Online learning has benefits of its own, such as high accessibility (Stone and O’Shea, 2019); enabling students who are geographically distant from each other to cooperate and share information (Donista-Schmidt and Topaz, 2018); and flexibility of location and schedule (Stone et al., 2019). However, it poses several challenges as well, such as forcing students to organize and manage their learning independently, without ongoing guidance (Kop et al., 2011; Huang, 2017). Other challenges are technological, such as unstable internet connections, access to equipment, difficulties managing and navigating technological realms (Allen and Seaman, 2013; Almuraqab, 2020; Bozjurt and Sharma, 2020), and the absence of eye contact, teachers’ gestures, and a classroom atmosphere (Allen and Seaman, 2013; Almuraqab, 2020; Bozkurt and Sharma, 2020; Hodges et al., 2020). Online teachers should be aware of these challenges and take them into account so that they can help students overcome difficulties and succeed in their learning.

Studies have shown that teachers play a highly significant role in successful online learning, and that their interaction with students can impact learning effectiveness (Lee and Choi, 2011; Yerby, 2017). It is not the technology itself, but how it is relayed and implemented by the teacher, that determines learning efficiency (Coppola et al., 2002; Huang, 2017; Lee, 2011). The manner in which teachers fulfill their roles affects students’ achievements (Kang and Im, 2013; Wright et al., 2015), motivation (Brenton, 2014; Cole et al., 2017), and satisfaction with online courses (Burnett et al., 2007; Sher, 2009). Lim and Lee (2008), who reviewed studies designed to characterize the roles that the teacher must play in online courses, found that in most studies, the teacher’s role is divided into three main components–technical, managerial, and pedagogical. The technical role includes using online learning environments and technical support. The managerial role is related to managing the students and the computer-based learning environment, and the pedagogical role emphasizes students’ involvement in computer-based learning environments based on the teacher’s pedagogical skills.

However, Coppola et al. (2002), Lee (2011), and Huang (2017) showed that these roles alone cannot sustain optimal learning and help students become independent learners and succeed in online courses. The teacher-student interaction must include aspects that go beyond instructional interaction related to pedagogy, course management, and the technological environment. Thus, Coppola et al. (2002) found that in addition to the technical, managerial, and pedagogical roles, online teaching must include the affective role, i.e. the emotional support the teacher provides for the student, and the overall class atmosphere that is essential for this type of learning. The affective role must be accompanied by two other roles–the cognitive role, which relates to the mental processes of learning and thinking (and includes the pedagogical role), and the administrative role of class and student management, which also includes the technological role.

Lee (2011), who studied a multicultural computer-based learning environment and examined students’ perceptions of teachers’ roles in online courses, also identified the affective role as essential and fundamental for online teaching. He then added a previously unidentified role–the differentiating role–in which teachers encourage independent learning, expose their students to diverse viewpoints, and accommodate the differences in students’ ability to learn at their own pace and style.

Thus, Lee (2011) defined five roles that students expect from teachers in distance learning–pedagogical, affective, technical, managerial, and differentiating. His findings indicated that participants perceived teachers’ affective and differentiating roles as the most significant for learning and success. He maintained that teachers of online courses must integrate the pedagogical, managerial, and technical roles with the affective and differentiating roles that are crucial for the learner.

“Emergency remote teaching (ERT) is a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances” (Hodges et al., 2020, p. 6). Although online-learning technology was first introduced in the 1990s (Lai et al., 2016; Huang, 2017), the COVID-19-induced sudden shutdown of the education system in 2020 shocked the education community, as teachers scrambled to adapt to ERT (Hodges et al., 2020). Lacking sufficient time to prepare for this kind of teaching (Brady and Pradhan, 2020; Mohmmed et al., 2020; Wu, 2021), teachers used the technical and pedagogical means available to them. Under these circumstances, their main goal was not to recreate a robust and effective education system but to teach using supporting instruction and guidance quickly, accessibly, and reliably during the crisis (Golden 2020; Hodges and Fowler, 2020).

Routine online learning and ERT share the physical distance between teacher and learner, but there are essential differences between them, foremost among them is the lack of time to plan and prepare an ERT course (Almuraqab, 2020; Hodges et al., 2020). Unlike online courses during routine times, which are planned months in advance, ERT courses are prepared within days. Without prior development and planning, the quality and management of the course and the possibility of building an organized learning and support environment for the students may be compromised (Mohmmed et al., 2020).

In addition, support during routine online learning is more readily available than in emergency times, as the courses have fewer students and teachers. Schlesselman (2020) maintained that staff and support teams cannot offer the same level of support for all teachers and students, due to the greater demand for assistance and the time pressure during the state of crisis.

Furthermore, emergency situations generate difficulties at home and within the family, affecting students’ freedom and availability for learning and hindering the students’ ability to manage the course requirements (Heo and Han, 2020; Lazarevic and Bentz, 2021). For example, students may be home with their children or younger siblings, whose schools are also closed, and therefore must learn to study online despite interruptions and while caring for young children. Another challenge is that not every household has enough computers and equipment for all its members, which can also affect course attendance (Almuraqab, 2020; Hodges et al., 2020).

During routine times, online learning is limited to a few, pre-designated and pre-selected courses, where teachers are free to choose whether they want to teach online. However, in emergencies, the entire system is compelled to use the online platform, regardless of teachers’ and students’ technical and technological capabilities. In routine times, teachers who are not comfortable developing online learning platforms will avoid teaching online courses, as will students for whom technology is an obstacle. However, the pandemic offered no alternative and made online learning mandatory for everyone. This could be a source of stress for students and teachers alike, and this stress, in turn, could be reflected in students’ feelings and expectations of their teachers (Bozkurt and Sharma, 2020). Howland and Moore (2002) and Sansone et al. (2011) highlighted the teachers’ role in the success of an online course and in deterring students from dropping out of their courses. As an examination of students’ expectations of teachers could further illuminate this role, this study explores students’ perceptions of the teacher’s role in ERT and compares it with their perceptions for online courses in pre-pandemic days, using the online questionnaire by Lee (2011) for assessing teachers’ roles during times of emergency and routine. The findings can be used to formulate recommendations for effective teaching in both situations, with an emphasis on the teacher roles that are critical for each one, as each present different challenges both for teaching and learning.

The research hypothesis was that students would expect teachers to play all four roles–pedagogical, technical, affective, and differentiating–and would expect more from each role during emergency times than during routine times because:

1) Pedagogy is the primary role for teaching and learning, and during the pandemic, students have an even greater need for successful teaching methods than in routine situations.

The participants in the two stages of research were undergraduate students from different faculties (special education, mathematics, science, geography, history, civil studies, bible studies, English, linguistics, and communication) in one teaching college. The students in this college come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. The vast majority own computers and have internet access. During the pandemic, the college assisted the few who did not by loaning them computers.

The routine-times group included 520 students, out of 1,000 students who received the questionnaire (all the relevant students at the college at the time), and the emergency-times (COVID-19) group comprised 475 students out of 1,120 students who received the questionnaire (all the students at the college at the time).

Participants’ background data are presented in Table 1.

The participants in both groups belonged to a pre-defined group of BA students in a single college. The groups’ demographics were similar from the perspective of age, field of study, gender distribution, year of study, etc. This allowed comparisons to be made between their perceptions of the teacher’s role in online learning during routine and emergency times, and to draw conclusions.

The research tool was a 20-statement questionnaire that examined perceptions of teachers’ roles in online courses (Lee, 2011). The statements referred to five roles: pedagogical, managerial, technical, affective, and differentiating, and were used to compare students’ perception of online teachers’ roles during routine times and emergency times. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for the variable Perception of Teacher’s Role in an online course. This Varimax factor analysis was used to confirm Lee’s theory regarding the distribution of these factors. Orthogonal rotation maximizes the loading variance of a given factor and presents several discrete variables.

The factor analysis yielded four factors related to teachers’ roles–pedagogical, technical, affective, and differentiating. The pedagogical role refers to the teacher’s pedagogical abilities and includes content knowledge and the way it is relayed (α = 0.714). The technical role addresses the teacher’s ability to use media effectively, an ability indicative of the technical skills needed to develop online learning environments and technical tools that can be used effectively in online learning environments (α = 0.658). The affective role includes the interpersonal aspects of the teacher’s role that are not directly related to the content taught (α = 0.714). The differentiating role refers to the teacher’s ability to encourage independent and individual learning.

Four statements that did not appear in either analysis were removed (“Use chat program effectively,” “Be culturally neutral regarding content,” “Be patient,” and “Don’t overload”) due to the low loading of the statements. The mean scores for each role are presented in Table 2.

The students’ answers to the questionnaire on perceptions of the teacher’s role (Lee, 2011) were collected at two points in time. The questionnaires were sent out twice to the personal email addresses of all the BA students in the Department of Education at the college. The questionnaires were anonymous, and students answered them voluntarily.

A factor analysis was conducted on students’ perception of the online teacher’s role, aiming to compare their perceptions in emergency and routine times. The statements are listed in Table 3, organized by factor and results of the Varimax factor analysis.

A MANOVA was conducted to examine the differences between online learning in emergency times and in routine times according to the four factors of perceptions of the online teacher’s role (pedagogical, technical, affective, and differentiating). The analysis revealed a significant difference between the simultaneous examination of all factors by period (routine vs. emergency) F (4,976) = 28.52, p < 0.001, eta² = 0.105.

The means calculated for each factor of perceptions of teachers’ roles in online courses during routine and emergency periods are presented in Figure 1.

After the MANOVA, four one-way ANOVAs were performed to examine differences between the perception of teachers’ roles in online learning during times of emergency and routine for each of the four factors. This analysis revealed significant differences. For the affective factor, F (1,979) = 23.081, p < 0.0001, meaning that in times of emergency, students expect the affective role to be more prevalent (M = 4.72, SD = 1.12) than during routine times (M = 4.37, SD = 1.16). A significant difference was also found for the technical factor, F (1,979) = 50.136, p < 0.0001. In emergency times, students have higher expectations for the technical role (M = 4.64, SD = 1.14) than in routine times (M = 4.12, SD = 1.16). For the differentiating factor, a significant difference was found as well, F (1,979) = 24.788, p < 0.0001, with lower expectations on the part of students during emergency times (M = 5.48, SD = 1.11) than during routine times (M = 5.12, SD = 1.16). Finally, for the pedagogical factor, no significant differences were found F (1,979) = 0.501, p = 0.48 between emergency and routine times.