Faculty’s and Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning During COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted teaching in a vriety of institutions. It has tested the readiness of academic institutions to deal with such abrupt crisis. Online learning has become the main method of instruction during the pandemic in Jordan. After 4 months of online education, two online surveys were distributed to investigate faculty’s and Students’ perception of the learning process that took place over that period of time with no face to face education. In this regard, the study aimed to identify both faculty’s and students’ perceptions of online learning, utilizing two surveys one distributed to 50 faculty members and another 280 students were selected randomly to explore the effectiveness, challenges, and advantages of online education in Jordan. The analysis showed that the common online platforms in Jordan were Zoom, Microsoft Teams offering online interactive classes, and WhatsApp in communication with students outside the class. The study found that both faculty and students agreed that online education is useful during the current pandemic. At the same time, its efficacy is less effective than face-to-face learning and teaching. Faculty and students indicated that online learning challenges lie in adapting to online education, especially for deaf and hard of hearing students, lack of interaction and motivation, technical and Internet issues, data privacy, and security. They also agreed on the advantages of online learning. The benefits were mainly self-learning, low costs, convenience, and flexibility. Even though online learning works as a temporary alternative due to COVID-19, it could not substitute face-to-face learning. The study recommends that blended learning would help in providing a rigorous learning environment.

School teachers’ perception and challenges towards online teaching during COVID-19 pandemic in India: an econometric analysis

“…Our analysis demonstrates that on average, teachers of any sort of schoolwhether government, aided and private have a positive opinion of online teaching amidst of COVID-19 outbreak as a combined mean of positive opinion was greater than negative one for minimized learning gap. A similar result was discovered for university teachers in Jordan as they felt that e-learning is beneficial during the present pandemic (Almahasees et al, 2021). Although some university teachers in Karnataka have mixed feelings toward online classes (Kulal and Nayak, 2020).…”

“…The second highest response received on the factor, teachers were "facing difficulties in student retention" in online classes is 47.5%. Similarly, lack of interaction and motivation, technological and Internet concerns, data privacy and security issues have all been mentioned by Jordan faculty and students in online learning (Almahasees et al, 2021). A total of 33.5% of the teachers opined that they are not satisfied to deliver content in online classes.…”

Online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: Perceptions of allied health sciences undergraduates

“…Additionally, online learning offers flexibility regardless of location and time, and it becomes a tool to avert the corona outbreak and ensure social segregation. 12 …”

The Usefulness of Online Learning During the Covid19 Pandemic as Perceived by Engineering Education Students: A Multidimensional Model

“…Extant research shows various perceptions of distance education usefulness. Many studies are highlighting the advantages of distance learning in terms of learning flexibility, efficiency, and outcomes, self-efficacy, comfort (Almahasees et al, 2021;Cicha et al, 2021, Garcia-Alberti et al, 2021Fahrurrozi et al, 2020;Manea et al, 2021;Rizun & Strzelecki, 2020;Rets et al, 2021). Also, most studies emphasize an agreement on the fact that the educational created by the Coronavirus pandemic, online teaching and learning became a global solution -embraced by the whole world -that tried to cover, at least in part, in part the problems encountered by the educational systems.…”