Students’ experiences with and perceptions of distance learning through learner-generated comics

Abstract

Learner-generated comics are powerful communication tools that allow students to convey complex thoughts and emotions through both verbal and visual modes. In this study, comics were used to explore students’ experiences with and perceptions of distance learning (DL) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Female university students were chosen as a purposive sample to discover deep sociocultural meanings in society that could be invisible to men. This study analyzed thirty-two comics created by students using a suggested new analytical framework that draws on systemic functional linguistics theory. The findings were categorized into three dimensions: ideational (who, where, and what), interpersonal (relationships and emotions), and textual (main themes of the comics’ stories). Quantitative content analysis was applied to analyze ideational and interpersonal dimensions (frequency), and qualitative analysis was applied to analyze textual dimensions (themes). Thematic analyses were categorized into three themes: challenges, advantages, and disadvantages. The findings were interpreted through a cultural lens in a style that presents the chief subjects that should be carefully considered in future scenarios of digital education. Several implications and future studies are suggested, especially about cultural issues in education, the quality of DL, and addressing the challenges and disadvantages associated with it.

Keywords:

• Covid-19
• digital comics
• grammar of visual design
• content analysis
• sociocultural issues
• visual methodologies

Introduction

Covid-19 has profoundly impacted the global education system. Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to transition from traditional face-to-face learning to fully online distance learning (DL) as schools and universities were shut down in March 2020 (Al Lily et al., 2021; Aladsani, 2022a).

Despite the considerable amount of previous literature that has investigated DL during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is worthwhile to study it from a cultural perspective and from the perceptions of students, as they are the ones who have been greatly affected by this sudden and unprepared transition in the educational process. Saudi Arabia is considered one of the most politically and economically influential forces in the world due to its Islamic position and economic wealth. It has a cultural and civilizational heritage that goes back thousands of years. Saudi Arabia is characterized by a high-context culture in which individuals are highly affected by social power (Hamdan, 2014). The family is of deeply significant value in Saudi society, which considers mothers to be the center of the family and to be highly respected and appreciated. Women have a distinguished and private position in Saudi culture. The Islamic and Saudi traditions oblige men to care for and educate women and honor their rights. Compulsory education for Saudi women began in 1956 (Saudi Ministry of Education, 2021b), which indicates the government’s interest in developing the potential within Saudi women.

Women in Saudi society seem to be more affected by cultural norms than men. One of the social and cultural laws is the requirement for women to cover their bodies fully in front of non-relative men (Al Lily et al., 2021). Another law is the strict segregation of genders in most schools and universities. Women’s privacy is a critical issue in Saudi culture. Male dominance may be greater in Saudi society, where it is thought that males should be the source of all family income. However, the percentage of women in the Saudi workforce in 2020 increased for several reasons, such as the increase in higher education degrees earned by women in recent years and the increase in living expenses (Saudi General Authority for Statistics, 2020). Furthermore, female students with children are a familiar situation among university students in Saudi culture (Aladsani, 2022a).

This study aimed to investigate Saudi female university students’ experiences with and perceptions of DL during the Covid-19 pandemic and to identify the sociocultural meanings that students communicated through their comics. In contrast to the common research methods for collecting data, such as a questionnaire and interviews, this study applied learner-generated digital comics that were created specifically for the purpose of this research. Comics are a narrative medium employed to express ideas and emotions through images that are combined with text. Comic stories present an inextricable combination of verbal and visual elements and a complicated interplay between words and pictures (Kress & Leeuwen, 1996). Comics have a great capacity to convey messages, thoughts, and emotions in a persuasive and direct manner. This study also used and proposes a suggested framework for comic analysis based on Kress and Leeuwen (1996) “The Grammar of Visual Design” and considering quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Literature review

Saudi higher education during covid-19

In response to the pandemic, the Saudi government called for the closure of universities and schools in March 2020; virtual distance education became the only alternative learning choice available (Al Lily et al., 2020). DL is not novel in Saudi higher education; there are some university degrees that are completely delivered online, and each Saudi university has a deanship of DL that supports e-learning and/or blended learning (Saudi Ministry of Education, 2021a). Additionally, the National eLearning Center was established in 2017 to improve lifelong equal access to e-learning (National eLearning Center, 2021). However, the entire shift of education to technology-enabled learning abruptly created a different scenario for which people were not prepared (Aladsani, 2022a). The rapid transition presented challenges for all members of society, including students, educators, and families. The educational process shifted location to inside Saudi homes, infiltrating all their privacy and strict social norms (Al Lily et al., 2021).

Students’ perceptions regarding DL during covid-19

Several studies have investigated students’ perceptions regarding the positive and negative impacts of the pandemic on their education. On the positive side, DL helped prevent the spread of the virus (Aladsani, 2022b), saved students’ time (Al Lily et al., 2021), offered the flexibility of studying anytime and anywhere, and, through the availability of recorded lessons, increased students’ understanding of course content (Deepika, 2020). However, negative aspects of DL have also been identified, such as technical issues that interrupted the learning process, which seriously affected students’ performance and quality of education (Almossa, 2021; Deepika, 2020). The quality of education was also impacted by the overload of assignments; the rush to finish course materials within a limited time; the rapid change of educational systems during the pandemic; and concerns, lockdowns, and fear of the unknown related to the coronavirus (Almossa, 2021). Crossing the boundaries between work hours and rest hours produced distractions that negatively affected students’ learning (Almossa, 2021), diminishing their interest and motivation (Deepika, 2020). The lack of interaction and communication with peers and teachers further weakened students’ motivation (Deepika, 2020; Hensley et al., 2022). Related health issues have also been discussed. From sitting in front of digital devices for long hours, students experienced pain in their eyes and backs (Deepika, 2020). The anxiety created by the pandemic also significantly affected students’ mental health (Al Lily et al., 2020; Almossa, 2021).

Most of the existing literature has focused on examining many identified aspects of the pandemic’s impact on students. However, few studies have investigated students’ experiences and perceptions from a sociocultural perspective of female students who experience education differently from men in a country that requires strict segregation between the genders in most educational institutions (Al Lily et al., 2021).

Most of the previous studies have been based on surveys with predetermined items or qualitative instruments, such as interviews, observations, and the content analysis of social network sites. However, scant attention has been paid to studying students’ experiences and perceptions from sociocultural perspectives applying learner-generated comics as a research method.

This study aims to answer the following research question: How did female students’ learner-generated comics reflect their perceptions of and experiences with DL during the COVID-19 pandemic, and communicate their sociocultural meanings?

This study also used and proposes a suggested framework for comic analysis, which is discussed in the methodology.

Methodology

Context and participants

Female Saudi university students were chosen as the purposive sample for this study. Women in Saudi Arabia may be more affected by cultural traditions than men because Saudi culture requires women to stay at home and care for children, while men are required to work, earn money, and provide financial support for their households. Despite the increase of women in the labor market (Saudi General Authority for Statistics, 2020), home duties are still assigned to women. In fact, the increase of women’s higher education and women’s presence in workplace settings requires more research regarding education norms, including distance and blended education, as women still experience education differently from men due to Saudi culture and societal norms.

Therefore, studying the perceptions of and experiences with DL in a female population may assist the researcher in discovering deep sociocultural meanings that are invisible to men. In addition, DL has transferred the entire educational process to the home, which is usually the domain of women in Saudi Arabia. Thus, women are the most knowledgeable about what is going on in the home and how DL is conducted therein. The researcher also aimed to make female students’ voices heard in a society largely dominated by men.

The participants comprised 102 fourth-year female university students at a Saudi university, at the end of the 2020 academic year, when the entire education process was transitioned to online DL. Participants were divided into 32 groups, each containing 2–4 students, based on students’ preferences. Each group was required to create digital comics to present their perceptions of and experiences with DL during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thirty-two comics were collected. Each comic was a product of a group effort and a composition of multiple authorial voices. After the comics were analyzed, the researcher conducted focus group sessions with each group as a trustworthiness method to ensure that the participants’ perceptions and experiences presented in their comics had been correctly understood. Thus, each comic presented an agreed-upon perception or common experience that the participants went through and decided on as the idea for their comics. The participants were allowed to use any comic animation software they chose. Pixton was applied to create 20 comics, and StoryboardThat was used for 7 comics. Comic Page Creator, Procreate, PowToon, Storyline, and Pit Emoji were each applied to create one comic.

Comics as a data collection method

Comics are a form of visual art consisting of several panels, each involving images combined with text, often in the form of speech balloons (Kress & Leeuwen, 1996). Learner-generated comics enable research participants to present sensitive or uncomfortable concepts in a safe medium (Collier, 1957). Comics give participants unprecedented ways to express their perceptions and emotions without the pressure of being the center of the researcher’s attention as occurs with traditional research methods, like interviews or observations, as attention is focused only on the comics (Collier, 1957). This method prompts the participants’ memories and provides them with a new way to explain their understanding of the world, their behaviors, and their relationships with others (Collier, 1957).

Using comics as a visual research method offers the researcher multimodality features, combining visuals and words to glean a different meaning from the research phenomena than is interpreted from images or words alone (Kuttner et al., 2021). The combination of images and text provides complex and multiple messages that enable thick descriptions to explore the deep meaning behind surface interactions (Kuttner et al., 2021) and allow access to broader aspects of society and its culture (Collier, 1957).

Data analysis

The images and words that are repeated in comic panels create a unique language and literary form (Bramlett, 2012), indicating the value of analyzing comics through a linguistic lens. Hence, the researcher developed a suggested framework for analyzing comics quantitatively and qualitatively (see Figure 1) based on The Grammar of Visual Design of Kress and Leeuwen (1996), who adopted Michael Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics theory. Halliday (1978) discussed three meta-functions or dimensions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual.

Figure 1. Suggested analytical framework for comics.

Visual design is a semiotic mode; thus, Kress and Leeuwen (1996) applied all three dimensions in their reading of images. The ideational dimension represents our inside and outside worlds (Kress & Leeuwen, 1996), involving people, objects, and events (Unsworth, 2001). The interpersonal dimension represents social interactions and relationships (Kress & Leeuwen, 1996), such as interactions between people (Unsworth, 2001). The textual dimension represents the internal and external coherence of the text (Kress & Leeuwen, 1996) that distributes the information value between word and image to present the whole meaning (Unsworth, 2001).

In this study, the ideational dimension represents “who,” “where,” and “what.” “Who” refers to the story characters, “where” is the place where the story occurs, and the digital devices used are “what.” Despite the importance that a story’s time period may play in its plot, this factor was not considered in this study, as all the comics presented stories that occurred during the pandemic. The interpersonal dimension represents the relationships between the students who created the comic and the story characters, the relationships between the characters themselves, and the emotions in the story. The textual dimension represents the main themes of the comics’ stories.

The suggested analytic framework applies a content analysis approach. Content analysis is widely used to analyze data systematically and objectively in various formats, including texts, audio, and visual images, such as pictures or videos (Bryman, 2016). This approach can be employed quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Counting the frequencies of certain words provides a quantitative description of the data and makes inferences about important conceptions within the data. Qualitative content analysis examines the meanings of the words or visual materials and inductively searches for underlying themes to understand the messages within the data (Bryman, 2016).

The suggested analytic framework applied quantitative content analysis (frequency) to analyze the ideational and interpersonal dimensions and qualitative analysis (themes) to analyze the textual dimension. Quantitative analysis (frequency) was considered an appropriate method to analyze the ideational dimension to recognize the most significant who, where, and what in the participants’ comics, thus helping the researcher understand the value of the comics’ characters to the participants and the meaning of places and digital devices to them.

Using quantitative content analysis (frequency) to analyze the interpersonal dimension showed the most represented relationships between the comics’ characters and the participants and the most crucial relationships between comics’ characters. This helped the researcher understand the meaning of these social interactions and relationships to the participants. Additionally, counting the most recurring emotions in the comics provided the researcher with an overview of the mental and psychological states being lived by the participants.

Applying qualitative thematic analysis appeared more convenient for analyzing the textual dimension as this approach examines the content of words and images to present the whole meaning. The power of thematic analysis is its ability to describe and organize the data into categories or themes in deep detail, which assists the researcher in making the data meaningful (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The researcher followed the six steps of thematic analysis of Braun and Clarke (2006), starting with familiarizing herself with the data via reading and thinking thoughtfully about the comics several times and then generating the initial codes. Next, the codes were collated into potential themes, which were reviewed to ensure that each involved the relevant codes. Then, the themes were refined to fit the research objectives and questions. Finally, the analysis report of the data was written, as presented in the findings section (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Trustworthiness

The researcher employed several strategies to ensure that the study was trustworthy and that the findings and interpretations were credible. To avoid possible subjectivity of the researcher during the analysis of the comic stories, the researcher conducted focus groups with the participants to discuss her initial findings. The focus groups served as a member check technique to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings and increase the depth of understanding of the students’ comics (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Additionally, in-depth descriptions of the data collection and analysis methodologies are provided to show how the data ultimately led to the construction of the findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Furthermore, the audit trail was used to reduce potential bias and to keep a complete record of the procedures applied, including raw data (original comics) and the details of the data interpretation and analysis (Shenton, 2004). This path enables the reader to track the data, determine how to construct meanings and reach conclusions step by step, and examine the researcher’s decisions, which enriches the reliability of the research (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Shenton, 2004).

Findings

The data were analyzed based on the analytic framework depicted in Figure 1, including the ideational, interpersonal, and textual dimensions.

Ideational dimension (who, where, what)

Quantitative content analysis (frequency) was applied to analyze the ideational dimension. The ideational dimension in the comics encompassed three elements: the characters, places, and digital devices used, as illustrated in Tables 1–3, respectively.

Table 1. Frequency of character kinds appearing in comics (who).

Dimension	Element	Characters	Frequency
Ideational	Who are the story characters in the comics?	University student	25
		Mother	23
		Primary school student	11
		Secondary school student	10
		Father	8
		Teacher	7
		Brother	6
		Sister	5
		Classmate	5
		High school student	3
		TV broadcaster	3
		Student’s children	2
		Family friend	1
		Microsoft Teams	1
		Traditional classroom	1
		Internet company employee	1
		Social security operator	1

Table 2. Frequency of places appearing in comics (where).

Dimension	Element	Places	Frequency
Ideational	Where does the comic story occur?	Study room	33
		Bedroom	23
		Kitchen	14
		Living room	14
		Garden	3
		Hallway	2
		University campus	2
		Hospital	2
		School lobby	1
		School library	1
		Classroom	1
		Beach	1
		Mall	1
		Café	1
		Car	1

Table 3. Frequency of digital devices appearing in comics (what).

Dimension	Element	Digital Devices	Frequency
Ideational	What digital devices are used in the comics?	Desktop computer	25
		Mobile phone	11
		TV	8
		Laptop	7
		PlayStation	2
		Tablet device	1

Table 1 demonstrates that students and family members were the individuals most involved in the participants’ DL. Students represented the largest number of comic characters. The mother was the family member most often represented by the comics’ characters. Teacher and peer characters appeared less often in the comics than did students and family members. TV broadcasters were represented three times to deliver Covid-19 news.

Table 2 illustrates that participants’ DL primarily took place at home. Study rooms were depicted most often in the comics, followed by bedrooms, then living rooms and kitchens.

University or school locations were represented as memories or for comparison to the DL environment. The beach and the hospital were depicted as places where online exams could be completed. The mall, a café, and the car were places where students went after their DL activities were completed for the day.

Table 3 shows that the digital device included most often in the comics as the learning means was a desktop computer, followed by a laptop.

Mobile phones played a learning role only in one comic. Otherwise, mobile phones were used for communicating with others or for playing games. In the comics, televisions were devices through which news about Covid-19 and school closures was broadcast. The PlayStation digital playing device kept users of this gaming system occupied when they were supposed to be engaged in their online classes.

Interpersonal dimension

Quantitative content analysis (frequency) was applied to analyze the interpersonal dimension. The interpersonal dimension in the comics addresses three elements: relationships between the comics’ creators and the characters, relationships between the characters themselves, and the emotions exhibited in the comic stories, as illustrated in Tables 4–6, respectively.

Table 4. Frequency creator’s relationship with characters represented.

Dimension	Element	Types	Frequency
Interpersonal	What are the relationships between the participants who created the comics and their story characters?	The story characters represent the participants themselves.	14
		The characters represent the creators’ family members.	9
		The characters represent someone else whose story the participant had heard.	9

Table 5. Frequency relationships between characters themselves represented.

Dimension	Element	Types	Frequency
Interpersonal	What is the relationship between the characters themselves?	Family	23
		Teachers and students	8
		Self-talk or self-dialogue	5
		Classmates	4
		Family and social security operator	1
		Family and Internet employee	1
		Family’s friend	1
		Microsoft Teams and traditional learning	1

Table 6. Frequency emotions exhibited by comic characters.

Dimension	Element	Types	Frequency
Interpersonal	What emotions are exhibited by the comics’ characters?	Anxiety	21
		Sadness	13
		Happiness	12
		Relief	11
		Stress	9
		Carelessness	8
		Fear	6
		Anger	4
		Regret	3
		Embarrassment	3
		Boredom	2
		Exhaustion	2
		Hesitation	2
		Shock	2
		Mockery	2
		Longing	1

As Table 4 indicates, most participants included a comic character representing themselves. A family member or someone else were presented as characters less often.

This specific element’s findings were obtained from the focus groups. Most participants mentioned that they told their own stories depicting what they experienced during DL. Thus, the main characters of their comics were representations of the self. Other participants said they narrated experiences they witnessed involving their family members. Others presented stories about nonrelatives that they had heard.

Table 5 shows that the relationships between the comic characters observed most often were family relationships, following by the relationships between students and their teachers. Self-dialogue and classmates’ interactions were depicted less often. Other types of relationships were mentioned only once, such as between two kinds of learning: Microsoft Teams as a DL platform and traditional face-to-face learning.

Table 6 reveals that negative emotions were exhibited more than positive ones. Feelings of anxiety, sadness, stress, carelessness, fear, anger, embarrassment, and exhaustion were repeated more than happiness and relief.

Textual dimension

Qualitative thematic analysis was applied to analyze the textual dimension. Thematic analysis allowed the researcher to identify the story messages, which were categorized into three main themes: challenges, advantages, and disadvantages.

Challenges

Participants represented how they addressed four types of challenges they faced during DL: technical, financial, psychological, and educational.

Technical challenges

Technical challenges were present in the largest portion of the comics. While comics 2 and 3 portray students who feel relieved after struggling to solve an Internet problem during DL, comics 12, 14, 17, 22, 24, and 25 focus on students who miss their online exams due to Internet connection issues (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Technical challenges.

Comics 11, 17, and 21 discuss the challenges caused by students’ lack of digital skills and lack of familiarity with DL. In comics 17 and 21, students suffer during their first weeks of DL due to their lack of computer skills. Comic 11 presents a technical challenge related to cultural issues. This comic presents a mother who cries when she accidently appears in front of her son’s camera and all his peers and his teacher see her. She is afraid to go near her son’s computer again, and he misses his online lessons for a while until she asks for assistance from a friend (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Technical challenges.

Financial challenges

Comics 1 and 5 present the financial challenges that poor families faced during DL. Comic 1 portrays a family consisting of three children in different school years who cannot do their DL on one laptop. The disadvantaged family is provided with new laptops from governmental social security. Similarly, in comic 5, a girl is crying because she cannot complete her DL work because her mother has asked her to give the laptop to her brother so he can study. The mother begs the father to borrow money to buy another laptop (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Financial challenges.

Psychological challenges

Sadness is clear in comics 7 and 30: The students feel sad as they miss their friends; they want to see and play with them physically, not virtually (see Figure 5). Fear of the unknown emerges in comic 9, demonstrated by a student who wants to request a leave of absence due to her fear of the unknown future of DL. However, her friend convinces her to continue with this new experience. Comics 18, 24, 25, and 30 discuss the pressure students feel due to endless time-limited assignments and continuously changing lecture times.

Figure 5. Psychological challenges.

Educational challenges

Some students found understanding online lessons to be more difficult than face-to-face learning. This situation is depicted in comics 4, 15, and 22 (see Figure 6). In comic 15, the student explains that practical lessons need to be studied in a physical lab, not online.

Figure 6. Educational challenges.

In comic 10, the student cannot understand her lessons due to the noise and distractions created by her siblings at home, which leads her to perform poorly on her exams.

Advantages

The participants also represented the advantages of DL, which include preventing the spread of Covid-19, mothers’ relief, students’ relief, and digital skills improvement.

Preventing the spread of Covid-19

Comics 3, 22, 28, 30, and 31 address the benefits of DL in protecting students from contracting Covid-19 (see Figure 7). Comic 22 presents an argument between traditional, face-to-face learning and Microsoft Teams, which is the educational platform used for DL in Saudi Arabia. Despite the challenges of DL, traditional learning in the comic acknowledges the benefits of Microsoft Teams as preventing the spread of Covid-19 and enabling the educational process to continue during the pandemic.

Figure 7. Preventing the spread of Covid-19.

Mothers’ relief

Comics 2 and 30 present stories about students who are also mothers and who find DL convenient because they can look after their children while studying. They feel reassured by staying with their children rather than sending them to nurseries (see Figure 8).

Figure 8. Mothers’ relief.

Students’ relief

Comics 4, 7, 16, 24, 27, and 28 reflect students’ feelings of reassurance and relaxation with DL. Comics 4, 7, 16, and 28 involve students who notice that DL saves them time, especially regarding transportation, and allows them to increase the hours they spend enjoying their families, relaxing, and attending to their hobbies (see Figure 9).

Figure 9. Students’ relief.

Comics 24 and 28 mention that recorded lessons benefit students because they can retrieve the recorded information when needed (see Figure 10), which increases their understanding of the course content. Comic 27 presents a student’s feeling of relief when she is able to complete her online exam while at the beach, which would not have been possible had she been engaged in face-to-face learning. The student in comic 30 finds that taking online exams is less stressful than taking exams in person.

Figure 10. Students’ relief.

Digital skills improvement

Comics 3, 22, 28, and 30 discuss the benefits of DL in boosting students’ digital skills. In comic 22, face-to-face learning acknowledges the rapid digital improvements made by DL and observes that both types of learning should be blended in the future. In comic 28, two university student sisters admit that their digital skills have improved due to DL, as have those of their primary school brother (see Figure 11).

Figure 11. Digital skills improvement.

Disadvantages

Participants represented the disadvantages of DL, which include cheating, carelessness, and mothers’ responsibility overload.

Cheating

Comics 6, 13, 19, 20, 27, and 32 tell stories about students who cheat on their exams and receive poor grades as a result of their immoral behavior. In comic 6, the student is happy to take an online exam because she can open her book to copy the answers, and no one can see her. She spends the night before the exam on PlayStation, trusting her plan. However, she ends up doing poorly on the exam because she cannot find her book.

In comic 13, a student and her friend agree to help each other during the exam, using mobile phones to cheat. The student earns a good grade, but her mother learns about her cheating and punishes her. While the mother in comic 13 has a moral sense, the mother in comic 32 commits the cheating. She worries about her child, who refuses to study for exams. Thus, she studies instead of him and completes his exams (see Figure 14). In comics 19 and 20, the students forget to turn off the microphone during the exams, and the teachers hear the sound of flipping pages and punish these students for their cheating (see Figure 12).

Figure 12. Cheating.

Carelessness

Comics 5, 8, 23, 26, and 32 illustrate students’ carelessness toward DL. Comic 8 depicts university students attending the same online lesson: one is cooking, another is taking selfies, the third is watching a movie, and the fourth is sleeping. At the end of the lesson, they ask each other in their private WhatsApp group what the educators said in class and discover that no one was listening (see Figure 13).

Figure 13. Carelessness.

Comic 23 presents a primary student who runs away when the DL lesson starts, and his mother chases him. In comic 26, a university student refuses to wake up in the morning to attend her online classes because she believes that education is unimportant unless it is conducted face-to-face.

Overload of responsibilities on mothers

Several comics revealed that DL during the pandemic has created additional responsibilities for mothers, who typically monitor their children’s learning. Comics 5, 13, 23, and 32 demonstrate this. Comic 5 presents stories about four mothers who are tired from monitoring their children’s online lesson attendance and homework. In the last panel of this comic, all the mothers cry with joy when the TV broadcaster announces that the schools are reopening.

Comics 13 and 23 present similar stories about mothers who are simultaneously chasing around after their young children, who are running around and playing outside during the time of their educational platform. Comic 32 tells a story of a mother who studies her careless son’s materials and completes his exams while he plays and sleeps (see Figure 14).

Figure 14. Mothers’ overload of responsibilities.

Discussion

Although this study’s data were collected at the end of 2020 during the schools’ and universities’ shutdowns, its findings can contribute to the literature on distance and blended learning. In fact, the researcher aimed to discuss the findings of this study in a way that explains how education stakeholders can benefit from students’ experiences with and perceptions of DL in future scenarios of digital education.

The aim of this study was to investigate female Saudi university students’ experiences with and perceptions of DL during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants were required to present their perceptions through learner-generated comics. More than half of the participants narrated their own experiences of DL and represented themselves as the main characters in the comics. According to Galman (2009), participants usually create self-portraits when they are asked to express their experiences through images. Other participants presented their perceptions through comics that narrated stories they had witnessed or heard. Both ways of presentation are crucial to understanding the participants’ viewpoints as female students, as well as the explicit and implicit sociocultural meanings within the comics. Applying the suggested analytic framework also assisted the researcher in accomplishing these aims.

The discussion focuses on three chief subjects that should be carefully considered in future digital education scenarios: (1) the role of technology, (2) cultural values, and (3) feelings and emotions.

The role of technology

The analysis of the ideational dimension regarding digital devices appearing in comics showed that larger devices, such as desktop computers and laptops, were preferred for DL by this study’s participants. This could be attributed to the stronger stability of computer systems compared to smaller devices, such as tablets or smartphones. This could also reflect the middle-to-high economic situation of female students and their families who can afford larger devices. On the other hand, some comics represented the inability of some families to buy new devices and upgrade internet packages to meet DL needs, either because they were disadvantaged families who suffered from financial challenges or because they had multiple school-aged children, which is typical in Saudi society (Al Lily et al., 2020).

Although large devices were preferred by the participants due to their stability, the participants discussed several technical issues, such as internet disconnection and device crashes. As DL during the pandemic relied on technology, any minor technical glitch interrupted the entire education process. This interruption caused serious educational problems, such as increasing students’ stress, decreasing their academic performance (Almossa, 2021; Deepika, 2020), learning loss, and school dropout (Engzell et al., 2021). Another technical challenge was the students’ lack of digital skills, which led them to miss lessons and made it difficult to engage in online classes, which, in turn, widened the learning loss (Aladsani, 2022b; Donnelly & Patrinos, 2021). Additionally, parents’ lack of digital skills affected their children’s DL, especially young children’s, because they lacked self-discipline and digital skills. DL, while familiar in higher education, is relatively novel to K–12 education (Zuo et al., 2021). Before the pandemic, utilizing the internet in education was a complementary or supportive tool in the education process. However, during the pandemic, it became a fundamental tool for delivering education (Al Lily et al., 2021; Aladsani, 2022a).

Although technology could improve students’ academic performance, the technology that is able to consider all students’ individual differences remains a distance goal (Antonenko et al., 2020). In this study, several comics represented the suffering of students who found that technology complicated their education and failed to support their learning. Several reasons were revealed as to why these students found DL difficult. First, the unprepared and rapid transition from familiar face-to-face learning to unorthodox full DL put students under technostress. Second, some students were unable to understand the information conveyed through online mediums. Third, there was difficulty in studying practical curricula online, such as sports and science. Fourth, there was a physical absence of and lack of interaction with peers and teachers online, which are vital educational elements for young students, as confirmed by pre-primary education teachers in the study by Norvilienė et al. (2021). The importance of physical appearance is not limited to young students; even university students suffered from the lack of in-person interaction with teachers and peers (Hensley et al., 2022).

While there were indeed negative aspects of DL during the pandemic, many comics discussed the positives. Several comics reflected the characters’ appreciation of DL as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19. DL proved its effectiveness in continuing the educational process during the pandemic and its various lockdowns (Bubb & Jones, 2020; Garbe et al., 2020). Microsoft Teams, which was mentioned in the comics, was the main platform employed to deliver synchronous virtual class sessions in most Saudi schools. Several comics reflected the convenience students felt as they attended online classes in their own comfortable study rooms, relaxing bedrooms, living rooms, and even inside kitchens, as explained in “places” in the “ideational dimension”. DL has flipped the educational environment to be anywhere and anytime (Al Lily et al., 2021). Transcendence of the limits of time and place has saved teachers, students, and even parents time spent on transportation every day and provided students with more time to spend on hobbies or with families. Recorded lessons, which assisted students in their studies when they listened to or watched them repeatedly, were represented in the comics as an advantage of DL. Recorded lessons have assisted students in retrieving information when needed, which has increased their understanding of course content and improved their academic achievements (Deepika, 2020). Some comics discussed the great advancement in students’ digital skills due to the implementation of DL during the pandemic. DL boosted the digital literacy levels of students, especially primary school students. Not only have young children’s digital skills improved, but those of their parents have also improved, fostering a digital culture at home (Aladsani, 2022b; Bubb & Jones, 2020). Therefore, DL has contributed to the achievement of digital transformation in Saudi Arabia, which is part of the ambitious Vision 2030 agenda to develop e-commerce, e-government, and e-learning.

Cultural values

Four values emerged from the study’s findings: family, privacy, honesty, and the value of distance education.

The value of family was most often portrayed in the comics. In the ideational dimension, family members (after students) were the most involved individuals. Mothers were the most represented. In fact, there were no mentions of husbands in the comics, and fathers and brothers were rarely represented. The frequency of the mother as a female character in comics was predicted, as these comics were created by female students who perceived DL from a feminine point of view. Moreover, during the pandemic and curfew in Saudi Arabia, it was the men who went out, taking the chance of catching the virus, to provide for their families. Women and children stayed protected at home. Perhaps this was another reason why the mother’s role was frequently found in female students’ stories about distance education. Presumably, mother characters were included more than father characters in the comics because Saudi mothers usually stay with their children, care for them, and meet their needs. Furthermore, mothers in Saudi Arabia are traditionally more accountable for their children’s education than fathers are (Al Lily et al., 2021). The findings of both the ideational and interpersonal dimensions revealed that many family members were made into comic characters and the family relationships between them were portrayed. This also demonstrates the value of family in Saudi culture. Moore (1989) discussed three types of interactions present in DL: learner–instructor, learner–learner, and learner–content. The findings from this study suggest another type: learner–family. As the whole educational process has transferred from schools and university buildings to the home environment, a learner–family interaction was expected.

The value of privacy appeared in the comics, especially through the story of a child who missed his lessons because his mother lacked digital skills—she refused to help her son attend online classes after a shocking experience of appearing online without a hijab. A publicly unveiled female face is a sensitive topic in Saudi culture (Al Lily et al., 2021). Islamic and Saudi norms obligate women to cover their entire bodies in front of nonrelative men. However, the mention of cameras was rare in the comics, which led the researcher to assume that cameras were usually turned off for privacy reasons involving women’s hijabs or the concealment of the home. The findings regarding the disadvantages of DL, including cheating, carelessness, and mothers’ responsibility overload, could confirm the assumption that the cameras were off—if the cameras were turned on, these disadvantages would be kept to a minimum.

The value of honesty emerged from the comics that mirrored the participants’ own experiences (or those of their relatives) regarding cheating as one of the disadvantages of DL. Most of these stories ended with fair punishment and feelings of embarrassment, reflecting the participants’ cultural sense of morality.

Finally, the findings showed that the value of DL was inferior to that of face-to-face education. One reason for this perspective could be that DL does not have the tangibility that traditional education has with buildings and physical presence. Al Lily et al. (2021) investigated the importance of physical presence in education for typical Arabs; they found that degrees obtained in brick-and-mortar institutions were held in more esteem than degrees achieved online. The stereotype of the typical educational environment is ingrained in individuals’ minds as involving physical buildings. The ideational dimension indicates that participants’ DL primarily took place in home offices, but bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens were depicted frequently in the comics. Learning in rooms that are usually filled with distractions could contribute to creating the feeling that DL is less effective than face-to-face education. In addition, DL relies on the learner’s self-discipline, self-regulation, and learning autonomy—attributes that are usually lacking in young students (Donnelly & Patrinos, 2021). It is no surprise, then, that several comics told stories about children’s indifference to DL and their mothers’ fatigue after trying to monitor them and motivate them to learn. An example of the inferior value of DL can be seen in some comic stories that reflect the students’ carelessness during DL. This carelessness could have been due to the students’ perception of DL as a vacation from school and schoolwork (Al Lily et al., 2020; Hensley et al., 2022), because they felt it was a substandard education compared with traditional learning. Another example is the spread of cheating among students and their parents. The increase of e-cheating during examinations is the most disturbing aspect of DL because it affects the moral system and causes students extensive harm in the long run, as they will suffer from cognitive gaps (Al Lily et al., 2021).

Feelings and emotions

Comics can strongly convey the emotional experiences of visual research participants (Collier, 1957). In the interpersonal dimension, negative emotions were reflected in comics more than positive ones. The textual dimension presented the challenges and disadvantages of DL more than the advantages. These findings clearly indicate the students’ perceptions of DL during the pandemic, which were negative. The challenges depicted in the comics were usually combined with the negative emotions that participants felt during challenging circumstances. However, positive emotions emerged when the challenges were resolved.

The feelings of anxiety and stress were due to the challenges the participants faced and the unusual environments surrounding them during their learning. The closure of universities and schools, unfamiliar transition to a fully online learning environment, disruption of daily routine, forced isolation at home due to fear of the virus, and imposed curfew produced negative emotions of panic, worry, stress, and fear. Saudi society has deeply rooted regard for social closeness and frequent family gatherings, and social deprivation has resulted in harsh psychological issues (Al Lily et al., 2020). Additionally, technical challenges, the pressure of completing endless assignments, the instability of timetables, and the lack of interaction with peers and teachers made students anxious and decreased their motivation to learn. The theme of emotional support, including peer support, emerged in the comics, as in the comic of a university student who wanted to apply for a leave of absence due to her fear of the unknown future of distance learning. Fortunately, her friend convinced her to try this kind of education and view it as a new experience. Support from family, schools, and teachers also appeared frequently in the comics. Digital empathy and emotional support from teachers during this difficult time also had a positive impact on the students’ engagement and minimized students’ negative emotions toward online learning (Aladsani, 2022a; Almossa, 2021). The overload of responsibilities that DL gave to mothers caused them much stress and exhaustion. Before the pandemic, mothers’ responsibilities were limited to motivating their children to study. However, because DL relies on self-regulated learning (and therefore requires skills that young students may lack), mothers had to step in and monitor their children, as well as educate them on what they missed.

Most of the positive emotions in the comics reflected the relief that the students (and their parents) felt to be continuing their education safely in their homes. Several comics also revealed the students’ appreciation for a later school-day start time. Students did not need to wake up early, as they had to do before the pandemic, and they saved time by not having to travel to and from school. Students also felt reassured in their homes—that is, comfortable environments with amenities. In addition, taking exams online felt less stressful to them, a finding also reported by Almossa (2021). Finally, some comics represented the relief felt by students who had infant children, as they could study and stay with their children at the same time. This would also save a lot of money on babysitters or day cares (being married with children is a common situation among university students in Saudi culture) (Aladsani, 2022a).

Conclusion and limitations

This study investigated female Saudi university students’ perceptions of and experiences with DL during the pandemic. Learner-generated comics were used to achieve the study’s aims. The study implemented an analytic framework to analyze the comics based on Kress and Leeuwen (1996) book, The Grammar of Visual Design, which discusses three meta-functions (dimensions): ideational, interpersonal, and textual. The ideational and interpersonal dimensions were analyzed in this study by quantitative content analysis (frequency); the textual dimension was analyzed by qualitative analysis (themes).

Despite the plethora of literature on DL during the COVID-19 pandemic, little research has been conducted using learner-generated comics or analyzed through the framework presented by Kress and Leeuwen (1996). Using comics as a research tool produces intense and abundant visual information that may not otherwise be elicited from participants. The analytic framework used in this study sheds light on some hidden aspects of comics that may not have been revealed using other analytic approaches. The framework also helped the researcher connect the findings from the three proposed dimensions and interpret them through a cultural lens to understand the sociocultural meanings communicated by the students in their comics.

The limitations of this study could be related to the sample, as it focused only on female university students in one university in Saudi Arabia. Further studies could provide additional perspectives from female students in multiple universities. Also, future studies could explore the perceptions of male and female students and investigate the differences between them.

Implications and future directions for research

The findings indicate that the participants’ negative perceptions and experiences of DL during the pandemic outweigh the positive ones. Thus, educational planners and policymakers should concentrate on reinforcing the importance of distance and blended learning, as both will likely become standards for post-pandemic digital education. The study’s findings also provide a window for understanding how to make the most of DL to improve students’ education and how to develop the quality of DL and address the challenges and disadvantages associated with it. Further, the findings indicate that DL implementation should consider cultural issues, especially regarding privacy, the value of the family, social closeness, and disadvantaged families.

This study emphasized the importance of physical appearance and social interaction in education. Some of the comics reflected the students’ dissatisfaction with DL, as it did not meet all the needs of the curricula or the students. This makes the researcher think about the video conferences that are widely held in Saudi universities to convey lectures from male buildings to female buildings, as single-sex education is compulsory in Saudi Arabia. Although DL during the pandemic was more advanced than video conferences, the students complained about its limitations. Thus, further studies are required to investigate the perceptions of female students toward unpretentious digital video conferences. University educational policies should rethink video conferences and either delegate the task of educating female students to female educators (in consideration of the societal and cultural values that prevent mixing genders) or utilize modern platforms that have developed enormously during the pandemic instead of traditional video conferencing.

The findings confirmed the value of privacy in Saudi society. However, teachers may require their students’ cameras on at all times so they can make sure they are present and paying attention. Thus, since privacy and comfortability in DL are important, further research could study the benefits of setting up digital avatars or video filters. For example, if a woman does not want to wear a hijab at home but must be on camera, she could use a digital filter to either add one to her camera feed or pixelate her face.

The considerable representation of primary and secondary students as characters in the participants’ comics and the overload of responsibilities given to mothers raise many questions about the suitability and sustainability of DL for young students. Future studies should focus on the benefits and challenges of DL in K–12 education, as well as on how to improve young students’ self-regulation and self-discipline.

Another future study could investigate middle or high schoolers’ experiences and perceptions of DL during the pandemic on their learning performance after their return to traditional learning processes. Moreover, collaborative future studies could conduct and compare international cross-cultural research about students’ experiences at universities and schools around the world, such as in Saudi Arabia and the USA.

Authors’ contributions

The article has been written by only one author.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The author acknowledges the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Faisal University in Al-Ahsa for the financial support (GRANT665).

Notes on contributors

Hibah Aladsani

Hibah Khalid Aladsani is an assistant professor of educational technology with the Curriculum and Instruction Department, King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. She received her PhD from Sheffield University, UK, in 2019. She has published internationally with well-known publishers, such as Elsevier, Routledge, Springer, and SAGE. Her research interests include e-learning, using social network sites in education, and qualitative research methodologies. She has presented at various academic events in Saudi Arabia and UK. She won first place in the 2022 Faculty Excellence Award at King Faisal University. She is a member of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) in the UK, and the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) in the UK. Twitter: @HibahKA and @haladsani.