Effectiveness of Online Pedagogy of welding Skills during the COVID-19 Period: A Systematic Review

Online learning was created as a result of the huge industry disruption that occurred in March of 2020. Online education presented unique difficulties for learning in an entirely virtual setting with a concentration on psychomotor skill development, calling into doubt its efficacy. Finding a practical replacement for lab-based hands-on activities and group or team-based learning experiences was extremely difficult for technology education. This study compares the COVID-19 time to the pre-COVID period to assess how effective online teaching and learning experiences were in technology-based education. Just 20 randomized controlled trial publications, out of which 15 studies were used in the meta-analysis, were included in the review after an electronic search of the literature. Using Review Manager 5.3 to examine the data, Cochrane’s 2 test and I2 were used to determine heterogeneity. The meta-analysis shows a very reliable sensitivity analysis and a substantial pooled effect size of (SMD = 4.49 @ 95%, CI = 2.37 – 3.63 @ p.00001) from the test scores in favor of the experimental group. The results of the included studies’ sub-item achievement test results reveal a statistically positive difference in every category of welding skill tested. Studies demonstrating the effectiveness of online pedagogy in the covid era are the source of the current statistics. These results point to the need for additional investigation into the development of psychomotor skills in other technology education courses.