The impact of Covid 19 pandemic on effective learning – Sharing a developing country’s Experience

Abstract

Background:

Covid-19 has gravely affected almost all activities of life worldwide; education is no exception. To overcome this situation most educational institutes tried to change the mode of education from usual face-to-face learning to E-learning.

Objective: To determine the perceptions of students towards different modes of distant teaching and its impact on effective learning during the Covid 19 era.

Method:

That was a descriptive study that focused on the students of graduation level in Karachi, Pakistan in different private universities. Most of the students were taking online classes after the announcement of the Covid-19 pandemic. The primary data was collected through an online questionnaire from November 2020 to December 2020. All the students who filled the questionnaire at the time of collecting data were included in the study. Two universities were selected, the total number of students in both universities was 600. With the help of Raosoft software we calculate the sample size. The total Population of these universities was 600, according to software need 235 students as a sample size. We used SPSS for statistical analysis with a 0.05 level of significance.

Results:

In our study, 57.4 % were male, and the remaining 42.6% were female respondents. As per responses, it was evident that before COVID-19 i.e. during the face-to-face study, the maximum use of digital tools in learning three to six hours, six to nine hours, and nine to twelve hours was just 28.9 %, 6.3%, and 1.47 % respectively.

Whereas, due to online study, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital tools in learning for the same duration increased manifold to 40.2 %, 31%, and 8 % respectively. This prolonged use of digital tools affects the sleeping habits of students and also causes tiredness and exhaustion. According to responses mobile phone was commonly used for e-learning. During e-learning, students could not concentrate on study properly and get distracted easily. Distance learning resulted not only in isolation of students but long stay at home caused laziness. Students did not recommend the continuous learning model because that is unhealthy and caused stress, frustration, and depression and are one of the reasons for low academic performance and lead to confusion as compared to face-to-face interaction which boosts the students’ performance. More than half (54%) students like and are comfortable with online quizzes and exams.

Conclusion:

It is concluded that in Pakistan, despite gaining colossal popularity nowadays, advanced innovative teaching has still not been comfortable for students in learning. Students are still more slanted towards face-to-face learning rather than e-learning. Educational institutes need to take essential measures for progressing online instructing quality to assist with better learning of students during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Keywords: Covid 19, Pandemic, Effect learning, E-learning