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...