Adaptation to Online Technology for Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Observational Study of Effectiveness and Student’s Perception in Various Universities

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 is a newly discovered infectious disease caused by a virus named ‘coronavirus’. To control the rapid spread of the virus, Indian government announced lockdown in whole country. The lockdown has largely affected the lives of students because education was shifted from traditional classroom learning to online learning. After COVID 19 pandemic the online teaching-learning has become more prevalent in India, it becomes particularly important to know its effectiveness and to know whether it’s actually helping the students to achieve what they expect. Aim: The present study was designed to understand the effectiveness, student’s perspective, attitudes and readiness about online classes being conducted at the University level. Materials and Methods: An observational, descriptive study was conducted with a total sample size of 400. Students studying in four different universities were included in the study. The data was collected using a Questionnaire. A semi structured, self-administered questionnaire was prepared on Google Forms with open and close ended questionnaire and was circulated among university going students via WhatsApp and e-mail. The data was tabulated by Google spreadsheet. SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis. Results: Out of 400 students, who participated in the study, 55.25% students liked and 44.75% disliked online teaching during the lockdown period. However, 90.5% said that classroom was an effective platform for learning in comparison to online learning. Total of 6.5% subjects were completely satisfied, 24.5% somewhat satisfied and 8.25% were completely unsatisfied with online learning experience. A 44.75% student also felt difficult to spend several hours on mobile or computer. Conclusion: After analysing the results, it was concluded that the students liked the online classes but are not interested in continuing the same way after the lockdown. They felt that classroom teaching was more effective than online learning due to issues related to topic understanding, net connectivity, and lack of practical and/or demonstrations. Hence, certain improvements must be made to increase its acceptability amongst students.