COVID-19 Lockdown Impact on Libyan University Instructors' Scholarly Research Engagement

Abstract

The present study attempted to investigate if COVID-19 lockdown has an impact on scholarly research engagements among Omar Al-Mukhtar University instructors in Libya. Ninety-three university instructors responded to a two-item web-based survey designed via Google forms from 11 May to 12 June 2020. The findings revealed that the COVID-19 lockdown negatively affected the majority of participants' scholarly research engagements. It is concluded that these results could be attributed to three reasons 1) difficulty of collecting field-based data, and 2) stressful life events due to the COVID-19 lockdown, 3) engagement in professional development webinars and online courses.