Using Students’ Experience to Derive Effectiveness of COVID-19-Lockdown-Induced Emergency Online Learning at Undergraduate Level: Evidence from Assam, India

Abstract

The COVID-19 episode has left the institutions worldwide, which were earlier reluctant to change their traditional pedagogical approaches, with no choice than an emergency shift to virtual learning, creating several arguments associated with digital infrastructure, digital divide, digital literacy, technical and pedagogic skills of teachers, digital contents and so on. With this background, this study intended to assess the implementation mechanism of COVID-19-lockdown-induced emergency online learning at undergraduate level in Assam, its effectiveness, and finally the problems faced therein, from the perspective of students’ experience and satisfaction. Primary data were collected from 132 undergraduate students drawn at random from different provincialized colleges in Assam through using a questionnaire in Google Form structured on the basis of available literature. The result revealed that 46.21% students perceive emergency online learning partially effective, 34.09% as effective, and 19.70% as ineffective. Poor Internet connectivity, irregular electricity, high cost in data plans, lack of compatible devices, lack of conducive environment at home, lack of technical and pedagogic skills of teachers, insufficient students’ engagement and so on, turned out to be the main challenges of online learning. Thus, the findings sufficiently yield the need of collaborative effort to improve digital infrastructure, reduce cost involvement and well-structured teachers’ training on pedagogical and technical skills. Creating, adopting and evaluating innovative techniques and tools, student-friendly contents, and above all a positive attitude are next to none measures to be accelerated for inclusive and effective online delivery of higher education in India in coming days.

The mental impact of digital divide due to COVID-19 pandemic induced emergency online learning at undergraduate level: Evidence from undergraduate students from Dhaka City

“…However, a large number of smartphones are not compatible to attend long-term interactive video classes. So, around an hour of class duration may bring the possible best outcome from the undergraduates ( Rahman, 2021 ; Rafi et al., 2020 ). However, compatibility of the device is not the only issue of attending long interactive online classes.…”

“…However, compatibility of the device is not the only issue of attending long interactive online classes. Availability of electricity and a significant amount of mobile data is also as important as the compatibility of the device to attend online classes ( Rahman, 2021 ). However, due to financial emergencies for parents during the COVID-19 pandemic, the dropout rate is expected to reach 30 percent due to the inability to attain basic equipment (e.g.…”

“…However, due to financial emergencies for parents during the COVID-19 pandemic, the dropout rate is expected to reach 30 percent due to the inability to attain basic equipment (e.g. electricity, device, internet) to attend online classes ( Rahman, 2021 ; Nitu et al., 2020 ).…”

“…The findings of the research unveiled students’ opinions and level of satisfaction towards different aspects of online learning during the pandemic. Rahman (2021) has listed strong mobile network, high-speed Internet connectivity, incessant electricity service, favorable study environment at home, basic technological skills both for students and teachers are some of the prerequisites for attending online classes.…”

Experiences of online learning during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period: a cross-sectional survey among the college students in India

“…The study conducted by Rahman et al supports our findings regarding that most of the student's online learning included faculty lectures followed by sharing of supplementary study materials in PDF/word files and giving assignments. 14 It was also commonly felt that more engaging and effective methods and materials like animation modules, audio-video clips, and quiz are less used by teachers.…”