Teaching practitioners and barriers faced during emergency remote teaching for COVID-19: an integrative review

Once emergency remote teaching emerged in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, several articles began to be published documenting this experience from different perspectives. Hence the need to compile the available evidence on the barriers teachers have faced to have a global view of the subject. The research objective was to characterize the different barriers or problems that teachers overcame in the first year of implementation of emergency remote teaching after COVID-19. An integrative literature review was conducted, compiling studies with teachers from all levels of formal education. It included the five corresponding phases: problem identification, search, initial evaluation, analysis, and publication of results. The literature screening process allowed the selection of 64 articles for review. We observed ten barriers distributed in four categories. Infrastructure-related barriers or difficulties (equipment and connectivity) and personal barriers (mainly stress and anxiety) predominated. Difficulties related to infrastructure and connectivity, digital and didactic competencies triggered fourth category barriers such as psychological and affective barriers. The term "resilient" describes teachers who have creatively overcome these problems. To overcome difficulties in this prolonged emergency, teachers require support for their emotional well-being. We need to explore some research gaps for further understanding.