Learning in the Online Environment - Student Perceptions and Predictions

Abstract

The solution provided by information and communication technology to the educational challenges that the education system has faced as a result of the pandemic situation due to the COVID-19 virus has been generally agreed upon and accepted on a planetary scale by the entire academic community. For an important period of time (approximately 1.5 years), the didactic activity took place mainly asynchronously. The implications of this fact on academic performances, the quality of the didactic act, and the well-being of students are addressed in many studies in order to find out answers considered as predictions of future instructive-educational actions. The present study is also included in the same dimension. The results recorded or highlighted the fact that learning in the online system presents both advantages (maximizing the use of time due to the elimination of losses due to travel, domestic comfort, and the exclusive decision to interact) and disadvantages (deficient feedback, investment of intellectual effort to obtain a positive relational agreement); motivation was slightly higher, assessment anxiety and learning efficiency were lower, while comfort and satisfaction with learning did not register significant changes. The preference that students emphasized for the way the didactic activity should be carried out aims at an alternation of synchronous and asynchronous activities in the mixed system, doubled by learning in the online system.