Moving from Conventional to Online Instruction: Students’ Perspectives from the Global COVID-19 Lockdown

The effects of COVID-19 caused (and is still causing) incomparable disruption to higher education everywhere although it has improved in 2021 to some extent with students now returning (or returned) to campuses. In 2020 somewhere around February, in a matter of days or weeks, campuses around the world went quiet as countries were locked down to contain the spread of the virus. Universities had to develop quick and innovative responses that would enable them to continue to offer teaching and learning when staff and/or students did not have access to a physical campus. An immediate, practical challenge for campus universities was to mobilize and assist teachers in designing and implementing alternative assessment models and scale learning support for specific units that did not rely on face-to-face presentations. This study examined the digital devices students use to access online lectures, the perceived benefits they gained, and the challenges they faced during the lockdown when they had to resort to distance learning during the global lockdown. A non-experimental descriptive design was chosen in which a number of undergraduate and graduate students were randomly selected to participate in the study. A sample size of 260 students was drawn with a simple random sample in which the subjects responded to a carefully designed structured instrument. It was found that there was no correlation between the use of technology for online teaching and the challenges they faced during the period. It was also found that students gained experience attending online lectures during the pandemic. There was an overwhelming response of motivation for students to engage in online lectures. Students were happy with the student-teacher interactions as they affirmed there was enough time given by instructors for them to ask questions or sought clarifications on issues that were not clear to them. In a sharp contrast, it emerged that there were some difficulties going online as compared to face-to-face instruction. They indicated again that there was frustration and lack of interest in learning while being locked down. Conversely, there was lack of direct face-to-face contact with lecturers which respondents deemed was quite frustrating.