a small-scale study to investigate iranian university students’ challenges in online classes during covid-19 pandemic: bronfenbrenner’s theory in focus

The advent of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 wrought havoc across the globe in terms of health, national economies, employment and education. on other hand, with the prevalence of covid-19 disease and the advancement of technology, digital literacy becomes one of the most popular and challenging issue regarding the training of students. the present study aimed to compare the challenges faced by university students majoring english language teaching (elt) with the students of architecture in online classes during covid-19 based on bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. this study enjoys a qualitative design. the participants were 3 elt students and 3 architecture students of azad university in mahabad. all the students participated in online classes for three semesters during covid-19 pandemic. data collection relied on individual semi-structured 1-hour phone in-depth interview. the findings generally revealed that both elt and architecture students’ insufficient knowledge and unfamiliarity with the teaching platform and technology tools created some concerns and hinders in the process of learning english. specifically for some students, online learning environment was more advantageous and high-qualified than in-person classes whereas for some others, it was not so effective due to lower digital knowledge. more significantly, architecture students faced more challenges and problems than elt students. finally, the sources of students’ challenges were elicited and categorized based on bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. the findings might provide some theoretical and practical implications for language teachers and learners and curriculum developers.