Students’ perception of online education in an agricultural university during covid-19 pandemic
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Date
2022-04
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Covid-19 pandemic has adversely affected the educational institutions across the world resulting in the closure of these institutions. There were irregular academic sessions affecting the completion of the students’ degree programmes and also their career prospects. Enforced isolation and consequent lockdowns tremendously affected personal interaction of teachers and students, and all other educational activities. In the absence of traditional classroom education and one-to-one interaction, online education has emerged as an alternative for off-line education. Educational institutions worldwide shifted to online education to overcome anticipated academic loss. Online education became the main method of instruction during the pandemic. The common online platforms used were Zoom, Google Classroom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams which offered online interactive classes; and WhatsApp to communicate with students outside the class. The purpose of this study was to find socio-personal, psychological and communication characteristics, to assess the students’ perception of online education and constraints faced by them during the sudden transition from traditional face-to-face education to an online education due to the pandemic. The crisis-response of university students, challenges and suggestions has also been discussed in this study. The study was undertaken in the Uttarakhand state. G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Udham Singh Nagar was selected purposively as locale of the study since it had the maximum number of undergraduate students and also due to the lockdown situation. A total sample of 150 respondents was selected through PPS method. Descriptive research design was used for this study. The data collection was done using a self developed, pre-tested online survey through Google Form. The data were classified, tabulated, analyzed and interpreted using appropriate analytical and descriptive statistical techniques like frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, correlation and t-test. The findings revealed that 54.00 per cent of the students were pursuing BTech and 24.67 per cent BSc Agriculture, 10.00 per cent BVSc, 8.67 per cent BHSc and only 2.67 per cent were of BSc Fisheries. There were 55.33 per cent male, majority (61.33 per cent) of them belonged to urban areas and mostly (92.67 per cent) had English medium of basic education. Majority (64.67 per cent) of them had mediocre academic performance, majority (62.00 per cent) had medium level of mass media exposure and most (99.33 per cent) of them
owned internet. Majority (83.00 per cent) of the students had not attended any online course prior to the conduct of online education during this pandemic and 97.00 per cent of them agreed that university had begun online classes in the wake of COVID-19. Most (89.33 per cent) of the students suggested traditional classes could be managed with online classes and majority (86.00 per cent) of the students had medium
level of basic information regarding online education. Majority (54.67 per cent) of the students felt less confident. Mostly (94.67 per cent) they got updates and activities through WhatsApp, preferred device for 50.00 per cent of the students was smartphone and most (96.00 per cent) of them had mobile data pack as the source of internet for attending online classes. Most (95.33 per cent) of the students preferred nature of course material in the form of video content supplemented with reading material, majority (66.00 per cent) of them preferred nature of video content as per the convenience and requirement of the course under study by the instructor and most (92.67 per cent) of them
preferred live online classes as suitable format for classes. Most (93.33 per cent) of the students preferred the course instructor to conduct online classes as per the schedule, for majority (71.33 per cent) 45 minutes was the suitable duration of online classes, majority (76.67 per cent) of them liked to spend 2-4 hours for online classes and most (90.67 per cent) of them preferred 15 minutes of break in between two consecutive classes. Students (58.67 per cent) preferred both WhatsApp and other platform for posting queries as a way for clarifying queries with an expected time for clarifying within next class for majority (72.00 per cent) of students. Most (96.00 per cent) of the students felt 5-10 minutes of quiz during each class is necessary to achieve better. Majority (88.00 per cent) of the students did not feel assignments at end of every class to be necessary to achieve effective learning and most (93.00 per cent) of them wanted one week as the deadline for submitting assignments. Majority (71.00 per cent) of the students liked to attend online examination and most (89.33 per cent) of them preferred both objective and subjective nature of online examination. Majority (84.67 per cent) of the students had ‘Neutral’ perception towards online education. Majority (71.00 per cent) of the students had medium level of benefit and most (96.00 per cent) of them felt ease and quick share of educational material, and ability to record a meeting or lecture to be most beneficial. The findings regarding relationship between selected socio-personal, psychological and communication characteristics with students’ perception of online education revealed that academic performance and self confidence has a non significant negative and mass media exposure has a significant negative relationship with students’ perception of online education. There was a non significant positive relationship between basic information regarding online education and students’ perception of online education. A non significant negative relationship of mass media exposure and a significant positive relationship of self confidence were found with students’ preferences for online education. There was a non significant positive relationship of academic performance and basic information regarding online education with students’ preferences for online education. The findings regarding some constraints, attributes, their expectations and suggestion from the students point of view were, most (98.67 per cent) of students felt data limit, data speed (98.00 per cent) and lack of connectivity (97.33 per cent) as the major constraints during online education. For most (96.67 per cent) of the students, attributes that affected their learning effectiveness was lack of interaction between students-teachers and student-student and most (99.33 per cent) of them expected theory classes from instructors during online education. To improve online education experience, most (76.00 per cent) students’ suggested availability of notes, ppts, pdfs, handouts etc. Majority (68.00 per cent) of students thought that online education experience should continue even if the regular offline classes begin.