International University of Malaya-Wales (IUMW) Student’s Acceptance of E-Learning during Covid-19 Pandemic
Asir Husain Kazi Mahmood1, Che Nur Amalina S. Che Zainal1*
1Faculty of Arts & Science, International University of Malaya-Wales (IUMW), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Received: 30 March 2023 | Accepted: 15 May 2023 | Published: 1 June 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajress.2023.5.2.8
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Abstract: The pandemic wave in 2019 changed the education landscape throughout the world.
The traditional face-to-face in class learning has turned to virtual meetings and leave no space to institution except to embrace digital learning as fast as they could. The change is not as simple as having a computer and attending the online class. The aim of this paper is to understand the student's perception of online learning. The paper is constructed through the review of previous literature from academic journals on various platforms and search engines along with interviewing participants from IUMW. This paper builds up the understanding of the challenges faced by the students in learning during the Covid-19 pandemic and further suggests strategies to improve the learning process of online learning. The results from the research shows that the students of IUMW prefer conventional learning. Thus, this research would lay recommendations on the foundation of digital transformation for higher education and the role of each stakeholder in this process of new education norms. Education institutions need to build resilient education systems to respond to the inevitable change and sustain quality education.
Keywords: E-Learning, Covid-19, Conventional learning
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1. Introduction
The year 2020 has been defined by the Covid-19 disease as most aspects of the economy have been severely affected by the disease. According to the World Health Organization, (WHO) reported more than 67 million people have been infected by the coronavirus since the start of the outbreak up till 8th December 2020. This affected the festivities that were going on, activities that were planned, the University students that were supposed to go to class had to quickly shift to online learning relatively overnight. At the time, April 13 2020 Malaysia had the highest rate of Covid-19 cases in South East Asia. It is speculated that about 30-40% of the Covid-19 cases at the time in 2020 was related to the Sri Petaling mass gathering. This was prior to the development of the ‘MySejahtera’ application, which is a contact tracing application developed by the Malaysian government to keep track of people and curb the Covid-19 numbers. The government officials had a tough time in tracking down the infected people from the Sri Petaling mass gathering as at the time there was no way for them to check and see who actually went to the gathering (Che Mat, Atan Edinur, Abdul Razab & Safuan, 2020).
With that being said, the main concerns of this whole issue are whether or not the students are prepared for the sudden changes. According to Allo (2020), students faced difficulties on
preparedness and the problems that might come with having a fully online class. Granted that the researcher conducted the research in Indonesia, where the internet access there is much more restraint whether it be financially or a reception issues. As online connections might differ for different people and miscommunication might occur. ElSahelo-Elhage (2020) pointed out a concern whether lecturers are also prepared or not for the emergency transition as it effect students directly mentally and physically. Thus, it is important to investigate further especially with regards to the students’ view during this Covid-19 emergency transition towards e- learning in Malaysia. The purpose of this research is to understand International University of Malaya-Wales (IUMW) students thoughts regarding the emergency transition to e-learning.
The Technology Acceptance Model has been selected to guide this research as it focuses on the students acceptance, and understanding towards e-learning. It is also to see whether not having any physical classes throughout the year will have an effect on students and their understanding of online learning (Handel, Stephan, Glaser-Zikuda, Kopp, Bedenlier & Ziegler, 2020). The research objective is to determine whether online learning is perceived as useful towards all IUMW students during this pandemic.
However, according to researchers in Poland, namely Rizun and Strzelecki in 2020, the researchers were looking into whether the students' enjoyment for e-learning would be a factor in them understanding what is taught to them. The researchers also looked into whether gender differences might have an effect on their understanding via online learning. For the students in Poland, it was concluded in the research that they enjoyed using the e-learning platforms as they considered it as intuitive and easy to use, thus they were able to understand what the educators were trying to teach them. Next, for the gender differences it was shown that it does not have any effect at all in the students' understanding towards e-learning platforms.
Other than that, during the pandemic, even medical students had to adapt to the ways of e- learning, and according to Roskvist, Eggleton & Goodyear-Smith (2020), The students were of course to use e-learning without choice and there were several ways the educators tried to make it as seamless as possible. They were tasked with an assignment daily. The students were also taught more in the sense of theoretical and alternative online programmes as a supplement to the physical training.
2. Literature Review
Online Learning System
The general perception of online learning is generally that it is not enough for students to fully rely on them and that physical learning is more effective. According to Rahiem (2020), students are enhencing their online skills and learning by searching information on the internet.
Furthermore, if there were any misunderstandings with the lecturers the students would ask their classmates in order to further explain what they just had learnt. Rahiem (2020) further added that the students would actually write down their notes physically as they would understand the subject better when writing it down.
Students were not prepared for having their classes fully online and were not sure that if they were prepared for a semester that is online only. Moreover students' perception of this is that they fear having fully online classes may lead them to have a reduced emotional health. The fact that they are interacting physically with others less can have an impact on it (Handel, Stephan, Glaser-Zikuda, Kopp, Bedenlier & Ziegler, 2020). The researchers proved that this does not have an effect on students as their work life balance is higher than their average scale.
They concluded that the students are well connected with social media and having more work online may cause more stress but in general speaking they are alright.
According to Huang et al. (2020) to solve this perception towards e-learning, stronger emphasis is needed in regards to the educator’s skills in making fully online friendly learning materials.
This can help encourage students and educators to feel more confident and have more trust towards the system. Next is to have more support for students that live in rural areas that may have poor internet connections as in China less emphasis is focused on these students. Lastly, an important finding in the research was for the government to help institutions to implement an online learning system that is user friendly and affordable for the institutions to use incase of another global issue such as this pandemic to appear again.
E-learning platforms are Perceived as Useful
This part of the review is to analyze whether students and to some extent educators would perceive e-learning platforms as useful. According to a research by Fagih (2016), the study was to be conducted on what effects the perceived usefulness for e-learning platforms and whether perceived value or perceived usefulness is more important for students wanting to adopt e- learning systems. The study was also conducted on studying e-learning adoption behavior among middle eastern students. Perceived value is based on an individual's perspective with regards to their overall feelings towards e-learning. The study concludes that perceived usefulness still remains as a strong indicator towards the importance of e-learning. However the study found that the system environment, which is its interface and user-friendliness are the big factors that would determine whether the e-learning system would be perceived as useful or not by students. Another point that helps students to perceive e-learning as useful is through social influence. Social influence from family members is the biggest factor for students to view it as useful, as if their family members are openly disapproving of the tool, the students would feel discouraged to use it and would then feel as though it is not as useful as it is (Faqih, 2019).
Students Understanding by Using E-learning Platforms
E-learning readiness is in regards to the student’s understanding of how to use technological equipment that is needed for e-learning. In the end it was shown that e-learning readiness was a determining factor for the students' understanding of online learning platforms (Yilmaz, 2017). Mejia-Madrid, Llorens-Largo and Molina-Carmona (2020), mentioned that there have been multiple proposals to improve upon e-learning. The researchers also stated that distance learning is when students can study at their own timing and at their own places. They further stated that online learning and distance learning may have certain differences but their end goal is for students to not attend physically. It is noted that for online learning, students are taking a more active role in learning when compared to physical learning when they are more passive.
In the case of online learning, the students are more aware of what is going on and their lecturers are considered more of as a guide rather than an instructor due to the fact that the students now have to organize a lot of their work and materials themselves.
Moreover, for learning in other stages, a research was done by Bahasoan, Ayuandiani, Mukhram and Rahmat (2020), towards the Indonesian University students and their aim was to test the effectiveness of online learning. Effectiveness meaning, students understanding towards it and also their satisfaction towards the learning. Their research did show that 56% of the students studied understood what was taught online along with the materials that were provided for them. However, quite a concerning percentage, 35% stated that they did not understand the materials and also what were they learning. Furthermore, 48% of the students
stated that it was effective but it was inefficient, 36% said that it was ineffective and inefficient, lastly only 17% of the students said that online learning was effective and efficient.
3. Methodology
Due to the purpose of this study that the researcher is looking into, which is, Understanding IUMW students' views during the COVID-19 emergency transition to e-learning, a qualitative research methodology was selected as it is a more suitable approach. This is due to the exploratory nature of this study. The study requires a qualitative methodology because, in order to understand the views that influence the way relationships are developed, it requires the researcher to explore multifaceted interpretations (different aspects) from key informants.
Furthermore, qualitative research is especially required for the researcher to explore the complexity of the subject through a more thorough understanding regarding the questions that will be asked. This method is meant to analyze the experience of the participants in a more detailed view when compared to quantitative analysis. This is due to the fact that the researchers would gather the participants exact words of their experience rather than a set of premade answers upon how they feel (Castleberry & Nolen, 2018). Research in such a situation is a function of researcher's insights and impressions. Such an approach to research generates results either in non-quantitative form or in the form which are not subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis.
Purposeful sampling at times is called the judgemental sampling. It is one of the key importance for qualitative research, and it is one of the most widely used sampling methods for it. For qualitative research, purposeful sampling would also help for the researcher to reach the saturation point. Saturation point is where the information collected from the research subjects reach a point where no new information with regards to the topic has been discovered. When compared to quantitative methods, it is more directed towards the generalization of thoughts, thoughts that were already selected by the researcher only for one of it to be chosen by the subject (Lune & Berg, 2017).
The research’s interview questions will be based on the research’s objectives. The amount of people interviewed will depend on the saturation point reached by the researcher. According to Silverman (2020), a researcher must know how to handle the situation when interviewing the participant. It was stated that having an interview is more in depth and may last as long as an hour, depending on what topic and what is asked, but it does provide a lot of data. In this research, all the participants in this study will be given a consent form, it is important due to the nature that some of the questions may be triggering to the participants, thus consent form performs as an outline of their rights as participants, which means they can control the interview process, namely, confidentiality and the refusal of withdrawal rights at the same time it demonstrates researcher's ethical standards and concerns regarding the responsibilities that researcher has towards participants. Next, consent form is a necessary part of social science research involving human subjects and can be utilized as a tool to establish trust towards the participants (Lune & Berg, 2020).
4. Results and Discussion
The first theme identified was Online Learning, and the subsequent branches are positive reactions, negative reactions, learning materials and students perceptions (Figure 1.0). The respondent’s responses will be analyzed according to that and also with the research questions.
The saturation point of the whole research was the fact that all students in the end prefer physical classes which would lead the students' perceptions to show that their preferences are in physical classes. The most prominent code in the research conducted was learning, online, class and physical. The themes were created through the codes and also through the answers of the participants in the interview. The respondents reacted in such ways where they reacted positively for certain aspects of online learning during Covid-19 and for other aspects they didn't react positively.
Figure 1: Themes identified on acceptance of e-learning
According to Mailizar, Almanthari, Maulina and Bruce (2020), one of the main reasons why students tend to prefer physical classes are the fact that the lack of time of preparation for a fully online class is one of the biggest issues for students to find it hard to completely adapt to it. Another issue is the technological barrier where the internet connection may cause an issue for students to fully be immersed in the learning process along with older hardware which might cause an issue for them too.
Students were ask on regards to the ease of use of online learning. When asked about the effectiveness of the learning materials used for online classes during this pandemic one of the students replied saying that the materials depend on the lecturers and what they provide towards the students. For this specific question, some of the students had different opinions on the matter as one said there's no difference at all between physical classes and online classes for learning materials and another said that it is not effective at all. Uukkivi and Labanove (2018) mentioned that to make learning materials easily used is to make them effective in the transfer of information from the lecturers and students. Having content that students can engage with may make it better for them to participate in the classes. For example, some lecturers would make videos that are suitable in the subjects and student’s language. In some languages, learning materials can be hard to come by hence the lecturers can make instructional videos or lecture videos in their respective language in order for their students to understand the subject clearly.
More interactive worksheets also could be recommended to be used by the University in efforts to gain the students’ attention and thus increase their understanding in class. Games like Kahoot are also a good example for students to be more attentive in class, as they would be interested in gaining the highest score in class. Sudoku can also be implemented in classes for students to find out what the answer is and Google Sheets can be used to do that (Uukkivi & Labanove, 2018).
In regards to the perceived usefulness of online learning, back in March 2020 Malaysia went into a total lockdown, forcing all Universities to go fully online. This would also lead to people believing that most youngsters are tech savvy people and hence they will easily adapt to online learning. However, in reality a lot of students were and are having issues with it. A lot of the primary and secondary school students have no access to smartphones and laptops and this will be a problem for them specifically to be able to continue with their learning. Research showed that over 70% of Malaysian students in the tertiary level prefers online learning however the minority that does not prefer online learning and are struggling through it (TheStarOnline, 2021).
Another participant responded to the question with the fact that online learning is indeed very helpful to him as the student would feel like it would either be online classes or no classes at all. If there were no classes at all he fears that he would not be able to continue with his degree and would most likely end his degree a lot later than it is supposed to be. Another student responded with the fact that online learning is helpful during the pandemic but in general terms she feels that it is not helpful when there is no pandemic as it is considered as mentally draining to her. According to the American Safety Council (2020), they stated that the advantages of online learning is the students’ safety and the ability to continue their studies especially during hard times such as these. They further stated that online learning can help the students finish their syllabus right on schedule rather than wasting time waiting out for the pandemic to end.
Online learning can also help other people build their skills faster and virtually, let alone the impact it can have on students.
5. Conclusion
It can be concluded that IUMW students generally had positive attitudes towards the learning management tool that the University was using at the time and the fact that Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of use were the determining factors on where students would accept Moodle as their main learning tool. The results of the previous research did show that the Effectiveness in Academic Performances relied heavily on Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness and it helped the students perceptions towards online learning at the time.
However, at the time the online learning was considered as blended learning as students were still allowed to attend classes physically and used Moodle according to their own leisure (Kazi Mahmood, 2019).
Furthermore, Allo (2020) stated that, generally the students would be fine with e-learning especially when they have a good and stable internet connection along with proper facilities to get on the internet with. In comparison IUMW students that participated in this research did mention that internet connection problems are an issue for them to understand and participate in their classes. This is a key factor on why the students in the end would prefer having a physical class if given the chance when compared to online learning. Moreover, when conducting this research, it is observed that with qualitative research the participants showed more depth and information than it would have been with a quantitative research, which was the researcher’s previous research methods.
Other than that, Edelhauser and Lupu-Dima (2020) mentioned that distance learning, which is a primitive form of online learning, has existed since the 1920s and probably even before that.
The researchers mentioned that online learning has transformed into a new social phenomenon rather than for it to just be seen as a virtual class. Online learning should have more interactive features and should be more appealing. This was also one of the factors why the students that
were interviewed preferred physical classes over online classes as they mentioned that online classes are not as interactive as it could be, the interface is confusing as there are several websites and apps the students have to use for different segments of their courses. The students themselves are confused with the multiple apps and websites to use, that is also considering if their internet is usable for the day. The conclusion should be concise and meet the objective(s) of the study.
Lastly, the students that were interviewed, even after all of the complaints that have been mentioned did state that they do rate the current system that IUMW has to offer at a moderate rate, which means that it is moderately useful. That shows that the online learning system that IUMW has is useful, the students at the end of the day are still learning and moving on academically. Regardless of their preference for traditional classes, they all collectively did admit that online learning is helpful for them especially at a rough time like now with all the lockdowns and Covid-19 cases rising daily. Furthermore, the students do find it helpful that they would not have to postpone their studies for the time being and can move forward with their studies and graduate on time without any delays whatsoever. Recommendation for the study is to use different approach on the methodology to have broader understanding on the acceptance of e-learning by the students. Beside that, respondents may vary from public and other private institution.
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