By Christian E. Wurst Jr., CPA, PhD

The COVID-19 pandemic turned our world upside down as if we were in a looking-glass world. Social distancing precautions meant we were encouraged not to go out and spend money, and stores that formerly refused service to anyone wearing a hoodie were now refusing service to anyone who was not wearing a face mask.

Education was not immune to the new rules. On-site education ceased and students and professors scattered to the wind. Dormitories had to be emptied, stocks of foodstuffs had to be liquidated, and everything had to be disinfected. And that was the easy part. Colleges everywhere changed their entire educational delivery method. Hundreds of thousands of students converted to online sessions in a single weekend, and professors – many of whom had never taught an online class – did the same.

For students, it was assumed that their learning practices would be unchanged. The biggest adjustment would be the need for greater self-discipline. Getting out of bed to drag one’s self to an 8:00 a.m. calculus class is difficult; getting out of bed to go nowhere, to meet no one, to do something you’d rather not do can be almost impossible. It was hoped that once students developed a greater sense of self-efficacy they would become proficient online learners – some might actually enjoy the new environment. Maybe.

No one considered how significant the change would be. Students, faculty, and administrators generally acted as if switching online was as simple as staying home and turning on the computer. Students expected the same presentations and faculty expected to make the same presentations. How naive we were!

Fifty years ago, communication theorists Ray Birdwhistell and H. Marshall McLuhan argued that “how” material was presented was as significant as the material itself. Birdwhistell opined that only about 30% to 35% of the meaning of any communication was contained in words. McLuhan famously noted, “The medium is the message.” The implications of these long-forgotten theories became significant as students and faculty discovered that online learning was vastly different than an in-person experience.

Birdwhistell (Kinesics and Context, 1970) introduced the concept of “Kinemes,” small nonverbal cues that accompany every word we say (and some we don’t, such as a wink, a nod, etc.). His concepts were popularized generally as “body language.” The online environment restricts access to body language. The professor’s face and expressions are still visible to the students, but the professor has limited feedback. Seasoned on-site professors can scan a classroom and interpret the mood of the room. Student body language cues them to the reception the material is receiving; they then adapt/modify the presentation in real time. That is much more difficult online with a digital array of tiny heads spread across a computer screen. Student responses can be imperceptible. To compensate, students need to be encouraged to be more engaged, more animated, and more expansive. This is completely different from the reactive behavior they have been used to. They still had to learn the material, but now they needed to learn “how” to learn the material and how to interact with a professor who is in a completely different place.

Professors need to be cognizant of the differences between online and in-person presentations. McLuhan, in his The Medium is The Message, identified a spectrum of media from “Hot” to “Cold.” A “Cold” medium is rich in both context and content – the receiver is presented with both images and words (think of a movie). All that is necessary to receive the total message is to absorb – little or nothing is required of the recipient. A “Hot” medium provides the content, but the recipient must provide the context (think of a book). “Hot” media demand active interaction between the message and the receptor. Traditional classes are cold presentations—the professor presents the material, solicits questions, probes for understanding, and generally stimulates student engagement. The professor does the work, the student “receives” the message.

Online lectures are much “Hotter.” The professor still provides the content, but students must interact with it. They need to contextualize it. They must process the information, sort it according to their prior knowledge, and file it for future use. Online students must work much differently to gain the same proficiency.

Online education will not end with the COVID-19 pandemic; it will continue to be an ever-increasing component of education. Professors will learn to produce “hotter” lectures and students will learn more interactive learning techniques. Like chalkboards, mimeograph machines, and PowerPoint beforehand, online education is just another way of presenting material. Like these other tools, we simply need to learn to maximize the usefulness.

Christian E. Wurst Jr., CPA, PhD, is an associate professor of accountancy at Temple University in Philadelphia. He can be reached at cwurst@temple.edu.

For more information on COVID-19 and the effect it has had on accounting education, check out PICPA’s panel discussion, Higher Education Teaching Opportunities for CPAs, on Aug. 27.

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