Applying 4IRs in education technology to science pedagogy: effects and students’ experience

Education, technology, and economic growth are not only linked but synchronised to achieve holistic global development. An instance is the adoption of online platforms for learning and promoting economic activities during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. However, the lingering question among education stakeholders in Nigeria borders on what constitutes students’ experiences and how teaching in an online platform can foster basic learning outcomes in science. The study used a mixed method of explanatory concurrent design to investigate the innovation of online platforms for learning during the COVID-19 lockdown. The idea was to compare the innovation’s effects on participant and non-participant respondents. Of the 120 students studied, sixty students were selected from schools that adopted online learning platforms. They were comparatively paired with their contemporaries that did not adopt a similar innovation for analysis of their skills in problem-solving and critical thinking. Ten students who learned via online platforms were interviewed. Fallibilities associated with teaching–learning using online platforms were observed, coupled with the fact that the efficacy of online platforms in enhancing basic learning outcomes in science does not embrace critical thinking, but problem-solving. Therefore, actionable strategies by education stakeholders to design responsive and strictly academic online learning platforms were recommended.