The Pandemic Benefits Reaped by Online Teaching Platforms: A Case study of Whitehat Junior

Introduction

Educational platform can be understood as any computer software that serves an educational purpose. In this context, “platform” refers to something that exists online. You use an educational platform to learn. In other words, an online learning platform is a space or portal filled with educational content and/or live instruction on a particular subject or many different topics. Covid 19 posed before the education sector such unprecedented situation which were hard to address. But the way, this sector responded to tackle the pandemic challenges in a highly appreciable manner that proved that Indian education system is as agile as any other education sector in the world. Educational institutions had to shut down offline working as result offline classroom teaching, campus activities, project base learning, libraries, practical labs, etc suddenly lost relevance.

Thus posing serious challenge to delivery of content, student teacher interaction, conduction of exams and assessments, evaluations of performance and result making and uploading. Pandemic shattered the normal working of the offline education industry but opened new opportunities for the online educational platforms. The online educational platforms were actually struggling in pre-pandemic time for several reasons like less enrolments in online courses, pre occupation of target market segment i.e the students etc. Pandemic brought all together a new environment of working and compelled all the off line educational institutions to become online educational platforms and strengthen their online resources, Abidah, Hidaayatullaah, Simamora, Fehabutar, & Mutakinati (2020). We need to understand online platforms as universities, institutes, schools, colleges or any educational institute which are working online and providing   degrees, certificates, diplomas for several courses and programmes.

These platforms serve several utilities ranging from organising the students into classes, assigning teachers to the classes, communicating schedules, calendars, time table, notices and orders related to exams and assessments, etc. They even allow for uploading and downloading resources like lessons, notes, and assignments. It’s a tool that allows learning to continue even after students have left the classroom and now with pandemic situations and even after are here to stay. The review of literature was done using the scopus data base. Literature review has showed the gap in exploring the parent’s perspective for online education especially with respect to young children (Age group 8 to 12 years). Thus this research paper aims to investigate the parent’s perspective with regard to online education during Covid -19 through a case based approach with reference to White Hat Junior(WHJ). The parent’s opinions are crucial as they are the potential buyers of online education services for their kids. Their thoughts and suggestions may go a long way in devising strategies and making the online platforms more acceptable modes of learning. Thus following research questions have been take up for investigation in the current research:

1.What is the impact of Covid - 19 on online teaching platforms especially WHJ?

2.What do you think about online teaching platforms especially WHJ?

3.What are your suggestions improving online teaching platform especially WHJ?

Using the case study method, the qualitative method of focused group discussion was used to explore the impact and strategies of in company in the field of online education.

Methodology

The literature was explored on the scopus data base.  At the paper Identification stage the keywords used were Online Education Platforms, e-learning, electronic learning, distance education, distance learning, online class, online course and online university were used which gave 14,063 document results. At the screening stage, Subject limit applied to Business Management Accounting, Document Type limit applied Articles and conference, paper Source type limited to conference Proceedings, journals and Language limited to English. This resulted in 531 papers. Which were downloaded. The eligibility of each these articles was analyzed through exploring the titles and abstracts. After which about twenty papers were found eligible to be included in the study. The gap brought in the literature was that mostly online education was studied in the context of higher education (Chang, V., Liu M., Xu Q.A.& Xiong C., 2022). Although the information and communication technology play vital role in spred of knowledge but they face limitation. Students who can’t adapt and understand through ICTs need personal touch through the facilitators. (Gan I., Sun R., 2022).  Apart from other limitations, in recent researches the parent’s perspective has been ignored in online education strategies. (Bravo-Adasme N., Cataldo A., 2022).  Thus this paper bases on bridging the gaps mentioned.

This study was undertaken through a case study method of an exemplary online education platform based company which actually experienced the ups and downs of the pandemic. During pandemic it’s business actually revived due to the strategies it adopted. WhiteHat Jr is an education tech company founded in 2018 in Mumba. It has headquarter in Mumbai and Wilmington. WhiteHat Jr is an online education tech company. It educates it’s students to construct commercial-ready games, animations and apps through coding basics. The company has its own original coding curriculum. It imparts its lessons via live, interactive online classes. It’s winning strategy is based on Involve, Enable and Be Flexible. It has devised strategies to involve the customer by proper communication with the parents and students. The company’s communication involvement has been very well projected including the daily infographics for both teachers and students. Also uses free counselling for the parents and teacher, blogs by students, Forum for interaction and feedback from parents is taken into consideration. Communication is a component that may impact the end results in an organisation or otherwise too Agnihotri, A. & Agnihotri, A. (2021). As fas as promotion is concerned Whitehat Jr. doesn’t promote a lot. Free trial and counselling for the parents are most important promotion tools. It only recently that established celebrities like Sonu Sood and Farah Khan have been engaged for promotion purpose. Looking at the competitors, WHJ main competitors are Vedantu (AR 75M), Code Monkey (AR- 1.5M) and Coding Ninjas (AR -6.5M)

Apart from literature review and analysis of secondary data from websites and search engines, qualitative research was undertaken to know about parent’s views in general about the online platforms and particularly about why what when where how of White Hat Junior with focus primarily on the reflections and experiences of the parents of kids enrolled into the coding classes of the Whitehat Jr. Data was collected through FGD (Lauri, M.N. (2019)). Focus group discussions was used envolving the parents to know their opinion regarding the research questions.  FGD is a very useful way to obtain data related to any phenomena. At initial phase the respondents may agree, disagree ith each other. But as the discussion continues more clarity may come among the participants on the issue taken up (Thomas, MacMillan, McRoll, Hale & Bond, 1995). Also in-depth interviews of three parents was done using same questions.

The four trustworthiness criteria for qualitative investigations given by Guba (1981) are credibility, dependability, confirmability and transferability. In this research also effort was made to meet these four criteria. For ensuring credibility, participants should be randomly selected with each being free to decide to attend or refuse. Also sharing of findings was done with the participants to correct or amend them if they thought otherwise. To ensure credibility as Shenton (2004) indicates, direct excerpts were reproduced in reporting so that transparency in analysis is maintained. To ensure dependability which actually implies ‘the stability of findings over time’ (Bitsch, 2005, p.86), the researcher utilized the code-decode technique as per suggestion of Chilisa and Preece (2005). Under this method, the same data was coded twice by the researchers.  A waiting period of 2 weeks was used. After that, the data was also compared.  Both findings were approximately the same so no changes were incorporated. Confirmability means confirmation of findings by other researchers or academic fraternity. This was based on the suggestion from Baxter & Eyles (1997). So, to ensure objectivity, the researcher asked an academic fraternity to go through the transcriptions and confirm the code and categories. Transferability means that the results of qualitative research can generalize to the other similar contexts (Bitsch, 2005). For achieving this the researcher clarified all the process so that the reader was able to compare one context with the others (Guba, 1981). Also the whole process undertaken for research was explained in great detail to ensure the transferability limitations and possibilitie.

The list of parents was acquired from Whitehat Jr office. 14 parents were randomly selected (8 mothers and 6 fathers but 1mother and 1 father refused to attend). Using the applicability principle, the parents were selected having knowledge about the knowledge to comment and give responses. It is because these respondents had their wards attending the Whitehat Jr coding classes for the last one year or more (Mainly during Covid 19) till present. Thus these were requested to volunteer to participate in the focus group discussion. Also during the FGD, five fathers and 2 mothers did not connect. Thus five parents participated in online focused group discussion. In-depth interview of two parents was also done for data collection on the topic using same set of questions.

The FGD method is a popular qualitative method for data collection for case research these days. As this case research was done during COVID-19, thus FGD was conducted using zoom. The Zoom was selected since it was easily available with the parents. The researcher acted as moderator and facilitator. The parents expressed their opinion in a comfortable environment. The environment of trust under FGD is a great advantage Kitzinger (1994).

A semi structured questions were developed and were discussed with the academicians for change and validation of these questions. After minor changes they were used for collection of the responses of the parents Krueger (2000). With the permission of participants, the discussion was recorded and transcripted. Apart from main question, the side questions were also asked to make them comfortable and keep the flow of talk. To ensure reliability the researcher re-coded the same data after two weeks. In-depth interview of two parents was also done for data collection on the topic using same set of questions.  The data analysis was done using qualitative content analysis. The transcriptions of FGD was analysed for obtaining codes. The similar codes were grouped togated to arrive at categories (Weber, 1990). These code were also analysed by two professors to ensure uniformity and suggestions were incorporated. The participants were also given codes of address to ensure their anonymity while reporting their opinions. The literature review on distance and online education brought to light that the parents perspective was missing. Researches thought that parents view was important in relation to young students. It is they who analyse the education system and decide for their wards. Thus such parents were the target sample. Their opinion was extracted for the research questions under taken for the research.

Results

The FGD revealed very useful information with regard to Online educational platforms and especially WHJ in relation to Covid -19 times. Findings relate to awareness , acceptability, perception ,costs ,safety issues ,etc , brought out elaborately in this case based research .

Q1. Impact of Covid 19 on Online teaching platform especially WHJ?

For this questions, findings showed in Table 1 under general categories and codes

Table 1. Parents view about impact of Covid-19  on Online Platform

Researchers determined first category as Awareness Booster on the basis of three codes, Pandemic blessing for online platforms (WHJ)(F=3), Online possibility of many courses (WHJ)(F=3) and Online skill development possibility (WHJ)(F=3). The (P3) parents reported that pre pandemic there was less awareness about the online classes. They were more willing to send their kids to institution with offline systems of learning for schooling, hobby courses and skill development as she declared ‘Pandemic is like a blessing for our kids because it has given us the online platform’. P2 declared Before pandemic there was no scope of online (WHJ) and also no one knew about them’. P3 told ‘Online also lot of courses like coding, dancing etc can be done. Now whole schooling system has shifted to online.’ P5 also declared that post pandemic online interaction has increased. According to P3 ‘Approximately 80 percent of courses were known after the pandemic’. Most of these courses related to skill development and hobby courses. Almost all schools went online to cater to the students during pandemic’. This also raised the parents and students awareness and acceptability of online platforms in general and WHJ in particular.

Researchers determined second category as Learning Booster on the basis of three codes, online schooling and learning system (F=3) and Improvement in course structure(F=3) and One faculty-one child Culture (F=2) Pandemic forced the whole schooling system go online to reach its students. As P3 reported ‘Now whole schooling system has shifted to online’. P4 also added ‘It has many other features like raising hand and all (other)features similar to normal classes’. According to P4 before pandemic ‘Good Structure programmes were not there’. According to P3 ‘Approximately 80 percent of courses were known after the pandemic’ Most of these courses related to skill development and hobby courses. According to P1 who has reported that ‘one advantage of online is that students can get their doubts cleared because of one student one faculty (in WHJ coding sessions)’. P3 reported ‘ the students study because individual student get individual teacher who is able to focus on their needs and growth.’  P2-‘Individual attention i.e. one faculty for one child has attracted the parents towards it. Any topic on which students lack clarity may reworked upon by the faculty under one to one system of teaching’.

Researchers determined third category as Safety Booster on the basis of two codes, Education System accessible from home(WHJ)(F=3) and Reduction in Physical Interaction (WHJ)(F=4). As the pandemic situation forced the people to stay inside and thus there offline physical schooling system became inaccessible mainly because of safety issues and fear of covid infection. P3 parent told ‘when my child used to go to school, there was tension in mind …’ ‘now I am also happy that she is sitting in front of me and her school is also going and she is safe’. Many parents have termed it as freedom from tiring travels and pollution. P4 responded ‘children don't need to move in pollution in the cities specially in Delhi’. Reduction in Physical Interaction (F=4) has been felt by all the parents. They reported it as one of the disadvantages but researchers have concluded this code as a way ensuring social distancing and thus helping against life threat and covid infection.

Researchers determined fourth category as Opportunity Booster on the basis of two codes opportunities for IT companies (WHJ)(F=2) and Introduction of numerous well structured courses (WHJ)(F=3). P4 put it as ‘IT industry started seeing it as a big opportunity only after covid’ there ‘was no such culture of online courses. It became a necessity then things started flourishing for online platforms’. P3 told ‘many courses were not there before pandemic … most courses (about 80 %) became online after pandemic’. P4 also added ‘Good structured programmes were not there’. These flourished during pandemic. P3 told ‘online also lot of courses like dancing, coding etc and whole schooling system’ have become possible.

Q2. What do you think about the online teaching platform  of WHJ (advantages and disadvantages)

For this questions, findings showed in Table 2 under general categories and codes

Table 2. Parents View about Online Teaching Platform in general and WHJ in particular?

Researchers determined first category as Early coding ‘Skill Booster’ on the basis of two codes, Early Coding Skills to kids (WHJ) (F=2) and Creativity and Innovation Base (WHJ)(F=2). The (P3) parents reported that WHJ is now known for popularising coding among kids. As P-3put it ‘What I learnt after so many days (in the adult age), children are learning at the tender age … learning coding plus concepts of java etc.Complex concepts made very interesting also enjoy’. The code Creativity and Innovation Base (F=2) was reported by parents as P1 told My child learnt something new and is doing well as for now. It is his interest and is learning in a new area.’

Researchers determined second category as Comfort Booster on the basis of two codes, Time Saver (F=4) and Saviour from Pollution (F=3). Under pandemic situation forced the people to stay inside and schooling system and other hobby classes came online. Students and parents were not required to travel or face traffic pollution. This saved time and protected them from pollution. P1 parent told children had less time. commutation used to take time. but now (in pandemic) childrens’ time and our time both are saved. Big advantage of online platform is kids are learning something new (sitting at home)’. P2 even reported kids were free, …they were busy in playing and wasting time on mobile. so parents enrolled in online classes’. P5 told ‘Post pandemic half day was consumed in going out. Online classes from home provide time for other online engagements. Post pandemic kids have more time.

Researchers determined third category as Cost Reducer on the basis of three codes, Institutional – Infrastructural cost cut (F=3), School online (F=3) and Travel Cost cut (F=2)   Expressing their views on Institutional – Infrastructural cost cut (F=3), parents were agreeable on online mode being cost reducer in several ways. P4 strongly believed the growth prospects were very high for online teaching because ‘it (online platforms) helps in Institutions also to become online because it cuts their cost In fact, the schooling system had to adopt to the synchronous and asynchronous systems as per the pandemic compulsions. P3 reterated the people to stay inside and schooling system and other hobby classes came online’. This infact reduced transport costs of school related things and persons. It resulted in overall cost reduction of the schooling and teaching- learning systems. According to P4 ‘IT industry giving such good platform where there is no hanging there is neither any stop gap between it will grow hundred percent very efficient way of teaching’.

Researchers determined fourth category as Online Culture Booster on the basis of two codes, New opportunity for IT industry (F=3) and Quality education to rural backward regions (F=2). For the code New opportunity for IT industry (F=2), parents agreed that many new good courses were started by online platforms after pandemic. P4 asserted IT industry started seeing it as a big opportunity only after covid…was no such culture of online courses (pre pandemic) (but) became a necessity then things started flourishing for online platforms (during Covid)’. For the code Quality education to rural backward regions (F=2), P5 expressed if online platform was not there (learning) would have stopped due to covid especially in rural areas now this is a very good option because learning options are very limited and mediocre. Online has benefitted them.

Researchers determined fifth category as Stressful on the basis of three codes, Lowering of physical social Interaction (F=3) and Increase in Eye straining (F=2) and Mental and Physical Straining. For the code Lowering of physical social Interaction (F=3), many parents reported that their kids social interaction actually was minimised beyond imagination during covid. As P3 asserted the disadvantage of online the negative point is that her (kid’s) interaction has become zero with kids’. For the second code Increase in Eye straining (F=2), P1 told that 2-3 hours continuous class and then project making for another some hours puts strain on kids eyes.’ For the third code Mental and Physical Straining (F=3) as P3-Yes the disadvantages I told long screen time less physical interaction with students and teacher, cut off outside world so draining mentally and physically but there is no other alternative’

3. 3. What are your suggestions on improving online teaching platform of WHJ?

For this questions, findings showed in Table 3 under general categories and codes

Table 3. Parents suggestions for improving online teaching platform of WHJ

Researchers determined first category as Best Fit Courses on the basis of two codes, Matching student Aptitude (WHJ) (F=3) and Matching student Requirement (WHJ) (F=3). Matching student Aptitude (WHJ) (F=3), P4 reported that, firstly coding concepts need levels and may be developed into a broader band courses based on aptitude and intelligence levels of kids. Some child for example is having some aptitude for drawing may go ahead in the same area other child may be having architectural aptitude may go for architecture related course. Robotics is based on artificial intelligence and courses in this field too should diversify in terms of aptitude of the children. Also some more intensive coding courses may be introduced. For the second code Matching student Requirement (WHJ) (F=3), P-5 ‘Before pandemic there was no scope of online (WHJ) and also no one knew about them P3 told Online also lot of courses like coding, dancing, yoga, etc can be done. Now whole schooling system has shifted to online. P5 also declared that post pandemic online interaction has increased. According to P3, Approximately 80 percent of courses were known after the pandemic Most of these courses related to skill development and hobby courses. Almost all schools went online to cater to the students during pandemic

Researchers determined second category as Innovative and creative styles of lectures on the basis of three codes, Content Improvement (F=3), More Interesting exercises (F=2) and Intermittent Offline Sessions (F=3). For the code Content Improvement (F=3), many parents advised for the Improving synchronous and asynchronous lectures. As P4 told ‘Solution for all of the material that can be improved made more attractive for kids firstly coding concepts need levels and make a broader courses some child for example is having some aptitude for drawing me go ahead in the same area others are the children may be having architectural aptitude may have some I get type of courses further Robotics is one artificial intelligence in another diversify in terms of aptitude of the child also that can be one way and some more intensive coding challenging forces may be introduced’. For the code Interesting exercises (F=3), many parents advised for adding of more interesting exercises to the sessions and courses with more applicative and practical aspects. As P4 ‘Solution for all of the material that can be improved made more attractive for kids firstly, secondly the coding concepts need levels and make a broader courses. For the code Intermittent Offline Sessions (F=3) parents wished for offline courses on weekly basis for better clarity of doubts. As P1 informed ‘if coaching like setup meeting like twice a week so that child may get better clarity for his / her doubts’. These findings were cross verified through in-depth interview with two parents and not much significant variation could be found in their opinion.

Discussion

The case study has brought to light that the pandemic enhanced the online education and learning in general and WHJ platform in particular as felt by parents and as reported in the above mentioned categories in findings i.e. it is Awareness Booster, Learning Booster, Safety Booster, Opportunity Booster, Early coding skill Booster, Comfort Booster, Cost Reducer, Online Culture Booster. Apart from few disadvantages it has been felt as mostly an aide during the pandemic time in the context of learning and education. In fact pandemic has changed the perception of parents for online education and learning for their kids as reported in Figure 1.  under Emergent Theoretical Model of Online education during Pandemic. Due to this now online learning and education is being seen as dependable safe and credible system of learning and it has several other advantages. It has been taken as savior of education system which would have stopped in such challenging times.

Figure 1. Emergent Theoretical Model of Online education during Pandemic

Conclusion

The study has brought to light that in the pre pandemic time there were less enrolments in the online courses because they were seen as less prestigious. Also the pre occupation of target students with normal study and activity routine did not allow them to engage with online educational activities. Thus many were not getting enrolments due to target participants busy in school, sports, hobbies, commutation, tuition, friends and out door games. Due to pandemic all this time was saved as these came to a halt in the context of social distancing. Due to social and friends network being disabled the people seemed to be spending lot of time on onscreen viewing to keep themselves entertained and informed. The children need to be provided with fruitful online engagement. The situation in pre pandemic when parents showed less interest in searching for online educational options / alternatives. Now the situation had changed. The parents got worried and explored for alternatives to keep children busy with better learning courses and alternatives. In this backdrop Whitehat Jr has shown  very phenomenal growth with Annual Recurring Revenue  growing to 115 m in Dec 2020, Group Classes Scheduled Daily  was 40 k, Number of its schools rising to 100 and the teachers strength rose from 5 k in August 2020 to 11k in to Dec 2020 not just in India but also overseas (Refer appendix 1,2,3). Recently it has been acquired by Byju’s and which has further expanded its consumer base. WHJ was able to reap the benefits because it provided the answers to the problem challenges posed by pandemic before the educational institutes in it’s own context. It capitalized on the need created for positive engagements of the kids who were compelled to stay home.

According to WHJ ex- CEO, Karan Bajaj by 2030 about 800 million jobs will relate to Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. This may divide the population into two groups. One group that shall be of creators and the other group shall be of consumers. WHJ has come up with such structured coding curriculum which is first of it’s kind. Thus Whitehat Jr’s mission is to make kids creators in the new world with the first structured coding curriculum in the world for early childhood. This would in turn improve kids’ critical thinking, logic, reasoning, and so on.

Summarising the findings of this research based on FGD results, it can be established that there is no doubt that online education in general and WHJ in particular, under pandemic created and expanded an accessible education system with many new structured course options, skill enhancer and also is looked at as entertainment option and time utilizer option. It has become more acceptable and respectable after pandemic for following reasons:

1.Making education accessible to students

2.Setting up a flexible system of education to enable learning and surviving the disease

3.Enabling customization as per need of the students

4.Reducing education cost burden in wake of no work and no business scenario

5.Utilizing the free time of kids which parents needed and searched for as strategy for growth of kids

6.Alternative for fighting boredom

7.Fruitful engagement alternative

8.One to one teacher student ratio biggest advantage in WHJ

9.Interactive lectures/ lecturing style

10.Instructors encouraging communication

11.Tech savvy   instructors/instructors style

12.Clear assessment criteria

13.Interesting coding assignments/assessment style

14.Fame for good projects

Before pandemic Whitehat Jr was trying to make inroads into market as a provider of online coding classes with the purpose of making the kids more confident in fundamental coding, JAVA and Appe development, game development etc. Thus kids find them interesting and enjoying to learn. Also during in-depth interviews parents reported that they felt intensely about following benefits from WHJ:

Whitehat Jr. provides for accessible educational platform. Now has started to diversify in music, yoga etc.

It’s online platform is a flexible system which not only enable learning of fundamentals of coding and but simultaneously it is a positive engagement for children struck inside house thus helping them surviving in the pandemic times.

It is enabling customization as per need of the students and parents with respect to scheduling of classes and financial processes. (Refer Figure 2)

It has also worked on reducing education cost burden in wake of no work and no business scenario for parents. Is providing many offers and programmes to respond to this dimension.

As employers they opened opportunity for flexible working (Refer Figure 2)

Figure 2. Parent and teacher view for flexibility offered

Source:  https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/26413SESSION_6_Jonathan_Wong.pdf )

As a limitation in this  paper , the research case uses data collected through oline focussed group with 5 parents and indepth interview with 2 parents . Although the discussion was extremely useful and many practical implications could be derived from it , still there is  need to investigate this phenomena through larger samples of parents a with quantitative methods of study as it is believed that analysis based on small sample cannot be generalized Shenton (2004) .Secondly the parents are of kids enrolled in coding classes of WHJ. Thus opinions of parents of kids in other courses may be different. The future researches need to investigate this phenomena through larger samples and with quantitative methods . Also application with regard to wholistic view of all stakeholders in regard to the pandemic may be initiated. Researchers also  feels the need of research at all levels of education and learning with regard to the issue under taken in this paper. 

Acknowledgements

The researchers are thankful to the staff and parents of the kids enrolled in Whitehat jr who took the pain to join in the discussion and contributed to the study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest regarding the publication of this work. In addition, the ethical issues including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and, or falsification, double publication and, or submission, and redundancy have been completely witnessed by the authors.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.