Nursing students' and faculty members' experiences of online education during COVID-19 across Southeast Asia: a photovoice study

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused extraordinary disruptions to education systems globally, forcing a rapid switch from conventional to online education. Although some qualitative studies have been carried out exploring the online education experiences of nursing students and faculty members during the COVID-19 pandemic, to our knowledge, no study has used the Photovoice approach. Objectives: To explore the experiences of nursing students and faculty members as related to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design: A descriptive qualitative design using Photovoice was adopted. Setting: The study took place across five countries and one city in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong). Participants: Fifty-two nursing students and twenty-eight nursing faculty members who participated in online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Each participant submitted one photo substantiated with written reflections. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Ethical approval was obtained from institution-specific ethics boards. Results: Three themes and eleven sub-themes emerged from the data. The three main themes were: 1) Psychological roadblocks to online education; 2) Developing resilience despite adversities; and 3) Online education: What worked and what did not