory because of the unique conditions of the pandemic. Normalization represents the widespread acceptance and adoption of those practices that were once considered to be the exclusive preserve of a few or considered to be novel and rarely used. Remodelling refers to a modification or alteration of the existing pre-COVID set-up in line with the changes ushered in by the pandemic.

This paper is structured in the following manner: it begins with a description of the changes catalyzed by the pandemic in the labor market and with respect to WLB. It then forecasts seven key trends for these. This is followed by a conclusion.

Emergencies are frequently regarded as catalysts for change. The recent coronavirus disease pandemic is no exception. Many policy changes have been initiated to cope with the challenges that accompanied the crisis. While many welcomed the changes in the labor market, others regard them as emergency-induced changes—as something we should not be too positive about. Recalling pre-pandemic life, for decades working in an assigned workspace has been a standard pattern of work in many countries, while conversely, before the pandemic struck, work from home (WFH) was considered as a privilege for certain employees. The ongoing pandemic has become an unexpected catalyst for remote work and forced a reconsideration of work in terms of the designated workplace location and workplace practices ( de Lucas Ancillo et al., 2020 ; Kniffin et al., 2021 ; Ratten, 2020 ; Savić, 2020 ) on a global scale never seen before. It is worth pointing out that many of workers worldwide had never worked from home before. Although there was a slow but gradual increase in the number of remote workers before the pandemic, the world of work has fundamentally changed because of the coronavirus disease pandemic: WFH in pyjamas has become commonplace, and meeting virtually is increasingly mainstream.

In the days when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) swept across the globe in 2003, home working was not an option for most workers worldwide, as the majority of them did not have access to essential devices and equipment to carry out their work at home. This is quite different from working in the current coronavirus disease pandemic era, with technology now providing more options for work practices. In Hong Kong, for example, WFH was not an option for the workforce during SARS ( Labour Department, 2003 ). However, in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic, such work arrangements were adjusted based on the severity of the local epidemic situation ( Vyas & Butakhieo, 2021 ). Now more than a year into the pandemic, companies worldwide are still pondering the workplace practice that best suits their own needs, and there is no doubt that the lively debate on remote working will continue. Yet this trial run of remote working has shed some light on the future of the workplace, ranging from the telework capacity of the economy to the public attitudes toward remote working. All this is owing to the pandemic as an impetus for a massive and unprecedented change. The pandemic is causing an early arrival of the future of work that was initially envisioned by policymakers around the world.

The pandemic has affected occupations and segments of the labor market differentially ( ILO, 2020b ). White-collar workers in particular have been affected by the pandemic, experiencing significant changes in working practices. WFH arrangements have been widespread, with various repercussions in terms of productivity, locality, working hours, and the traditional separation of work and home environments ( Caringal-Go et al., 2021 ; Wong et al., 2021 ). Typically, the home environment is one that allows the stresses of work to melt away, and permits workers to enjoy time with family separated from work pressures or activities. The conversion of the home environment into a work environment has tended to corrupt the sanctity of the home, with job-related issues fusing into the home and time previously free of work. Firmly demarcated work hours (which begin and end with arriving at and departing from a physical workplace) have disappeared, making it easy to carry on working out of hours and disrupt the home life and WLB.

By contrast, work and work conditions for blue-collar workers have largely remained unchanged outside of social distancing, sanitation, and related health measures. However, the focus here must not be on how the job has changed, but rather on the implications of continuing to work through the pandemic. Blue-collar workers have been forced to brave the health dangers of continued social contact, risking sickness with every interaction. The demands of the jobs would mean that those more vulnerable than others have no alternative safer option: For these workers, sitting at home means being unable to work, which incurs financial strain. Additionally, continuing to work outside the home may cause tension at home due to the workers being at risk of bringing the virus back and infecting loved ones. Both white-collar and blue-collar workers have been impacted; however, their work practices have changed in different ways because of the pandemic.

Having a harmonious balance between work and personal life (i.e., a good WLB) is critical to bringing a healthy and stress-free environment and allowing employees to unleash their full potential. However, striking a good WLB is a challenge for most workers, more so for those with caregiving responsibilities, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also believed that creating a flexible and family-friendly workplace (e.g., having flexible work hours or offering remote work) can help to improve the well-being of the workforce ( Feeney & Stritch, 2019 ; Shagvaliyeva & Yazdanifard, 2014 ).

Many workers now work from their “workspace” of choice which includes home, office, and co-working spaces (depending on the work tasks they are entrusted with). Workers may thereby see better outcomes for their health, family, and overall well-being. While many have adjusted to and enjoyed this change, others have had challenges in drawing a line between working and non-working hours. The likelihood is high for a number of employees to experience increased working hours, as well as increased work-life conflict. For example, in today’s hyper-connected world, many remote working employees are expected to respond to urgent tasks as well as after-work emails, resulting in a blur between work and leisure. A recent study revealed that employees WFH during the pandemic experienced an increase in work-related fatigue and overlap between work and non-work life ( Palumbo, 2020 ).

Indeed, different scholars have different views on the impact of remote working on the WLB of workers. Some believe that WFH has positive impact on the WLB ( Pelta, 2020 ). On the contrary, there are adverse effects found in studies where a blur between work life and personal life is visible and it seems that home-based working may negatively impact WLB ( Grant et al., 2019 ; Nakrošienė & Butkevičienė, 2016 ; Palumbo et al., 2020 ). Putri and Amran (2021) studied the effect of WFH during the coronavirus disease on the WLB of employees in Indonesia and found that it had a positive impact. However, employees often are not able to balance their work and personal time as their working environment might be flexible, but their hours are increased. It has also been found that working from home or working remotely at least 1 day a week gave employees a better WLB ( BBC News, 2021a ). The trend seems to favor hybrid working over a completely remote working environment.

The paper flags seven key trends that will manifest themselves in the future. First, accelerating digital transformation will become critical for the workplace. Second, hybrid work would be a new normal at work in the post-pandemic era. Despite this, some work practices will not be eliminated. Thus, the third trend will be the continued existence of the “office” albeit in a modified form. Fourth, all of the above will induce changes in organizational infrastructure and labor mobility. Fifth, the challenges of performance management and atomistic tendencies at work may arise. Sixth, there may be a potential exacerbation of existing inequalities. Seventh, there will be increased focus on WLB in the future.

Of the aforementioned trends, some are predicated on changes that were already underway but were accelerated with the advent of the pandemic (“acceleration”). Other trends represent the normalization of what were once considered avant-garde ways of work (“normalisation”). Yet other trends represent a remodelling of the status-quo (“remodelling”). And some trends represent a combination of two or more of the above ( Table 1 ).

Forecasting key trends in the labor market and WLB.

Accelerated digital transformation

Changes in the labor markets to keep businesses running are inevitable in the post-pandemic era, and technological adoption is the most visible change in the labor market. It has been shown that digital technology was adopted in organizations prior to the emergence of the pandemic, and this adoption was accelerated during the pandemic ( Forman & van Zeebroeck, 2019 ; Murdoch & Fichter, 2017 ; Vargo et al., 2021 ). The pandemic has thus triggered a shift to a more digital society—or, to be more precise, the real world is gradually dying out, and the fast-paced technological world is rapidly replacing the old one. Digital transformation has, therefore, become an imperative for businesses across industries of all sizes for survival, and adequate digital infrastructure is essential for working in the future ( Gadhi, 2020 ; Melhem et al., 2020 ). The world of work is therefore heading a new way, in line with the changes in the business world. Thus, it could be said that digital and technological enhancements and transformations have an impact on several types of work. Nonmanual work, for example, would benefit more from this enhancement than manual labor, which requires on-site work. Employees with a high capability to work remotely will possibly have a reduced risk of perishing in the future labor market.

Digital technologies and the emergence of the coronavirus disease pandemic could be considered the most critical elements for accelerating the growth of remote working. Other factors, such as the pandemic-driven recession and the geopolitical contest between countries, are causing uncertainty in the future labor market outlook. The post-pandemic times will bring along a possible risk and challenge to organizational sustainability and human resource management.

Emergence of hybrid work

It is anticipated that the world of work will undergo a significant shift toward hybrid work in the post-coronavirus disease world, making hybrid working to some extent the “new normal” at work ( Ro, 2020 ). This is particularly likely for the highly educated and well-paid faction of the workforce. The potential of adopting remote work largely depends on whether a job has tasks and activities which do not require workers to be physically present on-site to get the work done ( Lund et al., 2020 ). Professions requiring in-person involvement such as agricultural work, restaurant, and hotel services are not able to adopt remote working ( Dingel & Neiman, 2020 ). In other words, the adoption of “new normal” work practices—remote working and WFH—will depend on the nature of the work, because not all tasks can be accomplished remotely. Given that, it would require significant rethinking about which jobs are suitable to perform remotely. In the long run, hybrid working has to be thoughtful and granular.

Well into the pandemic, the limitations and merits of remote work are more visible, and this give us reason to believe it will become a part of the future. Employees who WFH have higher flexibility and can adjust their working hours in line with their personal and family needs. While some people are returning to the workplace as many restrictions are being lifted, there are some pandemic-driven practices like hybrid work, WFH, remote work, flexible workplace/worktime, work anywhere, and work near home that persist. Businesses around the world will most likely continue to use them, particularly white-collar jobs. For example, two out of three white-collar workers in Hong Kong still want to WFH, and companies are considering redesigning office space to accommodate hybrid work ( Lam, 2021 ). Several examples around the world, including the BP oil company, have decided to implement a new hybrid model that will enable workers to WFH 2 days a week ( Ambrose, 2021 ). Another example is the nationwide decision in England to allow white-collar workers to work from anywhere, giving them more control over their lives ( BBC News, 2021a ). Some of the world’s most well-known firms, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, British Airways, Microsoft, and Siemens AG, are inclined to adopt remote working in post-pandemic times ( BBC News, 2020 ; Hartmans, 2020 ; Siemens AG, 2020 ). All the aforementioned examples involve nonmanual work, and it seems very likely that these companies will be willing to embrace remote working in the post-pandemic period.

Additionally, people working in global teams, particularly with white-collar jobs, have further endorsed the feasibility of flexible work that includes WFH and is not confined by standard business hours. The results of multiple surveys conducted around the world prove consistent with each other, suggesting that after coronavirus disease recedes, quite a number of office employees, regardless of nationality or race, would prefer to work remotely at least some days ( Kelly, 2021 ; PWC, 2021 ; Wong & Cheung, 2020 ).

The continued existence of the “office”

Previous studies have revealed that remote working can enhance productivity (e.g., Bloom et al., 2015 ; Grant et al., 2013 , 2019 ). However, it has been argued by scholars that working remotely amidst the pandemic has had both positive and negative impacts on productivity. On the one hand, some employees thought they were more productive when working from home because a flexible working arrangement allows them to manage their working time and place on their own. On the other hand, other employees experienced a difficulty in getting work done at home, caused by the interruption of family members and/or children at home ( Gibbs et al., 2021 ; Mustajab et al., 2020 ; Parker et al., 2020 ).

In a similar manner, several employees with either manual or nonmanual jobs believe that WFH is not the right fit for them. Manual types of work may not be able to adopt WFH due to the nature of the work. Some nonmanual workers prefer returning to the workplace after the pandemic. Working in an office can be more beneficial than working at home in terms of generating new ideas and socialising, and new employees can benefit from working in an office by learning about the organization and its culture ( BBC News, 2021d ; Vasel, 2021 ). WFH can keep new employees from gaining such knowledge. Employees also seem likely to resign if they are required to WFH full time and are not permitted to work in an office ( BBC News, 2021c ). Accordingly, traditional work practices, such as working in an office, are still needed.

Changes in organizational infrastructure and labor mobility

Businesses worldwide are seeing the merits of WFH or hybrid work, including but not limited to having a larger talent pool and saving money on rent ( de Lucas Ancillo et al., 2020 ). This will drive the recovering economy to rethink the need for office space, especially for nonmanual work types, with some companies considering reducing their office space or relocating from high-cost cities (i.e., London, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, etc.) to a more affordable place, and some adapting to a completely virtual office environment. Others are evaluating the possibility of renting co-working spaces. Companies are taking advantage of the demand for hybrid work to save the cost of renting an office ( BBC News, 2021b ). In addition to the relocation of workplaces from major cities to cheaper places, it is also believed that there will be a radical transition in urban life, where remote-working employees will migrate out of business capitals to cities with more affordable rentals and living costs ( Lund et al., 2021 ), owing largely to the prevalence of remote working. Such a transition will boost the economy of the cities concerned as well as their surrounding areas.

The challenges of performance management and atomistic tendencies at work

The “new normal” work practice would impact certain businesses and individuals or even work itself. For example, working mothers will be able to reduce commuting time and have more time to take care of their children. However, some managers feel that they cannot manage employees who are working remotely. Expectations for working objectives and output are not clear, and it is difficult to know whether employees are actively working ( ILO, 2020b ). Apart from that, some organizations have found it is difficult to switch to remote working for several reasons, such as a lack of digitized paperwork, information confidentiality concerns, and the fact that some organizations do not yet have in place guidelines and procedures for remote working ( ILO, 2020c ). The potential impacts of remote work practices should be given careful attention: For example, technology-related problems take longer to resolve remotely than in an office where employees might have technical support. Remote workers may encounter this problem, and such a problem could disrupt the working environment and work productivity.

Digital miscommunication, which is a lack of informal interaction and human interaction, could also be one of the potential impacts of remote working. This miscommunication might shape a work design that is more individual- than team-based, and make co-workers’ interaction and team building even more difficult.

Potential exacerbation of existing inequalities

Given the adoption of more digital technology, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as the “new normal” work practice in the post-pandemic labor force, certain types of occupations could be adversely affected (see Figure 1 ). The least educated, unskilled, and low-skilled workers may be replaced by automation ( Lund et al., 2021 ). Vulnerable workers will likely be the hardest-hit group; some of them might have to work multiple jobs (probably freelance jobs) to sustain a living. It is likely further to exacerbate existing inequalities in the world of work, and therefore reskilling and upskilling will become more necessary than ever before. Similarly, jobs such as personal care, on-site customer service, and leisure and travel have been severely disturbed by the pandemic. Businesses and policymakers can help workers in workforce transitions by additional training and education programs For example, businesses might analyze which tasks can be done remotely instead of looking at an entire occupation and possibly eliminating it. Policymakers might facilitate businesses in terms of digital infrastructure enhancement ( Lund et al., 2021 ). Work-related policy changes that will protect and support businesses and workers, including enhancing employees’ WLB in the post-pandemic, are also essential. The future trend of the labor market will be a challenging time for everyone and the labor policies will need to be improved and strengthened in order to thrive in the post-coronavirus disease world.

Managing WLB

As the trend seems to favor hybrid working over a completely remote working environment, whole or partial renegotiation and reorganization will be essential. Managers and HR will have to accommodate the changes in organizational strategies as well as in HR policies. A study by Kumar and Mokashi (2020) on WLB in the UK’s higher education institutions employees revealed that supervisor support during coronavirus disease helped employees enhance their living quality. Similar to previous studies, it has been reemphasized in coronavirus disease times that supervisors’ or managers’ support can help employees achieve a good WLB ( Julien et al., 2011 ; Talukder & Galang, 2021 ; Talukder et al., 2018 ).

Alternatively, governments may opt to implement specific policies in this regard. One notable example would be to adopt the “right-to-disconnect” law similar to that which is enforced in the Philippines and France, where employees have the right not to respond to work-related engagements and demands during nonworking hours ( Broom, 2021 ; Department of Labor and Employment, Philippines, 2017 ; Eurofound, 2019 ). Encouraging healthy work practices such as working within regular hours and taking regular breaks will help employees to draw a firm line between work and nonwork activities ( Adamovic, 2018 ; Chen & Fulmer, 2018 ). Optimizing personal and work life is not easy when adopting a “new normal” working model. Employees need to be disciplined and well-organized in their work and personal life management. This global health crisis has made people pay more attention to health and hygiene, which has also driven up the demand for healthy workplace cultures. However, to attain a WLB in the post-coronavirus disease world, employers may need to consider and plan a way forward such as providing clarity to employees and a variety of programs to support employees in their well-being as well as fostering a “trust- and outcome-based working culture” ( Sarin, 2020 ; Wolor et al., 2020 ). Employers’ attention to employees’ WLB will assist in keeping employees motivated and maintaining their performance. Therefore, WLB in the post-pandemic times should be brought to both employers’ and employees’ attention and should be considered when developing a plan for policy changes that would benefit both companies and employees.

This paper explores how the coronavirus disease has disrupted the labor markets, focusing on blue-collar and nonmanual (white-collar) work, the future of the WLB, what the “new normal” would be like, and what can be foreseen in the post-pandemic. As evident, the pandemic has created a health crisis and a labor market alarm, and led to many changes, particularly in the working world. These changes either “accelerated” the pace of developments that were already underway, and/or are contributing to a “remodelling” of the pre-pandemic work-world and/or have contributed to the “normalization” of what were considered to be experimental and novel ways of work.

In seeking a possible working solution during such difficult times, “acceleration” is seen in the increased use of technology to enable remote working arrangement initially as a stopgap measure and followed by a hybrid manner of work, with the exception of professions that require a physical presence. Resulting in a significant “normalization” of these practices. While various work procedures and habits have been followed, there has been a wide variation in their use worldwide and across different professions in the labor market. Workers with high educational attainment and those who work as white-collar office workers have had the privilege of working in a safe and protected environment, while those who are engaged in manual and physical work engagement have braved challenges and continued to work under high risk.

Many white-collar workers that were forced to WFH as an emergency response to the pandemic did not receive additional support from their organizations. They survived using their limited personal resources while carrying out the job requirements. Many such employees acquired skills suitable to the future WLB policy, such as, get used to remote working, manage stress and productivity, and carefully splitting work and family time. In doing so workers were “remodeling” pre-pandemic work practices alongside “normalization” of news ways. In the future, such employees should be supported with WFH arrangements ever after the pandemic, with admission from their organizations. Employers have experimented on the feasibility of such work practices and are focusing more on cost saving and higher profitability. Although there remains a conflict between the expectations of employers and employees, On the whole, hybrid working and staying flexible is likely to be in demand and could be the “new normal” in the post-COVID period. In this case, businesses worldwide will need to proactively craft a long-term remote or hybrid work strategy based on their own needs, as there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. Similarly, governments worldwide need to revisit the current employment policies to have strict and proper employment laws in place and assure fair employee treatment.

The changes in the labor policy framework dramatically impacted the inequalities, representing both “acceleration” and “remodelling”. The work-types for manual workers and nonmanual workers have undergone changes and made it clear that the economy must transform into retail, where it is driven by the needs of customers for the best possible level of service. Due to the nature of the work, a WFH arrangement cannot be utilized for those who need to be physically present to offer their services. Moreover, vulnerable employees (e.g., low-paid, low-skilled workers, persons with disabilities, and migrant workers) have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Many of them have been put on furlough since the early stages of the pandemic, leading some to consider making a living in the gig economy, as there seems to be little prospect soon of an end to the recession caused by the pandemic. However, jobs in the gig economy—for example, project-based jobs and independent contractual jobs—appear to have weaker protection and lesser benefits for workers ( United Nations, 2020 ). Furthermore, automation tends to replace the least educated, unskilled, and low-skill labor. As such, it has the potential to exacerbate existing inequities.

In light of the aforementioned changes in the labor market, the development of future WLB policies must include a spectrum of directions, such as customization of working hours under WFH, ensuring trust and support for WFH employees, responding to the demands to work from the office, and guaranteeing equal pay and the right to disconnect. Thus, policymakers must chart out a proper plan of action and consider not only jobs and groups of people but also when and which people can work remotely or on-site. According to Boland et al. (2020) , there are four steps to reimagine work and the workplace in the post-pandemic working world. First, how is work done in the post-pandemic working world? Organizations should restructure their working processes and functions to perform work: For example, workers may chart out tasks to be performed in the formal office environment versus those that could be taken care of in a remote setting. Second, once reconstructing their work processes and identifying the tasks that can be done remotely, organizations should consider segments of workers and reclassify roles to identify employees’ suitability for exclusively WFH or hybrid remote working and on-site working. Third, to maintain productivity and collaboration organizations should design workspaces that support workers both remotely and on-site, with tools such as virtual whiteboards and videoconferences. Lastly, some organizations may shift from a big city to a small city to save on their rental costs. Co-working spaces, flexible leases, flex space, and remote work seem to be examples of post-coronavirus disease options. These four steps—restructuring the working process, identifying tasks, redesigning workspaces, and relocating offices—will help organizations get some idea of how to prepare for and foresee the future of work and the workplace.

WLB should take a central development in labor policy in the post-pandemic working world. Balancing work and personal life is challenging both for employers and employees. Although previous studies have emphasized that remote work, WFH, or flexible workplaces can enhance employees’ WLB ( Pelta, 2020 ), WFH during the pandemic showed that some employees encountered an imbalance between work and personal/family life (see Figure 1 ). There is demand for giving people deserved “holidays” as due to hybrid digital working, as some employees have been working 24/7 without weekend breaks. People are being deprived of both their personal space and weekly time off as their work is “omnipresent” and one can access the office from anywhere on any device, be it a phone, laptop, iPad, or other tool. In contrast, some employees were able to enhance their WLB through a WFH arrangement, with things such as flexible working hours and having more time to take care of young children and/or elderly parents, and thus were more motivated. During this WFH period, some employees were able to achieve a good WLB while others were not.

The coronavirus disease pandemic has demanded adjustments and changes from the workers, who are in supervision and managers’ positions. Previous studies have found that supervisors influence employees’ WLB, with supervisor trust and support enhancing the WLB of employees ( Kumar & Mokashi, 2020 ; Talukder & Galang, 2021 ). Organizations and policymakers may need to consider how work is supervised and appraised in order to help supervisors trust employees and provide support to help employees achieve a WLB in the post-coronavirus disease world,. Also, the importance of a workplace productivity culture should be better defined by the managers so that workers can choose to work within or outside of the formal work environment without any negative repercussions. For instance, in European countries some regulations and policies related to WLB and flexible work practices, such as the “right to disconnect”, promote teleworkers’ WLB such that workers can opt whether to work or not outside of working hours ( Eurofound, 2020 ). Hence, to help employees achieve their WLB in the post-pandemic world, organizations and policymakers might consider an emphasis on:

Allowing employees to customize their work commitment and working hours and thus make WFH employees motivated and productive;

Trust and support WFH employees to help them reduce stress (which may also lead to an increase in productivity and work commitment);

Enhancing work motivation and employees’ well-being, understand that some employees may be willing to WFH and others prefer to be in an office;

Guaranteeing employees both equal pay for remote working and the right to disconnect;

Reconstructing how work is done, and identify which work can be performed remotely and which requires an onsite work environment.

Although remote working is an important trend in the post-pandemic world, many crucial issues in terms of the well-being of remote employees, national laws and regulations, and cyber-security risks require monitoring and further solutions. Therefore, relevant parties at all levels of society, including policymakers and businesses, must work together to create a more sustainable model for “new normal” work practices.

Fundamental changes should apply to labor policy. How governments address the “new normal” of remote and hybrid working will affect both the WLB and workplace inequalities and abuse. It is essential to have policies that encourage employee protection and well-being. To sum up, the pandemic has awakened countless speculations, assumptions, and debates on what the impending labor market will look like. coronavirus disease has given rise to transformation, interruption, endurance, and ambiguity. Studying the post-pandemic paths, as they take the form of “acceleration,” “normalization,” and “remodelling.” is vital in anticipating the connection between workplace disruptions and a pathway to a “new normal.”

The research was supported by a “Departmental Small Research Grant” funded by Department of Asian and Policy Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

None declared.

Adamovic M. ( 2018 ). An employee-focused human resource management perspective for the management of global virtual teams . The International Journal of Human Resource Management , 29 ( 14 ), 2159 – 2187 . https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2017.1323227 .

Google Scholar

Ambrose J. ( 2021 , March 8 ). BP to tell 25,000 office staff to work from home two days a week . The Guardian . https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/08/bp-to-tell-25000-office-staff-to-work-from-home-two-days-a-week .

BBC News . ( 2020 , October 9 ). Microsoft makes remote work option permanent . BBC . https://www.bbc.com/news/business–54482245 .

BBC News . ( 2021a , March 25 ). Nationwide tells 13,000 staff to ‘work anywhere’ . BBC . https://www.bbc.com/news/business–56510574 .

BBC News . ( 2021b , March 9 ). Hybrid working will become the norm . BBC . https://www.bbc.com/news/business–56331654 .

BBC News . ( 2021c , March 26 ). People may quit if forced to work from home, Rishi Sunak warns . BBC . https://www.bbc.com/news/business–56535575 .

BBC News . ( 2021d , March 1 ). Covid: ‘People are tired of working from home’ . BBC . https://www.bbc.com/news/business–56237586 .

Bloom N. , Liang J. , Roberts J. , & Ying Z. J. ( 2015 ). Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment . The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 130 ( 1 ), 165 – 218 .

Boland B. , De Smet A. , Palter R. , & Sanghvi A. ( 2020 ). Reimagining the office and work life after COVID-19 . McKinsey & Company . https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/reimagining-the-office-and-work-life-after-covid-19 .

Broom D. ( 2021 , March 5 ). Is it time remote workers are given the ‘right to disconnect’ while at home? World Economic Forum . https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/right-to-disconnect-from-work-at-home-eu/ .

Caringal-Go J. F. , Teng-Calleja M. , Bertulfo D. J. , & Manaois J. O. ( 2021 ). Work-life balance crafting during COVID-19: Exploring strategies of telecommuting employees in the Philippines . Community, Work & Family , 1 – 20 , pre-publication issue. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2021.1956880 .

Chen Y. , & Fulmer I. S. ( 2018 ). Fine-tuning what we know about employees’ experience with flexible work arrangements and their job attitudes . Human Resource Management , 57 ( 1 ), 381 – 395 . https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21849 .

de Lucas Ancillo A. , del Val Núñez M. T. , & Gavrila S. G. ( 2020 ). Workplace change within the COVID-19 context: A grounded theory approach . Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja , 34 (1), 2297 – 2231 . https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2020.1862689 .

Department of Labor and Employment, Philippines . ( 2017 , February 1 ). Bello: ‘Right to disconnect’ after office hours choice of employees . Department of Labor and Employment. GOV.PH . https://www.dole.gov.ph/news/bello-right-to-disconnect-after-office-hours-choice-of-employees/ .

Dingel J. I. , & Neiman B. ( 2020 ). How many jobs can be done at home? Journal of Public Economics , 189 , 104235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104235 .

Eurofound . ( 2019 , October 22 ). Right to disconnect . European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions . https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/right-to-disconnect .

Eurofound . ( 2020 ). Regulations to address work–life balance in digital flexible working arrangements . New Forms of Employment Series, Publications Office of the European Union . https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/sites/default/files/ef_publication/field_ef_document/ef19046en.pdf .

Feeney M. K. , & Stritch J. M. ( 2019 ). Family-friendly policies, gender, and work–life balance in the public sector . Review of Public Personnel Administration , 39 ( 3 ), 422 – 448 . https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X17733789 .

Forman C. , & van Zeebroeck N. ( 2019 ). Digital technology adoption and knowledge flows within firms: Can the Internet overcome geographic and technological distance? Research Policy , 48 ( 8 ), 103697. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.10.021 .

Gadhi S. ( 2020 , April 1 ). How digital infrastructure can help us through the COVID-19 crisis . World Economic Forum . https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/digital-infrastructure-public-health-crisis-covid–19/ .

Gibbs M. , Mengel F. , & Siemroth C. ( 2021 , May 11). Work from home & productivity: Evidence from personnel & analytics data on IT professionals . University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper, 2021–2056 . http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3843197 .

Grant C. , Wallace L. , & Spurgeon P. ( 2013 ). An exploration of the psychological factors affecting remote e-worker’s job effectiveness, well-being and work-life balance . Employee Relations , 35 ( 5 ), 527 – 546 . https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2012-0059 .

Grant C. A. , Wallace L. M. , Spurgeon P. C. , Tramontano C. , & Charalampous M. ( 2019 ). Construction and initial validation of the E-Work Life Scale to measure remote e-working . Employee Relations , 41 ( 1 ), 16 – 33 . https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-09-2017-0229 .

Hartmans A. ( 2020 , December 15 ). Google just delayed its office reopening until September 2021. Here’s how other major Silicon Valley companies are thinking about the future of work . https://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-future-of-work-port-coronavirus-apple-amazon-facebook-2020-10?r=US&IR=T .

International Labour Organization . ( 2020a , March 18 ). COVID-19 and the world of work: Impact and policy responses . ILO . https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_738753.pdf .

International Labour Organization . ( 2020b , May 27 ). ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work. Fourth edition . https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_745963.pdf .

International Labour Organization . ( 2020c ). An employer’s guide on working from home in response to the outbreak of COVID-19 . International Labour Office . https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_dialogue/---act_emp/documents/publication/wcms_745024.pdf .

Julien M. , Somerville K. , & Culp N. ( 2011 ). Going beyond the work arrangement: The crucial role of supervisor support . Public Administration Quarterly , 35 ( 2 ), 167 – 204 .

Kelly J. ( 2021 , May 21 ). Survey asks employees at top U.S. companies if they’d give up $30,000 to work from home: The answers may surprise you . Forbes . https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/05/21/survey-asks-employees-at-top-us-companies-if-theyd-give-up-30000-to-work-from-home-the-answers-may-surprise-you/?sh=1328144330f8 .

Kniffin K. M. , Narayanan J. , Anseel F. , Antonakis J. , Ashford S. P. , Bakker A. B. , Bamberger P. , Bapuji H. , Bhave D. P. , Choi V. K. , Creary S. J. , Demerouti E. , Flynn F. J. , Gelfand M. J. , Greer L. L. , Johns G. , Kesebir S. , Klein P. G. , Lee S. Y. , … Vugt M. V. ( 2021 ). COVID-19 and the workplace: Implications, issues, and insights for future research and action . American Psychologist , 76 ( 1 ), 63 – 77 . https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000716 .

Kumar R. , & Mokashi U. M. ( 2020 ). COVID-19 and work-life balance: What about supervisor support and employee proactiveness? Annals of Contemporary Developments in Management & HR (ACDMHR) , 2 ( 4 ), 1 – 9 .

Labour Department . ( 2003 , November ). Guidelines for employers and employees: Prevention of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS ) . HKSAR . https://www.info.gov.hk/info/sars/lft/employ_e.htm .

Lam K.-S. ( 2021 , April 21 ). Two of three Hong Kong office staff want to keep working from home, boding ill for demand in the world’s most expensive office market . South China Morning Post . https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3130267/two-three-hong-kong-office-staff-want-keep-working-home-boding-ill-demand .

Lund S. , Madgavkar A. , Manyika J. , & Smit S. ( 2020 , November 23 ). What’s next for remote work: An analysis of 2,000 tasks, 800 jobs, and nine countries . McKinsey & Company . https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/whats-next-for-remote-work-an-analysis-of-2000-tasks-800-jobs-and-nine-countries .

Lund S. , Madgavkar A. , Manyika J. , Smit S. , Ellingrud K. , Meaney M. , & Robinson O. ( 2021 , February 18 ). The future of work after COVID-19 . McKinsey Global Institute . https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-after-covid–19 .

Melhem M. , Lawal M. , & Bashir S. ( 2020 , June 12 ). Enhancing digital capabilities in a post-COVID-19 world . World Bank . https://blogs.worldbank.org/digital-development/enhancing-digital-capabilities-post-covid-19-world .

Murdoch D. , & Fichter R. ( 2017 ). From doing digital to being digital: Exploring workplace adoption of technology in the age of digital disruption . International Journal of Adult Vocational Education and Technology (IJAVET) , 8 ( 4 ), 13 – 28 . https://doi.org/10.4018/IJAVET.2017100102 .

Mustajab D. , Bauw A. , Rasyid A. , Irawan A. , Akbar M. A. , & Hamid M. A. ( 2020 ). Working from home phenomenon as an effort to prevent COVID-19 attacks and its impacts on work productivity . TIJAB (The International Journal of Applied Business) , 4 ( 1 ), 13 – 21 .

Nakrošienė A. , & Butkevičienė E. ( 2016 ). Nuotolinis darbas Lietuvoje: Samprata, privalumai ir iššūkiai darbuotojams . Filosofija. Sociologija , 27 ( 4 ), 364 – 372 .

Palumbo R. ( 2020 ). Let me go to the office! An investigation into the side effects of working from home on work-life balance . International Journal of Public Sector Management , 33 ( 6/7 ), 771 – 790 . https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-06-2020-0150 .

Palumbo R. , Manna R. , & Cavallone M. ( 2020 ). Beware of side effects on quality! Investigating the implications of home working on work-life balance in educational services . The TQM Journal , pre-publication issue. https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-05-2020-0120 .

Parker K. , Juliana Menasce Horowitz J. M. , & Minkin R. ( 2020 , December 9 ). How the coronavirus outbreak has—and hasn’t—changed the way Americans work . Pew Research Center . https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/12/09/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-has-and-hasnt-changed-the-way-americans-work/ .

Pelta R. ( 2020 , September 21 ). FlexJobs Survey: Productivity, work-life balance improves during pandemic . Flexjobs . https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/survey-productivity-balance-improve-during-pandemic-remote-work/ .

Putri A. , & Amran A. ( 2021 ). Employees’ work-life balance reviewed from work from home aspect during COVID-19 pandemic . International Journal of Management Science and Information Technology , 1 ( 1 ), 30 – 34 .

PWC . ( 2021 , January 12 ). It’s time to reimagine where and how work will get done . PWC . https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/covid-19/us-remote-work-survey.html .

Ratten V. ( 2020 ). Coronavirus (COVID-19) and entrepreneurship: Changing life and work landscape . Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship , 32 ( 5 ), 503 – 516 .

Ro C. ( 2020 , August 31 ). Companies are looking to the post-Covid future. For many, the vision is a model that combines remote work and office time . BBC Worklife . https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200824-why-the-future-of-work-might-be-hybrid .

Sarin B. ( 2020 , December 25 ). The work-life post-COVID-19: From collision to integration . People Matters Pte. Ltd . https://www.peoplemattersglobal.com/article/life-at-work/the-work-life-post-covid-19-from-collision-to-integration–27979 .

Savić D. ( 2020 ). COVID-19 and work from home: Digital transformation of the workforce . Grey Journal (TGJ) , 16 ( 2 ), 101 – 104 .

Shagvaliyeva S. , & Yazdanifard R. ( 2014 ). Impact of flexible working hours on work-life balance . American Journal of Industrial and Business Management , 4 ( 1 ), 20 – 23 .

Siemens AG . ( 2020 , July 16 ). Siemens to establish mobile working as core component of the ‘new normal’ . https://press.siemens.com/global/en/pressrelease/siemens-establish-mobile-working-core-component-new-normal .

Talukder A. K. M. , Vickers M. , & Khan A. ( 2018 ). Supervisor support and work-life balance: Impacts on job performance in the Australian financial sector . Personnel Review , 47 ( 3 ), 727 – 744 . https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-12-2016-0314 .

Talukder A. M. H. , & Galang M. C. ( 2021 ). Supervisor support for employee performance in Australia: Mediating role of work‐life balance, job, and life attitude . Journal of Employment Counseling , 58 ( 1 ), 2 – 22 .

United Nations . ( 2020 , June ). Policy brief: The world of work and COVID-19 . https://unsdg.un.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/policy-brief-the_world_of_work_and_covid-19.pdf .

Vargo D. , Zhu L. , Benwell B. , & Yan Z. ( 2021 ). Digital technology use during COVID‐19 pandemic: A rapid review . Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies , 3 ( 1 ), 13 – 24 . https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.242 .

Vasel K. ( 2021 , April 13 ). Some workers can’t wait to get back to the office . CNN Business . https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/13/success/workers-back-to-the-office/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_content=2021-04-13T19%3A31%3A08&utm_source=fbCNN&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR3vjsyfCzlOuKrkhALDJzzwltz5qdImUN6lO-13L-_wsD0_iwqVlumBDcY .

Vyas L. , & Butakhieo N. ( 2021 ). The impact of working from home during COVID-19 on work and life domains: An exploratory study on Hong Kong . Policy Design and Practice , 4 ( 1 ), 59 – 76 .

Wolor C. W. , Solikhah S. , Fidhyallah N. F. , & Lestari D. P. ( 2020 ). Effectiveness of e-training, e-leadership, and work life balance on employee performance during COVID-19 . The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business (JAFEB) , 7 ( 10 ), 443 – s450 .

Wong H. K. A. , & Cheung J. ( 2020 ). Survey findings on working from home under COVID-19 . Lingnan University . https://www.ln.edu.hk/f/upload/48728/Survey%20findings%20on%20Work%20From%20Home_Eng.pdf .

Wong M. M. L. , Lau K. H. , & Chan C. W. F. ( 2021 ). The impacts and success factors of a work-from-home service-learning internship during COVID-19 . Journal of Work-Applied Management , 13 ( 2 ), 284 – 301 . https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-01-2021-0003 .

World Health Organization . ( 2020 , March 3 ). Getting your workplace ready for COVID-19 . WHO . https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/getting-workplace-ready-for-covid-19.pdf .

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Advertising & Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1839-3373
• Print ISSN 1449-4035
• Copyright © 2024 Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Wiley - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Thank you , COVID ‐19: Positive social psychology towards the new normal

Md. saidur rahaman.

1 Department of Business Administration, Metropolitan University, Sylhet Bangladesh

Md. Mizanur Rahman

2 BRAC Business School, BRAC University Bangladesh, Dhaka Bangladesh

Syed Muhammod Ali Reza

3 Department of Management Studies, Rajshahi University, Rajshahi Bangladesh

Mohammad Nasim Reza

Md. solaiman chowdhury, associated data.

Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions.

During the time being, while everybody else is busy conversing about the adverse effects of COVID‐19, researchers solemnly look forward to intensifying the positive effects of COVID‐19 on political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and ethical (PESTEL) aspects, as it was unrevealed. The FGD (Focus Group Discussion) and Delphi methods were conducted from April 2020 to January 2021 through the online platform to collect the data. In this research, 40 graduates from 40 families were taken as our sample size who carried out the opinions of their family members. The average duration of the interview was 30–40 min. This article highlighted that COVID‐19 has some positive effects on social‐psychological aspects (PESTEL) and, people are trying to adapt to new practices (New Normal) to improve their lifestyles against the deadly virus. COVID‐19 would pass, but life will never be the same; thus, researchers conduct the research based on a country, which may not be similar to the other cultures and countries' perceptions. This is the first and foremost study on the positive effects of covid‐19 and a guideline to cope with any pandemic in the near future. The study's findings are intended to assist the community in developing positive social psychology to call the covid‐19 into question and look forward to a new standard.

1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

COVID‐19 was one of the most researchable topics in early 2020, which caused drastic changes in all aspects of human life. These changes affected all fields of business, educational institutions, social life, and so on (Magomedov et al.,  2020 ). Moreover, people are developing different psychology due to the reforms, which brought both negative and positive influences. As a result, it will be remembered as an event that nearly killed millions of people while also ushering in new developments into everyday life. It has created the assumption that no nation can isolate itself from a global crisis because of the rapid spread of this virus worldwide. There is no geographic boundary recognized by the effects of COVID, that is, no country is exempt (Rahaman et al.,  2020 ). It is expected that COVID‐19 would leave a scar on the lives of people, regardless of any generation. Wuhan, a city in China, was the first place where, on 31 December 2019 (WHO), the World Health Organization (WHO) officially monitored the case of COVID‐19, leading the world to dramatic turmoil. Covid‐19 is now widely recognized as the cause behind this deadly respiratory syndrome (“CO” remains for corona, “VI” for the virus, “D” for disease, and 19 mentions the year 2019), and it is a novel coronavirus, SARS‐CoV‐2. The phylogenetic study explained that at the Huanan wet market in Wuhan City, China, it is most likely from the animal Bats and transferred to some other animal until it came to the human body (Lu et al.,  2020 ; Andersen et al.,  2020 ). The entire planet has been halted, and the total number of contaminated cases worldwide is 85,737,019 up to 4th January 2021, and the total number of deaths is 1,854,875 (Google Covid‐19 alert,  n.d. ).

Covid‐19 has not impacted our lives in any good but adverse way, beginning from the sudden outbreak of the global pandemic to the death of the uncountable number of people because of the disease to the economic devastation. Sadly, the pandemic condition has taken away so much from us. We lost our loved ones, were unemployed, poor people were suffering for food, and the world had to face a significant recession (Giommoni & Loumeau,  2020 ). We noted how difficult it was to deal with coronavirus spreading. People had to suffer a great deal by dint of the lockdown. By canceling all‐important meetings and activities, individuals had to remain at home. For a long time, the Covid‐19 pandemic placed people under a lot of stress. As a result, researchers have been increasingly involved in analyzing social and community disturbances to provide psychological support to the general people (Saladino et al.,  2020 ). This increased attention could help with the current situation as well as other possible epidemics and pandemics. Individuals' responses to the security measures to fight the pandemic differed depending on their social status. COVID‐19 may be the topic of a discussion. Is it likely that such a strong event‐pandemic would have a good outcome for us humans in the end? And, although the answer may be mentioned clearly, the consequences will be revealed in full in the future. However, examining current affairs, some of the COVID‐19's touched pieces can be redefined or changed in the right direction.

We acknowledged that some positive effects also taught us some treasured lessons, regardless of how many negative impacts there are. Human minds will continue to have a long‐lasting effect, and, in particular, the younger generation will be conscious of seeking a better future. We still have compassion on earth during the crisis as people marched ahead to support the needy and set great examples. It is entirely correct that we raced blindly behind worldly possessions and ignored our surroundings. During the time being, while everybody else is busy conversing about the adverse effects of COVID‐19, researchers solemnly look forward to intensifying the positive sides of COVID‐19 that went unrevealed by us along with we have justified these effects as positive psychology considering PESTEL (Political, Economic, Societal, Technological, Environmental, and Legal) model. However, how we react to the current pandemic and other emergencies is entirely up to us. How we respond, whether positively or negatively, will directly affect our personal and social lives. There are many lessons to be learned from this crisis that can be applied to creating a better society. Our ability to adapt, manage resilience in the face of adversity, flexibility, and imagination will decide how open we are to change if we are not forced to. When people return to work, education, and more normal life, we will have to adjust to a new standard as long as the world does not find a safe and effective vaccine.

Much research has already been conducted about the positive effects of COVID‐19 in various aspects; education (Magomedov et al.,  2020 ), environment (Khan et al.,  2020 ; Ming et al.,  2020 ; Mohamed et al.,  2020 ), economics (Karunathilake,  2020 ), politics (Balmford et al.,  2020 ) technology, and many hidden aspects can also be found (Karunathilake,  2020 ). In this study, researchers tried to blend the positive effects of COVID‐19 through PESTEL. Though the problem is not yet explored or generalized to the mass people properly, researchers should focus intensely on the issue. Researchers expect the study's outcome will help the community develop positive social psychology to challenge the COVID‐19 and look forward to new normal.

2. POSITIVE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND PESTEL FRAMEWORK

In recent years, a branch of psychology (Positive psychology) gained popularity which can be described as “the science and practice of enhancing well‐being” (Brani et al.,  2014 ). However, though the branch has grown in demand, it has also come under some limitations, with one of the most common criticisms being that it does not pay enough attention to the social context of well‐being (Becker & Marecek,  2008 ). This article argues that we should think of this new wave of socially‐focused well‐being programs as a sub‐discipline of positive psychology called “positive social psychology.” Positive social psychology is essential for business, people, and managers to make their workplaces enjoyable (Lomas et al.,  2019 ). In this current study, researchers used the unique concept of positive psychology to recover the human being's mental strength during the COVID‐19. Around the world, people are feeling mentally innocent and complete. Nobody in our past generation did face such disasters before, the COVID‐19, which is genuinely new and unique. To date, there are pathways for discovering the vaccine of COVID‐19 (Bhuiyan,  2020a ). The number of patients is somewhere increasing and somewhere decreasing. The WHO declares, the effects of COVID‐19 will never go out from the world. Still, necessary precautions can defend against the deadly virus, that is, washing hands properly, using a face mask and no sneezing, and so on. People nowadays are more concerned about precautionary measures. Several researchers have found many suicidal cases because of the adverse effects of the COVID‐19 (Thakur & Jain,  2020 ). But researchers suggest developing positive social psychology to handle the pandemic COVID‐19 (Anjankar Ashish et al.,  2020 ). The current study focuses on assessing the changes in human psychology from negative to positive in PESTEL learning from the COVID‐19.

Researchers considered “the world” as a macro perspective. The immediate question that can arise when concentrating on positive impacts is the beneficial impacts in a global pandemic situation? There are theoretical viewpoints and a methodology called functionalism or functional perspective in sociological terms. This theory may be used to examine the effects of social action (Knudsen,  2010 ). However, researchers tried to analyses the macro‐environment of the world. It is necessary to identify the factors that significantly affect the macro‐environment (Johnson & Scholes,  1993 ). PEST analysis is one of the most usable frameworks that enforce environmental influences by political, economic, social, and technological forces. The fundamental objective of the PEST framework is to review a particular situation. Afterward, earlier researchers find environmental and legal forces as a considerable contributor and extend PEST to PESTEL (Kotler, 1998 ). In this research, we also used the existing PESTEL framework. Thus, PESTEL framework has been used to highlight the positive effects of COVID‐19.

3. RESEARCH METHODS, TECHNIQUES, AND TOOLS

In this research, 40 graduate students from 40 families were taken as our sample size. We purposively selected these 40 graduate students from those 40 families to discuss the positive social effects of COVID‐19 as an inclusive interview. Each of our chosen graduates carried out the opinions of their family members. The FGD, and Delphi methods were conducted from April 2020 to January 2021 through the online platform, and the average duration of the interview was 30–40 min. FGD allows the participants (at least 6–10) to make the discussion dynamic and user‐friendly by sharing the opinions, perceptions, experiences, exchanges of attitudes (Young et al.,  2001 ). The researchers arranged five focus group discussions (FGDs); each group consists of eight members; group members were selected randomly. During the FGDs' researchers discussed the concepts, summary from the inclusive interview (Rahaman et al.,  2021 ), and their views on the positive effects of COVID‐19. The group leaders (FGD) appeared in the face to face interview because they belong to a family and have the same experience along with they have collected rest of the members' opinion (Dana,  2007 ). Later on, other stakeholders' opinions on the same have carried on checking and finding out the balanced view. Researchers developed some open‐ended questions constructed from the PESTEL framework.

The Delphi Technique used in research because the problem is not sufficient or relatively unexplored, highly contextual and specific, hard to define quickly, and future‐oriented (Ziglio,  1995 ). Using The Delphi Techniques in research must ensure the expert panel's capable members with written responses (Delbecq et al.,  1975 ) because the interview or survey findings significantly affect the reliability and validity of the research. In this study, researchers considered the family members as the expert members for the Delphi Techniques. The researcher finds the experts who meet the two general criteria, first, who know the COVID‐19 and who can play a significant role in their family. This method helps the researcher reach aggregate judgment and decision making (Delbecq et al.,  1975 ). During the data collection, experts do not meet face‐to‐face (Dana,  2011 ) rather than a set of questions related to the positive effects of COVID‐19 sent to them to reach the decision. The summary of the responses again sent to the participants along with new questions, if any. This process continues until the researchers get sufficient information collected or group consensus achieved (Dana & Anderson,  2007 ).

The interviews were conducted in English and Bangla languages. Researchers used NVivo software to note the essential themes of the positive effects of COVID 19. To avoid the differences in coding and meet the saturation, researchers review the coding many times. We have gathered secondary data from journal articles, published papers, books, and various websites in addition to the primary data. The participants' demographic information is not mentioned anywhere, no manipulation of data and acknowledging all the sources properly.

3.1. Ethical consideration

We have taken the necessary permissions from all the respondents, that we will use the data for our research purpose.

4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1. political perspective; changing the scenario.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has had significant political ramifications. The pandemic placed pressure on governments all over the world to respond rapidly and decisively (Bol, Giani, et al.,  2020 ; Bol, Marco, et al.,  2020 ). During this pandemic, political conflict among nations was entirely halted in many countries (Giommoni & Loumeau,  2020 ). Respondents noticed that during the pandemic, local and national leaders had an opportunity to demonstrate their generosity. When infection numbers increase, governments are “punished” in terms of political approval (Bol, Giani, et al.,  2020 ; Bol, Marco, et al.,  2020 ). For example,

Political parties are learning how to cope with any disaster like coronavirus and how to handle it in the future [G#3]

Among lower‐level individuals in underdeveloped and developing countries, there is a significant financial crisis as a result local leaders have come forward to support the vulnerable in that situation (Bhalla,  2021 ).

Now each party is trying to help people for their own political strategy [G#3, G#4]

Political leaders are unwilling to gather with the people. They cannot make the procession in a public place, so the general populace gets more protection and security and moves freely with each other (Anwar et al.,  2020 ). The political advantage involves the government doing its hardest to keep individuals in their respective homes by providing strict lockdown laws to ensure the virus's protection and spread (Tisdell,  2020 ). The government saves the future country pretty well in this way. Likewise, a leader of a FGD mentioned with his member,

For the first time in history, we are witnessing that all the political parties are working together to support the nation by coming up with one supporting the decision. [G#2]

From the above statements it is clear that political conflicts have significantly gone down all over the world including Bangladesh during COVID‐19 (Anwar et al.,  2020 ). Besides, political leaders are helping the general people (Bhalla,  2021 ). Many social analysts agree that it will help the political party leaders live in a stable if any government treats the pandemic carefully. Even a political party may recover more loyalty to nations and society (Giommoni & Loumeau,  2020 ; Bol, Giani, et al.,  2020 ; Bol, Marco, et al.,  2020 ). The pandemic provides a more significant opportunity in this particular problem.

4.2. Economic aspects; new pathways

Generally, we think that the businesses are in huge loss because of Covid‐19 pandemic but not all the businesses are facing it. Several companies concentrated on environmental requirements and issues during the time, which prompted them to achieve success (Baker et al.,  2020 ). E‐commerce industries are now days the key source of income for most entrepreneurs. This industry took this advantage and became beneficial to maintain a balance in the economy (Barro, 2020 ). Many businesses have concentrated on goods, while others have selected services to draw our attention (Ali et al.,  2020 ). For most entrepreneurs, e‐commerce industries are the critical source of income today (Kamdi & Deogade,  2020 ). A critical observation from a group,

Online business had a huge economic benefit since people were more likely to do online shopping as they were stuck at home during a pandemic. This resulted in an increased rate of profit in online ventures. [G#1, G#3 & G#5]

The existing companies which produce and sell masks, sanitizers, they are greatly profitable (Kamdi & Deogade,  2020 ). In this pandemic situation, many developed countries industries changed their supply chain and earned money by selling medical instruments, for example, Mask, PPE, Ventilator, and Hand Sanitizer, and so on to other countries (Ambros et al.,  2020 ). Consequently, a group leader mentioned,

Due to the pandemic, the demand for certain products such as protective gear for health professionals and the general public rises quickly. Many countries are producing and exporting those results in higher income, employment, and investment. Bangladesh has received a handsome amount of remittance during the COVID 19 pandemic. [G#2]

Besides, people do not frequently visit restaurants, so delivery services are more common. It, therefore, demonstrates that there are plenty of economic gains for every nation (Maliszewska et al.,  2020 ). However, the general public has benefited from receiving money packages from their esteemed governments across the globe.

Although the economic collapse of the world is rampant. But the contribution of technological industries to the economic sustainability of the world is immense in this Pandemic. Therefore I would say that the growth of the technological industry in this lockdown will major in economic growth soon. [G#2 & G#4]

From the above discussions it can be said, almost all the countries are suffering of economic disaster but we can see that many countries are already standing up with their economy; they are trying to build their own resources and lessen the export products economics due to COVID‐19 (Akhtaruzzaman et al.,  2021 ). People are started to trust many local‐level trades and business firms rather than depending on the supermarket systems. These trends strengthen the supply chain system nationally and regionally (Akhtaruzzaman et al.,  2021 ). Businesses came up with many creative ways, unlimited ideas, tips, and tricks to utilize quarantine. Bunch of people are so happy with their innovations, and they productively did it so well.

4.3. Social benefits; journey of the new culture

As an infectious pandemic, people are beginning to follow the COVID‐19 medical guidelines (Rahaman et al.,  2020 ); they learn how to preserve social isolation, laws, policies, and government circumstances (Lau et al.,  2020 ). People are more health‐conscious during the COVID‐19 situation; they are still thinking about keeping themselves safe, using masks, PPEs, and hand sanitizers. People are used to abstaining from shaking hands to greetings for leaving a safe life in the future (Rahaman,  2020 ). Nowadays, people appear to be more affectionate towards their families and loved ones; everybody seems supportive and considerate (Nelson,  2020 ). According to Ali et al. ( 2020 ) the main advantage is that, individuals get to spend extended time with their families, resulting in an excellent mutual understanding for strengthening future variant relationships among family members during the lockdown. Indeed, we were unable to meet our friends and family, but we could communicate via video calls with them; after that, go on a family holiday if we are lucky enough (Vipin Thomas, 2020 ). One of the leaders gave his opinion where rest of the members actively supported the statement, that is

Staying and working from home allowed to busy professionals to spend more time with their near and dear ones. [G#5 & G#3]

People have again shown that “Peace is power” by working together to eradicate this coronavirus. This pandemic situation has taught us a powerful lesson that people can fight against any problem together (Vipin Thomas, 2020 ). Therefore it can be said,

Most of us do not appreciate the contributions of low‐level workers like food distributors, vegetable vendors, cleaners, municipality workers, etc. This pandemic has made us realize their necessity for our survival. Therefore from now on, these essential people will get their much‐deserved value and recognition from us. [G#1]

COVID‐19 brought a significant change in the society like people understood the fundamental duties to defend the country, whether any person suffering from the disease or working from home, people are showing kindness and stood together to financial assist one another (Rahaman et al.,  2020 ). And the people who could not help financially donated their physical effort to contribute to their best to support the situation (Ang,  2020 ). The social benefit from COVID‐19 has been that today the whole country is fighting together from COVID‐19. From the same group, a member replied,

Social benefits for people under isolation had been provided with food, drink, reduced house rent and reduction in interest for repayment of the loan, etc. [G#2]

Besides, crimes such as hijacking, robbery, drug abuse, alcoholism, gambling, prostitution, aggression, and so on are drastically decreased (Dazio et al.,  2020 ).A group member suddenly replied and rest of the group leaders gave the concerns,

Before the coronavirus, we were not regular in prayer, but we used to pray 5 times nowadays. [G#1,3,4,5]

Finally, COVID‐19's social benefits are enormous (Karunathilake, 2020 ). Coronavirus has made significant improvements in our culture as individuals recognize their essential obligations towards society and the group they are following. Individuals get to spend extended time with their families, resulting in an excellent mutual understanding for strengthening future variant relationships among family members during COVID‐19. It is also genuinely unique that some have not supported financially but have offered free labor services. We are incredibly proud of the doctors, volunteers, and police who worked tirelessly during this challenging period to save the world's people.

4.4. Technological adaption; beginning of new normal

COVID‐19 situation has generated our reliance on technology‐based networks such as YouTube, Instgram, Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp, LinkedIn, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and so on the Internet and mobile (Rahaman et al.,  2020 ). In this pandemic scenario, the e‐commerce platform would play an important role (Kamdi & Deogade,  2020 ). Many respondents support the statement,

Disruptive technological innovation makes our life smoother and easier. Video conferencing app zoom became a multi‐billion‐dollar company in a concise period. [G#4]

People cannot meet their friends and relatives because of the lockdown, but they connect through Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for communication and entertainment purposes (Ali et al.,  2020 ). Besides, via chats and video calls through Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft, and so on, companies hold interactive meetings with staff (Giurge & Bohns,  2020 ). Some respondents from the same group mentioned,

Many important meetings and decisions would have been kept in pending if there wasn't technology. Lakhs of private university students of Bangladesh will avoid session jam and will be able to complete their graduation on time with the aid of technology. Hence, the benefit of technology have been enormous. [G#5]

For safety, at present online transactions rather than going to banks for the payments and receipts were through internet banking are seen as actionable (Karunathilake,  2020 ). People are so comfortable in the trade through different applications.

Our family runs a clothing shop, but due to lockdown, our shop was closed and started facing losses. But with the help of modern technologies, we started our business online and started earning through it. [G#1]

During this pandemic situation, people work from home; with this technological support, thousands of employees work from home and surviving and save their lives (Giurge & Bohns,  2020 ). Schools, universities, and colleges have been shut down, but classes have begun again online. Therefore, Technology made Education digitized & affordable for pandemic situations in the whole education system (Li & Lalani,  2020 ),

During the lockdown, people tend to attend online meetings for their work which were designed to keep shorter as it consumes less time and it's a more effective way to deal with it. [G#2 & G#4]

From the aforementioned discussion, the entire world during the COVID‐19 lockdown would have been different without technology. We may certainly argue that technology firms dominate the planet. If any industry has gained immensely from this pandemic, then the technology can be used. Researchers have seen a rise in technology in the last few months, even in less developed countries like Bangladesh.

4.5. Environmental benefit; regains the energy

The ecosystem of our country has changed a lot due to COVID‐19. The pandemic has made one thing more precise for the climate: the trouble of reducing emissions of carbon. As individuals stayed at home to delay the spread of the COVID, outflows sunk when plants were closed down, planes grounded, and vehicles left (Verma & Prakash,  2020 ). Most of respondents from the different the groups stated,

Carbon emissions level went down due to closure of factories, domestic flights and most cars were parked because people stayed at their homes to prevent the spread of the disease. [G#1]

Due to lockdown, the factories are closed, flights are decreased (Mohamed et al.,  2020 ), and transportation is off, leading to the reduction of polluted air in the atmosphere (Khan et al.,  2020 ; Burke,  2020 ).

Since the government's lockdown, a dramatic change in the environment that I have never seen in my life. I can see the clear sky breathe fresh air so easily enjoying nature without vehicles the city looks so wonderful and pollution‐free. in the early morning before the COVID‐19 I wake up with vehicle sounds. Still, nowadays, I wake up with birds sounds that are a wonderful thing to me; that is another reason to thank COVID‐19. [G#3 & G#5]

Also, since there are no crowds of people, many animals wander along the roads. The streets are almost empty, so elephants, deer, penguins (Nanda,  2020 ) had the chance to stroll and chill around. The wildlife seems to be beaming with joy as there are almost no visitors/tourists on the sea beach. Many dolphins have been filmed playing in the water, and on social media, the images go viral. So,

The world healed itself with the effect of lockdown across every nation. The prohibition on industrial workings and worldwide transportation evolved into less air pollution throughout the world. This decline in air pollution will be beneficial for the future of a healthy world environment. [G#4]

In most countries including Bangladesh, the amount of pollution caused by human exercises decreased radically. Noise is an undesirable sound that causes communication to have a disturbing effect. The lockdown also affected the aquatic ecosystem due to COVID‐19; all transport modes inside the marine environment also ceased. Regarding all these problems, the blue sky's location made sense of optimistic thinking among people amid the time of lockdown across the globe towards a simple and much better world, clearing out a remarkable shift in the biological system.

4.6. Legal and ethical focus; considered the moral factor

A prime activity is the detention of potentially infected persons (who is infected with coronavirus or who has been in an infected area within 14 days). Secondly, the Government has already announced mandatory work from home policies or has encouraged employees to do so (Imam,  2020 ). Besides, the Government is also forcing people to use masks whenever they go outside. Finally, we can notice that, rather than the past days, surprisingly, many people are trying to respect the country's law, which is undoubtedly a legal benefit of COVID‐19. One respondent from a group stated:

To stop the continuous spread of the virus, the Government took legal actions against people who would break the rules. As in wearing a mask and keeping social distance, we're mandatory, and if people fail to do so then they might have to pay the fine. [G#2]

If we look at the economy, we can see that many industries have plummeted, so new small companies are joining the market. Companies are now more concerned about protecting workers as they say that if there is a fire, we first have to save our employees. The pandemic has demonstrated how very critical decision‐making is for a successful company. The businessman has to evaluate ethical choices for full fulfillment. A respondent highlighted,

Our inner conscience has been awakened while observing the crisis of poverty people during this lockdown. I saw various people who never tried to help others came forward in this regard and generously helped the poorer people. [G#4 & G#1]

For physicians, we have found certain ethical advantages. They are aware that governments will not condemn governments about how patients are treated based on circumstances and conditions acceptable for that particular time. On the other hand, the government has taken legal action against people who appear to break laws that can spread deadly viruses. All companies, shopping centers, and departmental stores, for example, are closed by 5 pm. So,

There are some ethical for doctors as they are informed they won't be criticized by government or public as to treating people depending on the conditions and circumstances suitable during that time. [G#3 & G#5]

Due to this pandemic, COVID‐19 coronavirus has created many changes to public benefits and more. COVID‐19 also has some legal benefits. Many positive changes in Bangladesh are made during this pandemic, such as, general people are getting emergency housing facilities with no utility fee; tenants are getting proper rights, property taxes are free, and so on.

5. “NEW NORMAL” AND LONG LIFE LESSONS FROM COVID ‐19

The term “New Normal” used to gleam a change in society, our daily lives, education, business, economics, and so on (UNDP China, 2020 ). Many researchers are saying the coronavirus will pass, but life will never be the same. It is the “new normal” life, and it would be hard to go back and live the way we used to before COVID‐19 (Huq & Patel,  2020 , April 22). We have been bound to quickly adapt to “new normal” due to this pandemic (Bhuiyan,  2020a ). Not surprisingly, during and after the COVID era, we complained about the dramatic shift in our lifestyle (Keysser,  2020 ). We are trying to establish and adapt to new practices to improve our lifestyle to win against the deadly virus.

The current study also suggests some ways forward can make the present world shift to a better new normal world. Now, let us look at how this new normal looks. People are trying to adopt the new normal, such as washing hands more much, wearing masks whenever we go out, maintaining social distance, and hygiene. But we seemed to balance the change reasonably well withholding the other. Besides, people are also learning to adopt new technologies social media, mobile apps, and so on. Other major technology‐based networks such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, and so on lead us to follow high tech and artificial intestacy. It depends on where you live in the world. A “safe and natural climate” should be the new normal age. There is no pollution during the lockdown. People are used to seeing the clear sky, no emission of carbon, and nature regaining its beauty again. So it has come to reconsider the post‐COVID‐19 period, where we must make collective efforts to keep nature clean and livable (Trehan, 2020 ). Some of the words relevant to the New Normal have just been addressed, and we are bound to do that; this is our opportunity to restart and create a better world where we can survive in the new normal (Huq & Patel,  2020 ). Because of COVID‐19, adjusting to the changes is difficult. As we work together to manage our new normal, it is more important to keep a positive outlook (Rashid,  2020 ).

Apart from those, during the period, many of us have learned new ways of transferring money online to avoid public gathering at banks. Thus, we march towards a cashless transaction concept in the new normal era to use digital wallet applications. Online platforms seem to have no limit in helping people out. Similarly, e‐commerce is getting worldwide recognition from now on, as many entrepreneurs are interested in operating their business online. The global pandemic has paved the way for e‐commerce; for instance, online businesses in many developing countries were not highly valued, and it comparatively got a low market; however, during this pandemic, online business got their desired traction (Bhuiyan,  2020b ). As the shopping malls were closed and considering risk factors for Covid‐19, people opted for online shopping, which resulted in the triumph of online ventures (Estay,  2020 ). This success inspired other more entrepreneurs to invest in online ventures resulting in the growth of e‐commerce in life after the pandemic (Morgan, 2020 ).

Most of the organizations are continuing their daily activities from home. It is inevitable to learn remote access of “work from home,” transferring work files and continuing the operation effectively and efficiently. COVID‐19 changed the way we work. During COVID‐19, every office and organization are bound to do their process with a new design. They make a contactless office, that is, no need to touch door handles as the doors and elevators are accessed via smartphone apps, and the building does not require physical security staff. The system uses biometric verification accessible through a smartphone app. The new normal will see increasing numbers of offices closing and relying on employees to work remotely (Salamzadeh & Dana,  2020 ). We are learning and seeing a lot from COVID‐19, maybe more upcoming. But if it did not, we might or would never have learned. Here are some important lessons learned in the past few days:

• Learning ideal social behavior
• Health professionals are worth more than sports' persons and entertainers.
• The kids can survive without junk food.
• Living a hygienic life is not difficult.
• People can save nature if they wish
• Human beings are opportunistic and despicable
• Rich people are, in fact, less immune to diseases than the poor.
• People can spend vacations without any trip.
• People can realize how animals feel in the zoo.
• Good people still exist around the globe.
• Medical infrastructure should build as many as needed.
• People can live alone if they can adopt the technology.
• Economic life is a happy life.
• Fame, wealth, and position are vanities.

Corona Makes Love Stronger, Days Shorter, and Nights Longer & Home Happier – Rahaman, M.S.

6. CONCLUSION AND WAY TO RESEARCH

The effect of this COVID‐19 outbreak is immense, but it has also shown that a safe, safer, and greener environment is desperately needed in the world. In addition, by showing us a low‐carbon path, less contaminated, greener Mother Earth, this pandemic also emerged as an educator for us. To conclude, we would suggest that preserving nature is not just the responsibility of the government. Even, the place in which we live must also be protected by every citizen and become a safeguard for the world in which we breathe. The path was seen, and through this pandemic, instructions were given. It is up to us, the humans, to capitalize on the dictations that nature itself hands over to us. This article has some limitations. The first and hard limitation for this study lacks of prior studies, literature, and knowledge. The second limitation is that researchers used only the qualitative approach; thus, researchers suggest adopting the mixed method to establish general. Another significant limitation of the study is the research area; researchers conduct the research based on a country, which may not be similar to the other cultures and countries' perceptions. So it is tough to make the research result generalize; further research should be conducted in many countries and cultures. This virus travels across the globe and quickly spreads through human social interactions. Currently, the burning issue is either the human‐made COVID‐19 virus or a biological weapon. No definitive proof exists as to who made it or for what reason. These could be the sources of current research make forward.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The authors did not receive any fund for this research project.

AUTHORS' CONTRIBUTIONS

Md. Saidur Rahaman: Conceptualize, methodology, data collection, analysis, and referencing. Md. Mizanur Rahman: Discussions, editing and proofreading the manuscript to improve the quality. Syed Muhammod Ali Reza: proofreading the manuscript to improve the quality. Mohammad Nasim Reza: Idea generation. Md. Solaiman Chowdhury: Layout, data collection, analysis, and referencing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Special thanks to the respondents who provided the data.

Biographies

Md. Saidur Rahaman is currently employed as an academician at the Department of Business Administration, Metropolitan University of Sylhet, Bangladesh. He is especially interested in many emerging research issues in management, human resource management, organizational behavior, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, and other psychology‐related concerns in many sectors. He has a long list of publications in several journals from various publishers. Mr. Rahaman is currently on the editorial board of several journals in human psychology and serves as a reviewer for other journals.

Dr. Md. Mizanur Rahman is currently working as an academician at BRAC Business School, BRAC University, Bangladesh. The research interest areas of Rahman are Management, OB, HRM, Entrepreneurship, Artificial Intelligence, Corporate Governance, and Sustainability. Rahman is more focusing on quantitative techniques following PLS‐SEM, CB‐SEM, and SPSS.

Dr. Syed Muhammod Ali Reza is currently working as an academician at Department of Management Studies, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh. The research interest areas of Reza are Diversity Management, Ethnicity and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Mr. Mohammad Nasim Reza is currently working as an academician at Department of Management Studies, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh. The research interest areas of Reza are Management, HRM and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Md. Solaiman Chowdhury is currently working as an academician at Department of Management Studies, Rajshahi University, Bangladesh. The research interest areas of Chowdhury are Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, Management, HRM and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Rahaman, M. S. , Rahman, M. M. , Ali Reza, S. M. , Reza, M. N. , & Chowdhury, M. S. (2021). Thank you , COVID‐19: Positive social psychology towards the new normal . Journal of Public Affairs , e2766. 10.1002/pa.2766 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ]

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

• Akhtaruzzaman, M. , Boubaker, S. , & Sensoy, A. (2021). Financial contagion during COVID–19 crisis . Finance Research Letters , 38 , 101604. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ali, M. , Alam, N. , & Rizvi, S. A. R. (2020). Coronavirus (COVID‐19)—An epidemic or pandemic for financial markets . Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance , 27 , 100341. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ambros, M. , Frenkel, M. , Huynh, T. L. D. , & Kilinc, M. (2020). COVID‐19 pandemic news and stock market reaction during the onset of the crisis: Evidence from high‐frequency data . Applied Economics Letters , 27 ( 1 ), 1–4. [ Google Scholar ]
• Andersen, K. G. , Rambaut, A. , Lipkin, W. I. , Holmes, E. C. , & Garry, R. F. (2020). The proximal origin of SARS‐CoV‐2 . Nature Medicine , 26 ( 4 ), 450–452. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ang, C. (2020). The economic impact of COVID‐19, business leaders, December 29, 2020. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/economic-impact-covid-19/
• Anjankar Ashish, P. , Vaibhav, P. A. , Anil, J. A. , & Lata, K. (2020). Positive aspects of Covid 19 pandemic: A blessing in disguise . International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences , 11 ( 1 ), 187–191. [ Google Scholar ]
• Anwar, S. , Nasrullah, M. , & Hosen, M. J. (2020). COVID‐19 and Bangladesh: Challenges and how to address them . Frontiers in Public Health , 8 , 1–8. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baker, S. R. , Farrokhnia, R. A. , Meyer, S. , Pagel, M. & Yannelis, C. (2020). How does household spending respond to an epidemic? Consumption during the 2020 COVID‐19 pandemic. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper w26949.
• Balmford, B. , Annan, J. D. , Hargreaves, J. C. , Altoè, M. , & Bateman, I. J. (2020). Cross‐country comparisons of COVID‐19: Policy, politics and the price of life . Environmental and Resource Economics , 76 ( 4 ), 525–551. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barker, J. , Oyefeso, O. , Koeckerling, D. , Mudalige, N. L. , & Pan, D. (2020). COVID‐19: community CPAP and NIV should be stopped unless medically necessary to support life . Thorax , 75 ( 5 ), 367–367. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barro, K. , Malone, A. , Mokede, A. , & Chevance, C. (2020). Management of the COVID‐19 epidemic by public health establishments–Analysis by the Fédération Hospitalière de France . Journal of visceral surgery , 157 ( 3 ), S19–S23. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Beatriz, E. (2020). Online shopping statistics: How many people shop online? Big Commerce . https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/online-shopping-statistics/#the-best-time-to-start-an-ecommerce-store-right-now
• Becker, D. , & Marecek, J. (2008). Positive psychology: History in the remaking? Theory & Psychology , 18 ( 5 ), 591–604. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bhalla, A.S. (2021). Leadership challenges and the COVID‐19 pandemic. ORF Occasional Paper No. 299 , February 2021, Observer Research Foundation .
• Bhuiyan, B. A. . (2020a). Post Covid‐19 new Normal: Some observations . https://www.daily‐sun.com/printversion/details/504406/Post‐Covid19‐New‐Normal:‐Some‐Observations
• Bhuiyan, T. R. (2020b). Post‐Covid era megatrends: The new normal. https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/views/post-covid-era-megatrends-the-new-normal-1595008890
• Bol, D. , Giani, M. , Blais, A. , & Loewen, P. J. (2020). The effect of COVID‐19 lockdowns on political support: Some good news for democracy? European Journal of Political Research , 60 ( 2 ), 497–505. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bol, D. G. , Marco, B. , André, L. , & John, P . (2020). COVID‐19 lockdowns have increased support for incumbents, trust in government, and satisfaction with democracy. COVID‐19 lockdowns have increased support for incumbents, trust in government, and satisfaction with democracy. VoxEU .
• Brani, O. , Hefferon, K. , Lomas, T. , Ivtzan, I. , & Painter, J. (2014). The impact of body awareness on subjective wellbeing: The role of mindfulness . International Body Psychotherapy Journal , 13 ( 1 ), 95–107. [ Google Scholar ]
• Burke M. (2020). Covid‐19 reduces economic activity, which reduces pollution, which saves lives. G‐FEED.org . www.g-feed.com/2020/03/covid-19-reduces-economic-activity .
• Dana, L. P. (2011). Entrepreneurship in Bolivia: An ethnographic enquiry . International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets , 3 ( 1 ), 75–88. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dana, L.‐P. (2007). A humility‐based enterprising community: The Amish people in Lancaster County . Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy , 1 ( 2 ), 142–154. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dana, L.‐P. , & Anderson, R. B. (2007). Taos Pueblo: An indigenous community holding on to promethean values . Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy , 1 ( 4 ), 321–336. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dazio, S. , Briceno, F. , & Tarm, M. (2020). Crime drops around the world as COVID‐19 keeps people inside .
• Delbecq, A. L. , van de Ven, A. H. , & Gustafson, D. H. (1975). Group techniques for program planning . Scott Forseman. [ Google Scholar ]
• Giommoni, T. , & Loumeau, G. (2020). Lockdown and voting behaviour: A natural experiment on postponed elections during the COVID‐19 pandemic . Covid Economics , 41 , 69–99. [ Google Scholar ]
• Giurge, L. M. , & Bohns, V. K. (2020). From 3 tips to avoid WFH burnout. Harvard Business Review . https://hbr.org/2020/04/3-tips-to-avoid-wfh-burnout
• Google Covid‐19 alert . (n.d.). https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-US&mid=%2Fm%2F02j71&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
• Huq, S. & Patel, S. (2020). Transitioning to a better global ‘new normal’ . http://www.icccad.net/blog/transitioning-to-a-better-global-new-normal/
• Imam, R. (2020). Urgent need for a COVID‐19 Act 2020 in Bangladesh, The Daily Star . https://www.thedailystar.net/law-our-rights/news/urgent-need-covid-19-act-2020-bangladesh-1897531
• Johnson, G. , & Scholes, K. (1993). Exploring corporate strategy—Text and cases . Prentice‐Hall. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kamdi, P. S. , & Deogade, M. S. (2020). The hidden positive effects of COVID‐19 pandemic . International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences , 11 ( SPL1 ), 276–279. 10.26452/ijrps.v11iSPL1.2712 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Karunathilake, K. (2020). Positive and negative impacts of COVID‐19, an analysis with special reference to challenges on the supply chain in south Asian countries . Journal of Social and Economic Development , 22 ( 2 ), 1–14. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Keysser, D. (2020). Perspectives on the new normal: Post COVID‐19 . https://newsroom.smumn.edu/wp‐content/uploads/2020/08/Saint‐Marys‐University‐Anthology‐of‐Research‐Papers.pdf
• Khan, I. , Shah, D. , & Shah, S. S. (2020). COVID‐19 pandemic and its positive impacts on environment: An updated review . International journal of Environmental Science and Technology , 18 ( 1 ), 1–10. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Knudsen, M. (2010). Surprised by method—Functional method and systems theory . Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung , 11 ( 3 ), 124–142. http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1556/3067 [ Google Scholar ]
• Kotler, P. (1998). Marketing management—Analysis, planning, implementation, and control (9th ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice‐Hall. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lau, H. , Khosrawipour, V. , Kocbach, P. , Mikolajczyk, A. , Schubert, J. , Bania, J. , & Khosrawipour, T. (2020). The positive impact of lockdown in Wuhan on containing the COVID‐19 outbreak in China . Journal of Travel Medicine , 27 ( 3 ), taaa037. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Li, C. & Lalani, F. (2020). The COVID‐19 pandemic has changed education forever . https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/
• Lomas, T. , Roache, A. , Rashid, T. , & Jarden, A. (2019). Developing ethical guidelines for positive psychology practice: An on‐going, iterative, collaborative Endeavour . The Journal of Positive Psychology , 15 , 1–6. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lu, R. , Zhao, X. , Li, J. , Niu, P. , Yang, B. , Wu, H. , & Bi, Y. (2020). Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: Implications for virus origins and receptor binding . The Lancet , 395 ( 10224 ), 565–574. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Magomedov, I. A. , Khaliev, M. S. , & Khubolov, S. M. (2020). The negative and positive impact of the pandemic on education . Journal of Physics: Conference Series , 1691 ( 1 ), 012134. [ Google Scholar ]
• Maliszewska, M. , Mattoo, A. , & Van Der Mensbrugghe, D. (2020). World Bank policy research working paper . The World Bank. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ming, W. , Zhou, Z. , Ai, H. , Bi, H. , & Zhong, Y. (2020). COVID‐19 and air quality: Evidence from China . Emerging Markets Finance and Trade , 56 ( 10 ), 2422–2442. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mohamed, E. , Young, S. G. , & Järhult, J. D. (2020). Environmental impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic – A lesson for the future . Infection Ecology &Epidemiology , 10 ( 1 ), 1768023. 10.1080/20008686.2020.1768023 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Morgan (2020). More Customer are shopping online now that at height of pandemic, fueling need for digital transformation Forbes . https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2020/07/27/more‐customers‐are‐shopping‐online‐now‐than‐at‐height‐of‐pandemic‐fueling‐need‐for‐digital‐
• Nanda, S . (2020). Coronavirus lockdown: Video of penguins roaming freely on Cape Town street goes viral. Twitter is amazed . https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/trending-news/story/coronavirus-lockdown-video-of-penguins-roaming-freely-on-cape-town-street-goes-viral-twitter-is-amazed-1668601-2020-04-19
• Nelson, B. (2020). The positive effects of covid‐19 . BMJ , 369 , m1785. 10.1136/bmj.m1785 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahaman, M. S. (2020). COVID 19: Manmade or natural? What next? Journal of Environmental and Geological Sciences , 1 , 1. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahaman, M. S. , Rahman, M. M. , & Moral, I. H. (2020). Informative knowledge and challenges of home quarantine during COVID‐19 in Bangladesh . International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation , 17 ( 4 ), 354–367. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahaman, M. S. , Reza, S. M. A. , Rahman, M. M. , & Chowdhury, M. S. (2021). A deplorable community in Bangladesh: Tea garden workers . Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy , 15 ( 4 ), 548–566. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rashid, M. , (2020). What will the new normal look like? https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op‐ed/2020/05/19/what‐will‐the‐new‐normal‐look‐like
• Saladino, V. , Algeri, D. , & Auriemma, V. (2020). The psychological and social impact of Covid‐19: New perspectives of well‐being . Frontiers in Psychology , 11 , 1–6. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Salamzadeh, A. , & Dana, L. P. (2020). The coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic: Challenges among Iranian startups . Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship , 33 , 1–24. [ Google Scholar ]
• Thakur, V. , & Jain, A. (2020). COVID 2019‐suicides: A global psychological pandemic . Brain, Behavior, and Immunity , 88 ( 1 ), 952–953. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ] Retracted
• Tisdell, C. A. (2020). Economic, social and political issues raised by the COVID‐19 pandemic . Economic Analysis and Policy , 68 , 17–28. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trehan, A . (2020). Looking at the ‘positive’ side: 12 things COVID‐19 has taught us for which we're grateful . https://www.whatshot.in/delhi‐ncr/looking‐at‐the‐positive‐side‐12‐things‐covid‐19‐has‐taught‐us‐for‐which‐were‐grateful‐c‐24666
• UNDP, China (2020). Adopting a new normal: reasons to shift to a green economy in the post Covid‐19 World, Access from, shorturl.at/qCETZ
• Verma, A. K. , & Prakash, S. (2020). Impact of covid‐19 on environment and society . Journal of Global Biosciences , 9 ( 5 ), 7352–7363. [ Google Scholar ]
• Vipin, T. (2020), 8 Positive Impacts to look forward to post the COVID‐19 pandemic. Retrieved From https://surveysparrow.com/blog/positive-impacts-to-look-forward-to-post-covid-19-pandemic/ [ Google Scholar ]
• Young, D. R. , Gittelsohn, J. , Charleston, J. , Felix‐Arron, K. , & Appel, L. J. (2001). Motivations for exercise and weight loss among African‐American women: Focus group results and their contribution towards program development . Ethnicity and Health , 6 ( 3/4 ), 227–245. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ziglio, E. (1995). The Delphi method and its contribution to DecisionMaking. In Adler M. & Ziglio E. (Eds.), Gazing into the Oracle: The Delphi method and its application to social policy and public health (pp. 3–33). Jessica Kingsley Publishers. [ Google Scholar ]

Select Your Interests

Customize your JAMA Network experience by selecting one or more topics from the list below.

• Academic Medicine
• Acid Base, Electrolytes, Fluids
• Allergy and Clinical Immunology
• American Indian or Alaska Natives
• Anesthesiology
• Anticoagulation
• Art and Images in Psychiatry
• Artificial Intelligence
• Assisted Reproduction
• Bleeding and Transfusion
• Caring for the Critically Ill Patient
• Challenges in Clinical Electrocardiography
• Climate and Health
• Climate Change
• Clinical Challenge
• Clinical Decision Support
• Clinical Implications of Basic Neuroscience
• Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Consensus Statements
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Critical Care Medicine
• Cultural Competency
• Dental Medicine
• Dermatology
• Diabetes and Endocrinology
• Diagnostic Test Interpretation
• Drug Development
• Electronic Health Records
• Emergency Medicine
• End of Life, Hospice, Palliative Care
• Environmental Health
• Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
• Facial Plastic Surgery
• Gastroenterology and Hepatology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Genomics and Precision Health
• Global Health
• Guide to Statistics and Methods
• Hair Disorders
• Health Care Delivery Models
• Health Care Economics, Insurance, Payment
• Health Care Quality
• Health Care Reform
• Health Care Safety
• Health Care Workforce
• Health Disparities
• Health Inequities
• Health Policy
• Health Systems Science
• History of Medicine
• Hypertension
• Images in Neurology
• Implementation Science
• Infectious Diseases
• Innovations in Health Care Delivery
• JAMA Infographic
• Law and Medicine
• Leading Change
• Less is More
• LGBTQIA Medicine
• Lifestyle Behaviors
• Medical Coding
• Medical Devices and Equipment
• Medical Education
• Medical Education and Training
• Medical Journals and Publishing
• Mobile Health and Telemedicine
• Narrative Medicine
• Neuroscience and Psychiatry
• Notable Notes
• Nutrition, Obesity, Exercise
• Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Occupational Health
• Ophthalmology
• Orthopedics
• Otolaryngology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Care
• Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
• Patient Care
• Patient Information
• Performance Improvement
• Performance Measures
• Perioperative Care and Consultation
• Pharmacoeconomics
• Pharmacoepidemiology
• Pharmacogenetics
• Pharmacy and Clinical Pharmacology
• Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
• Physical Therapy
• Physician Leadership
• Population Health
• Primary Care
• Professional Well-being
• Professionalism
• Psychiatry and Behavioral Health
• Public Health
• Pulmonary Medicine
• Regulatory Agencies
• Reproductive Health
• Research, Methods, Statistics
• Resuscitation
• Rheumatology
• Risk Management
• Scientific Discovery and the Future of Medicine
• Shared Decision Making and Communication
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports Medicine
• Stem Cell Transplantation
• Substance Use and Addiction Medicine
• Surgical Innovation
• Surgical Pearls
• Teachable Moment
• Technology and Finance
• The Art of JAMA
• The Arts and Medicine
• The Rational Clinical Examination
• Tobacco and e-Cigarettes
• Translational Medicine
• Trauma and Injury
• Treatment Adherence
• Ultrasonography
• Users' Guide to the Medical Literature
• Vaccination
• Venous Thromboembolism
• Veterans Health
• Women's Health
• Workflow and Process
• Wound Care, Infection, Healing
• Download PDF
• Share X Facebook Email LinkedIn
• Permissions

A National Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID

• 1 Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
• 2 Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
• 3 Grossman School of Medicine, New York University, New York, New York
• Viewpoint The First 2 Years of COVID-19—Lessons to Improve Preparedness for the Next Pandemic Jennifer B. Nuzzo, DrPH, SM; Lawrence O. Gostin, JD JAMA
• Viewpoint A National Strategy for COVID-19—Testing, Surveillance, and Mitigation Strategies David Michaels, PhD, MPH; Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD; Rick A. Bright, PhD JAMA
• Viewpoint A National Strategy for COVID-19 Medical Countermeasures Luciana L. Borio, MD; Rick A. Bright, PhD; Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD JAMA
• Viewpoint The Pandemic Preparedness Program Eli Y. Adashi, MD, MS; I. Glenn Cohen, JD JAMA
• Medical News & Perspectives Former Biden-Harris Transition Advisors Propose a New National Strategy for COVID-19 Jennifer Abbasi JAMA
• Comment & Response Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID—Reply Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD; Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH; Céline R. Gounder, MD, ScM JAMA
• Comment & Response Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID Afschin Gandjour, MD, PhD, MA JAMA
• Viewpoint COVID-19 Vaccination—Becoming Part of the New Normal Peter Marks, MD, PhD; Janet Woodcock, MD; Robert Califf, MD JAMA

As the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 demonstrates, COVID-19 is here to stay. In January 2021, President Biden issued the “National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness.” As the US moves from crisis to control, this national strategy needs to be updated. Policy makers need to specify the goals and strategies for the “new normal” of life with COVID-19 and communicate them clearly to the public.

SARS-CoV-2 continues to persist, evolve, and surprise. In July 2021, with vaccinations apace and infection rates plummeting, Biden proclaimed that “we’ve gained the upper hand against this virus,” and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed its guidance for mask wearing and socializing. 1 By September 2021, the Delta variant proved these steps to be premature, and by late November, the Omicron variant created concern about a perpetual state of emergency.

In delineating a national strategy, humility is essential. The precise duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 from vaccination or prior infection is unknown. Also unknown is whether SARS-CoV-2 will become a seasonal infection; whether antiviral therapies will prevent long COVID; or whether even more transmissible, immune-evading, or virulent variants will arise after Omicron.

Another part of this humility is recognizing that predictions are necessary but educated guesses, not mathematical certainty. The virus, host response, and data will evolve. Biomedical and public health tools will expand, along with better understanding of their limitations. The incidence of SARS-CoV-2, vaccination rates, hospital capacity, tolerance for risk, and willingness to implement different interventions will vary geographically, and national recommendations will need to be adapted locally.

It is imperative for public health, economic, and social functioning that US leaders establish and communicate specific goals for COVID-19 management, benchmarks for the imposition or relaxation of public health restrictions, investments and reforms needed to prepare for future SARS-CoV-2 variants and other novel viruses, and clear strategies to accomplish all of this.

Redefining the Appropriate National Risk Level

The goal for the “new normal” with COVID-19 does not include eradication or elimination, eg, the “zero COVID” strategy. 2 Neither COVID-19 vaccination nor infection appear to confer lifelong immunity. Current vaccines do not offer sterilizing immunity against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Infectious diseases cannot be eradicated when there is limited long-term immunity following infection or vaccination or nonhuman reservoirs of infection. The majority of SARS-CoV-2 infections are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, and the SARS-CoV-2 incubation period is short, preventing the use of targeted strategies like “ring vaccination.” Even “fully” vaccinated individuals are at risk for breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 infection. Consequently, a “new normal with COVID” in January 2022 is not living without COVID-19.

The “new normal” requires recognizing that SARS-CoV-2 is but one of several circulating respiratory viruses that include influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and more. COVID-19 must now be considered among the risks posed by all respiratory viral illnesses combined. Many of the measures to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (eg, ventilation) will also reduce transmission of other respiratory viruses. Thus, policy makers should retire previous public health categorizations, including deaths from pneumonia and influenza or pneumonia, influenza, and COVID-19, and focus on a new category: the aggregate risk of all respiratory virus infections.

What should be the peak risk level for cumulative viral respiratory illnesses for a “normal” week? Even though seasonal influenza, RSV, and other respiratory viruses circulating before SARS-CoV-2 were harmful, the US has not considered them a sufficient threat to impose emergency measures in over a century. People have lived normally with the threats of these viruses, even though more could have been done to reduce their risks.

The appropriate risk threshold should reflect peak weekly deaths, hospitalizations, and community prevalence of viral respiratory illnesses during high-severity years, such as 2017-2018. 3 That year had approximately 41 million symptomatic cases of influenza, 710 000 hospitalizations and 52 000 deaths. 4 In addition, the CDC estimates that each year RSV leads to more than 235 000 hospitalizations and 15 000 deaths in the US. 3 This would translate into a risk threshold of approximately 35 000 hospitalizations and 3000 deaths (<1 death/100 000 population) in the worst week.

Today, the US is far from these thresholds. For the week of December 13, 2021, the CDC reported the US experienced more than 900 000 COVID-19 cases, more than 50 000 new hospitalizations for COVID-19, and more than 7000 deaths. 5 , 6 The tolerance for disease, hospitalization, and death varies widely among individuals and communities. What constitutes appropriate thresholds for hospitalizations and death, at what cost, and with what trade-offs remains undetermined.

This peak week risk threshold serves at least 2 fundamental functions. This risk threshold triggers policy recommendations for emergency implementation of mitigation and other measures. In addition, health systems could rely on this threshold for planning on the bed and workforce capacity they need normally, and when to institute surge measures.

Rebuilding Public Health

To cope with pandemic, and eventually, endemic SARS-CoV-2 and to respond to future public health threats requires deploying real-time information systems, a public health implementation workforce, flexible health systems, trust in government and public health institutions, and belief in the value of collective action for public good. 7 , 8

First, the US needs a comprehensive, digital, real-time, integrated data infrastructure for public health. As Omicron has reemphasized, the US is operating with imprecise estimates of disease spread, limited genomic surveillance, projections based on select reporting sites, and data from other countries that may not be generalizable. These shortcomings are threatening lives and societal function.

The US must establish a modern data infrastructure that includes real-time electronic collection of comprehensive information on respiratory viral infections, hospitalizations, deaths, disease-specific outcomes, and immunizations merged with sociodemographic and other relevant variables. The public health data infrastructure should integrate data from local, state, and national public health units, health care systems, public and commercial laboratories, and academic and research institutions. Using modern technology and analytics, it is also essential to merge nontraditional environmental (air, wastewater) surveillance data, including genomic data, with traditional clinical and epidemiological data to track outbreaks and target containment.

Second, the US needs a permanent public health implementation workforce that has the flexibility and surge capacity to manage persistent problems while simultaneously responding to emergencies. Data collection, analysis, and technical support are necessary, but it takes people to respond to crises. This implementation workforce should include a public health agency–based community health worker system and expanded school nurse system.

A system of community public health workers could augment the health care system by testing and vaccinating for SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory infections; ensuring adherence to ongoing treatment for tuberculosis, HIV, diabetes, and other chronic conditions; providing health screening and support to pregnant individuals and new parents and their newborns; and delivering various other public health services to vulnerable or homebound populations.

School nurses need to be empowered to address the large unmet public health needs of children and adolescents. As polio vaccination campaigns showed, school health programs are an efficient and effective way to care for children, including preventing and treating mild asthma exacerbations (often caused by viral respiratory infections), ensuring vaccination as a condition for attendance, and addressing adolescents’ mental and sexual health needs. School clinics must be adequately staffed and funded as an essential component of the nation’s public health infrastructure.

Third, because respiratory infections ebb and flow, institutionalizing telemedicine waivers, licensure to practice and enable billing across state lines, and other measures that allow the flow of medical services to severely affected regions should be a priority.

Fourth, it is essential to rebuild trust in public health institutions and a belief in collective action in service of public health. 7 Communities with higher levels of trust and reciprocity, such as Denmark, have experienced lower rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. 7 Improving public health data systems and delivering a diverse public health workforce that can respond in real time in communities will be important steps toward building that trust more widely.

Conclusions

After previous infectious disease threats, the US quickly forgot and failed to institute necessary reforms. That pattern must change with the COVID-19 pandemic. Without a strategic plan for the “new normal” with endemic COVID-19, more people in the US will unnecessarily experience morbidity and mortality, health inequities will widen, and trillions will be lost from the US economy. This time, the nation must learn and prepare effectively for the future.

The resources necessary to build and sustain an effective public health infrastructure will be substantial. Policy makers should weigh not only the costs but also the benefits, including fewer deaths and lost productivity from COVID-19 and all viral respiratory illnesses. Indeed, after more than 800 000 deaths from COVID-19, and a projected loss of $8 trillion in gross domestic product through 2030, 8 these interventions will be immensely valuable.

Corresponding Author: Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 423 Guardian Dr, Blockley Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104 ( [email protected] ).

Published Online: January 6, 2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.24282

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Emanuel reported personal fees, nonfinancial support, or both from companies, organizations, and professional health care meetings and being a venture partner at Oak HC/FT; a partner at Embedded Healthcare LLC, ReCovery Partners LLC, and COVID-19 Recovery Consulting; and an unpaid board member of Village MD and Oncology Analytics. Dr Emanuel owns no stock in pharmaceutical, medical device companies, or health insurers. No other disclosures were reported.

Additional Information: Drs Emanuel, Osterholm, and Gounder were members of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board from November 2020 to January 2021.

See More About

Emanuel EJ , Osterholm M , Gounder CR. A National Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID. JAMA. 2022;327(3):211–212. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.24282

Manage citations:

© 2024

Artificial Intelligence Resource Center

Cardiology in JAMA : Read the Latest

Browse and subscribe to JAMA Network podcasts!

Others Also Liked

• Register for email alerts with links to free full-text articles
• Access PDFs of free articles
• Manage your interests
• Save searches and receive search alerts