COVID-19 and tertiary students’ knowledge, usage and challenges of using online learning platforms
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Date
2022
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Publisher
Cogent Education
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in most universities engaging in
emergency online learning, which they were not adequately prepared for. The
emergency nature of the learning process raises questions on how students are
able to effectively engage in the process. This study explored undergraduate students from the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Ghana’s knowledge,
usage and challenges of using online learning platforms during the 2019
2020 is the second semester of the academic year. The students had to complete all courses
online in the middle of the semester because of the pandemic. Five hundred and
thirty-eight (538) students participated in the study; a survey was used to collect
data from the students. Descriptive statistics (percentages and frequencies) and
inferential statistics (t-test) were used to analyse the data. The results show that
not all students who took part in online learning knew about online learning
platforms, indicating that students were not given the needed training before all
courses were migrated to be taught online. Almost half (45%) of the students were
not engaged in online platforms for learning before COVID-19, indicating engaging
Online learning was a very new experience for many of the students. As a result,
some students were not able to use and engage in the online platforms and a lot of
them indicated they were not comfortable learning online. Access to internet data
(61%), stable electricity (54%), technological equipment (47%), internet connectivity
problems (77%) and geographical location (47%) did not allow some students to
participate well in online learning.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
tertiary students, challenges, online learning platforms