Rethinking public administration education in the period of pandemic: Reflections of public administration students on online education through a SWOT analysis

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Highlights

  • Self-actualization is a way of enhancing creativity.

  • Maslow's needs hierarchy for motivation is still applicable but should be enhanced with different perspectives.

  • Socializing role of university campuses and face-to-face education is vital for self-actualization.

  • The different nature of public administration programs prevents the full implementation of online education.

Abstract

The current research aims to explore the perceptions of undergraduate and graduate public administration students about online education. The data were gathered from political science and public administration students at the end of the spring semester at a public university in Turkey.  Focus group interviews among students were chosen as the data collection method. Later, applying the SWOT analysis, the weaknesses and strengths along with threats and opportunities were identified. In the study, Maslow's needs hierarchy was revisited for a more insightful analysis of findings. Therefore, the study has provided an in-depth analysis of online education to identify caveats for successful implementation. The study concludes that self-actualization is indispensable for revealing the real potential and the creativity of students. Therefore, we cannot overlook the socializing role of university campuses and face-to-face education in the way to self-actualization.

Section snippets

Introduction and background

The covid-19 pandemic has been affecting the wellbeing of societies as well as education systems. It has resulted in immense crisis-response migration of universities with online learning serving as the educational platform (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020). University students’ academic life, social life, financial situation, psychological condition have been negatively affected by the pandemic. On the other hand, some positive changes in habits and attitudes were also observed like paying greater

Method

The study data were gathered from political science and public administration students at the end of the spring semester at a public university in İzmir / Turkey. The data were content analyzed. Applying the SWOT framework, the weaknesses and strengths along with threats and opportunities were identified. Later, relevant strategies were proposed.

Findings

Table 1 indicates demographic characteristics and the educational details of participants. As seen in the table, 14 out of 20 (70%) participants are female, and 17 out of 20 (85%) participants are undergraduate students. A total of 13 participants (65%) are against online education, whereas five students (25%) are supportive of it. Only two students (10%) could not prioritize any educational system.

As previously mentioned, in this study, content analysis was conducted categorizing responses in

Discussion: Revisiting the needs hierarchy and thinking beyond

The outbreak of Covid-19 has caused unprecedented changes for higher education institutions and their students.  Online classes and exams, postponed semesters have impacted students’ routine. These changes also revealed the need for in-depth studies to understand how the pandemic crisis has affected students’ lives (Aristovnik, Keržic , Ravšelj, Tomaževic, & Umek, 2020). In this period, several studies analyzed the social dimension of online education, such as its role or efficiency in

Conclusions

In line with the above discussion, the conclusions of the study are as follows:

  • Some earlier studies, such as Scheer (2001, p. 101), underlined the need for further research, as they failed to identify any features or constructs that could predict successful distance learners. This study, thanks to its qualitative nature and SWOT framework, underlined some characteristics. Therefore, it provided an insightful view on the antecedents of motivation with relevant seminal works. Besides, numerous

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this article was presented at the AMEPPA -The 9th Global Conference on Public Policy and Administration in the Middle East, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies / Qatar 8–9 December 2020. The author would like to thank anonymous reviewers.

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    An earlier version of this article was presented at the AMEPPA -The 9th Global Conference on Public Policy and Administration in the Middle East, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies / Qatar 8–9 December 2020.

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