At the time of writing this proposal, educational processes worldwide have been significantly affected for the past two years and uncertainties about the effects of the pandemic on education are expected to continue into 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic represents the greatest global disruption of the educational process in recent history (UN, 2020). In response to the aforementioned disruption and in order to secure the continuation of the educational process, most educational systems introduced some form of emergency remote teaching and learning (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020). In Croatia, the government mandated nationwide closure of educational institutions on March 16^th 2020. This implied introduction of various policy measures aimed at transformation of educational processes from the classroom to emergency remote teaching and learning (MSE, 2020). Specific sets of policy solutions were introduced at different educational levels. As pandemic continued, the educational designs diverged from classroom teaching and learning for all pupils to hybrid and exclusively remote teaching learning depending on the epidemiological situation.

The introduction of remote teaching and learning using ICT represents a unique historical situation in which primary and secondary education cohorts in Croatia experienced non-classroom teaching and learning for an extended period of time (Ristić Dedić & Jokić, 2021). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Croatian education system did not include the systemic, universal use of ICT at ISCED levels 1-3 (ibid.). The PISA 2018 results indicated a lack of digital devices and tools in schools and infrequent use by pupils and for the purposes of ameliorating the teaching and learning process (Markočić et al., 2019). One of the important elements of the Croatian governments’ response to the pandemic was the provision of Android tablets to all pupils at the ISCED 2 level. Previous research examining pupils’ attitudes towards ICT with regards to the use of tablets in classroom teaching and learning indicated generally positive attitudes, especially among those who had an opportunity to use this technology (Rončević Zubković et al., 2016). These generally positive attitudes towards the use of tablets are also evident in the results of methodologically and theoretically diverse research efforts in the international context (Mulet et al., 2019). While the findings of the research presented above have informed the present study, it was of vital importance to use this opportunity to scientifically explore pupils’ perspectives on remote teaching and learning and how they compare this experience to the one they accustomed to in classrooms. It was also important to see if these perspectives and comparisons differ between and within cohorts of pupils.

The present paper aims to answer following questions:

1. How do pupils perceive the quality of education offered in the emergency remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, as compared to classroom teaching and learning?
2. To what extent this comparison differs between pupils from different cohorts at different educational levels?
3. To what extent this comparison differs between pupils of different academic achievement and gender?

Results aim to ameliorate understanding of the pupil’ perception of the processes of remote teaching and learning and the way they could complement classroom practices, perhaps most significantly, in the development of hybrid models a more preferable solution in future crisis situations.

This paper presents results from a large scale national research project ‘Changes in the Organisation of Educational Processes Induced by the COVID-19 Pandemic: Effects on Croatian Pupils' Educational Experiences, Wellbeing and Aspirations over Time’ financed by the Croatian Science Foundation. Project employs sequential mixed model research design with large-scale quantitative and extensive qualitative research phases. The present paper is based on the results from the quantitative research phase conducted in May and June of 2021. The research was carried on the nationally representative sample of 161 schools - 81 elementary (single structure primary and lower secondary) and 80 upper secondary schools. The schools were selected randomly within strata defined by location. The number of schools in the sample within each stratum was proportionate to its size in the total population (sample represents 11,3% of total number of schools at elementary education, and 20,8% on upper secondary level in Croatia). In each participating elementary school, the 6th (average age of 12) and 8th (average age of 14) grade pupils were invited to participate. In total, 3297 6th grade and 2791 8th grade pupils participated. At upper secondary level, 8985 pupils from 2nd grade (average age of 16) from both VET gymnasium programmes participated. Parents of all pupils participating in the survey provided informed written consent prior to administration of the questionnaire. The research was conducted in face-to-face form in cooperation with participating schools. In order to measure how pupils compare remote to regular classroom teaching and learning, a scale developed by Ristić Dedić and Jokić (2021.) was used. The scale consists of 11 items developed to encompass various features of a high quality teaching and learning process: comprehensiveness, clarity, ability to raise pupils’ interest in the subject, good teacher-pupil relationship, regular feedback, adjustment to individual needs, encouragement of higher-order cognitive processes, fairness and appropriate level of demand in school assignments. For each feature, pupils are asked to provide responses to the general question: Since beginning of the pandemic, teaching and learning has been transferred from classrooms to the online environment. Please compare whether the following applies more to classroom or remote teaching and learning. Possible responses on a 5-point scale ranging from ‘Applies much more to CLASSROOM teaching and learning’ to ‘Applies much more to REMOTE teaching and learning’. Factor solution suggets two factors: ‘The Quality of Teaching and Learning’ and ‘School task load and effort’.

Overall, the mean score on the Quality of teaching and learning factor for pupils in all three cohorts indicated a slightly more favourable perception towards classroom teaching and learning than remote practices. Analyses at the item level suggest that pupils more closely associated the clarity and comprehensibility of instruction, one of the crucial features of a high-quality education process, to classroom practices than to remote teaching and learning. In addition, pupils also associated other prominent features of educational quality, such as ability to raise pupils’ interest and providing additional instruction if needed, with classroom teaching and learning. However, it is important to emphasise that in the remote teaching and learning environment pupils continued to experience positive relationship with teachers and felt encouraged by them. The mean score on the School task load and effort factor indicated that, in general, pupils perceived remote teaching and learning as more difficult in comparison to classroom teaching and learning. In line with the previous factor, this pattern was similar for all three cohorts. Analysis of the results at the item level suggested that remote teaching and learning was strongly associated with the perception of higher demands placed on pupils in comparison to regular classroom practices. Further analyses suggested statistically significant main effect of gender and academic achievement with girls and those with higher grades in all three cohorts favouring classroom teaching and learning. Interaction was not statistically significant in all three generations. These results suggest a significant space for the improvement of both the materials and the delivery in remote teaching and learning context and open a room for discussion on the policy options in the case of the possible future shifts to remote teaching and learning.

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