Nurji, Zainab Banu; (2025) “We have returned to a very different class”: A study exploring post-pandemic Teacher-Student Relationships in an Urban Post-92 university. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Nurji_Thesis.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 November 2026. Download (2MB)

Abstract

Having spent almost two years engaging in virtual classrooms, the transition to face-to-face classrooms post-pandemic was inevitably going to bring challenges. Emerging from the pandemic, the government’s drive for universities to provide full on-campus teaching has pressured universities to abandon virtual classrooms. With financial sanctions (from the macro level) used as a threat to push a return to ‘normality’, institutions have been deprived of the opportunity to collaboratively reflect or capitalise on their learning from the pandemic. This study explored five HE teachers and eight final-year undergraduate students’ experiences of Teacher-Student Relationships in the Department of Education and Social Sciences at an urban post-92 university and the challenges they have experienced transitioning from virtual to face-to-face classrooms. Adopting a critical realist methodology, this research explored the complex interplay between structure and agency and its influence on TSRs during and post-pandemic. Current literature in the field continues to emphasise the detrimental impact of the pandemic on HE teachers and students' educational experiences. This study found that post-pandemic social structures continued to challenge students’ transition into face-to-face classrooms and shaped teachers' pedagogical approaches as they tried to be cognisant of these. With teachers finding it difficult to make demands of their students, in relation to attendance, punctuality and engagement in classrooms, together they were tolerating transactional TSRs. The study concludes that in the rush to normality, the university's attempt to reproduce face-to-face classrooms as the dominant teaching and learning environment has potentially neglected the impact of the pandemic on students. In abandoning virtual classrooms, the institution may have missed a prime opportunity to reflect, respect and recognise how continual provision of some virtual teaching and learning post-pandemic could support their diverse students' academic, professional and personal needs and enhance teachers’ digital pedagogies. This could be why, post-pandemic, "we have returned to a very different class".

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