Pedagogical inertia and asynchronous specificity: a heuristic model of post-covid teaching in higher education

Abstract

Our paper introduces a heuristic model to explain how the UK higher education sector’s rapid shift to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic may constrain subsequent pedagogical innovation. Adapting the asset specificity framework, first introduced in the 1980s, we develop the concept of asynchronous specificity, a form of pedagogical lock-in that arises when teaching materials and institutional practices become narrowly tailored to pre-recorded, non-interactive delivery modes. We argue that these covid-era adaptations, though necessary at the time, may have created structural and cognitive sunk costs that disincentivise research-informed pedagogical reform. Our model highlights the competing incentives facing academics, between compliance and innovation, and the institutional conditions under which innovation is more likely to be suppressed. While our approach is conceptual rather than predictive, our approach offers a diagnostic tool for understanding inertia in teaching practices and sets out an agenda for policy and professional development reforms. We conclude by arguing that unless emergency responses are critically reassessed, the sector may risk mistaking short-term coping strategies for long-term pedagogical progress.