Impact of Virtual Learning on African American Students During Pandemic

The Impact of Virtual Learning on African American Students in Higher Learning During the Pandemic
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The Impact of Virtual Learning on African American Students in Higher Learning During the Pandemic
Virtual learning was a slowly emerging phenomenon before the pandemic. After the onset of the pandemic, however, virtual learning drastically became a necessity for millions of college students around the world due to lockdowns and social distancing requirements. Studies done during this period suggest that rapid growth in the adoption of virtual learning was accompanied by a lack of rigorous efforts or studies to evaluate quality issues (Kofoed, Gilmore, Gebhart, & Moschitto, 2021) and access (Sublett, 2020). The two issues are an unfortunate mainstay in the American education system based on racial disparities (Bowen, Chingos, Lack, & Nygren, 2013). Therefore, while virtual learning may have solved some of the problems posed by the pandemic on colleges, the rapid adoption of virtual learning may have exacerbated the racial divide in access to and quality education, especially for African American students.
Access to Education
The resort to virtual learning was because lockdowns and social distancing requirements inhibited the regular face-to-face learning from easing infections. A key advantage of virtual learning, as shown by Yu (2021) and (Chu, Liu, So, & Lam, 2021), is increasing access to education. The increasing ownership of digital technologies among youth, internet penetration, transformations in digital technology, and adaptability of modern curricular made virtual learning the most effective alternative during the pandemic. Virtual learning enhances the inclusion of people with disabilities (Chu, Liu, So, & Lam, 2021) and may reduce the disparities in access to education. The research conducted by the Chu, Liu, So, and Lam aimed to establish student attitudes towards online learning during the pandemic. They established that more students felt included in the education system due to existing technologies whose global ownership, alongside internet penetration, is rising. Yu (2021), on the other hand, established that the shift to virtual learning allowed more students to access education compared to face-to-face learning (Yu, 2021). In essence, more African American students, victims of racial disparities in education, have a better chance of accessing education and reducing disparities.
While Yu (2021) and Chu et al. (2021) agree that virtual learning may have reduced disparities in access to college education, some studies reject this notion. Sublett (2020) carried out a systemic review of existing literature to determine whether pointers suggested that the reliance on virtual learning in colleges during the pandemic may have reduced racial disparities in access to education. Study findings by Sublett (2020) contradict the assertions by Yu (2021) and Chu et al. (2021) in several ways. Firstly, Latinx and Black students enrolling in higher education are concentrated in crowded, open-access institutions. On the other hand, White learners are concentrated in specific, highly resourced, and high-performing institutions. The latter institutions are more likely to have had resources to shift to virtual learning compared to the former dramatically. In essence, the inherent White privilege in contemporary face-to-face learning manifested itself into virtual learning alternatives based on the availability of resources and expertise. Based on this point, Yu (2021) explains that their study intended to understand the learner's perception and that since many people increasingly own digital technology, more students have access. However, Sublett (2020) shows that access encompasses far more than the mere ownership or access to digital technology that supports virtual learning or teaching.
Furthermore, Sublett (2020) established that community college students are more likely to take online courses when matriculate. In other words, online courses do not bring in new students. Instead, it attracts students who are already enrolled in college and who are in search of flexibility. Compared to White students, students of color are less likely to enroll in first-year online lessons (Sublett, 2020). In a different study, Kofoed et al. (2021) analyzed the National Center for Education Statistics data on post-secondary students. They established that Asian and Black students are four points less likely to enroll in online courses in their first year of college or university education. A rather radical conclusion, Kofoed et al. (2020) and Sublett (2020) agree that fully online courses may have exacerbated racial disparities in education. Instead of closing the gap in access, virtual learning may have widened it.
Quality of Education
A popular narrative in public discourse is the inherent interpretation of the gaps in educational achievement between minority and white students based on standardized scores. Au (2013) found that interpretation of these scores suggests equal access to quality education. As a result, the presumption is that continued low achievement levels among minority students should be attributed to lack of effort, genes, or culture. However, studies (Beschorner, 2020 and Elfirdoussi et al., 2020) have shown that educational outcomes for minority students are more likely a function of unequal access to educational resources like quality curriculum and teacher expertise than they are a function of race. Therefore, it concerns the resources that access to quality education through virtual learning is assessed.
Sublett (2020) showed that the more a college host minority students, the more predicaments the college would face. For instance, the ratio between learners and instructors increases, reducing the quality of offered education. Further, such colleges face underfunding from government authorities and have fewer resources at their disposal (Kofoed, Gilmore, Gebhart, & Moschitto, 2021). Therefore, where there is a drastic shift to online learning, as it was at the onset of the pandemic, such colleges cannot offer quality education because they are hardly ready. In contrast, Sublett (2020) argues that where a college has a more significant proportion of white students, funding, teacher expertise, student to instructor ratio, and educational resources are not significant problems. A shift to online classes for such colleges is easier. Since they have the r...