A Pilot Study on Comparison of Teaching Workloads of Academicians Based on Working Periods During and Before the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on society, greatly changing the structure of social and working lives. Educational institutions, especially in higher education, were forced to suspend face-to-face education and switch to distance education. This change inevitably affected the working styles and workloads of academics. This study aims to explore the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic teaching workloads by examining transaction data for a one-year period before and during the pandemic. The data were obtained from the system logs of a learning management system platform, which was used extensively during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods, and were analyzed in terms of transaction density, day, and time of transactions. The findings from the pre-pandemic period showed that the academic workload was higher on weekdays than on weekends. However, with the transition to distance education during the pandemic, the difference between weekday and weekend workloads diminished significantly. Additionally, the working hours shifted during the pandemic by approximately one hour to later hours in the day.