Attitudes of Mohammadia School of Engineering Students towards Online Learning during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Covid-19 has pushed Moroccan education officials and stakeholders to shift to online education as the best possible substitute for in-class teaching. It was confirmed that face-to-face and physical contact are the main ways of virus transfer. So, school closure was an unavoidable decision by decision-makers and educationists alike. The sudden nature of the shift from in-class to online education means that both professors and students were not ready for this new form of education. This study, hence, investigates the attitudes of Mohammadia school of Engineering students in Rabat towards online education during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research design in this study is quantitative, in which questionnaires are used to collect data from 100 third-year students. The collected data are described and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings indicate that the majority of students believe online education is not as effective as face-to-face education. Respondents also mentioned some challenges and obstacles that hindered the success of online education. The findings lead the researcher to yield some recommendations in the field of online education in Morocco.

E-readiness of Engineering students in Morocco: students at Mohammadia school of engineers- Rabat as a case study.

“…So many research papers revolved around online education during covid-19 pandemic in Morocco. Studies investigated challenges and opportunies (Anigri, 2021), the impact of the shift to online education on academic achievement of students (Hibbi et al, 2021), teachers' attitudes (Razkane, Sayeh & Yeou, 2021) and students' attitudes (Laabidi, et al, 2022). Broadly speaking, these studies and others revealed a high tendency toward online education but also the existence of major barriers of a better implementation of online education in Morocco as: large classes, lack of technical support and incompetency in effectively teaching/ learning online.…”