Attitude Of Undergraduate Students Towards Online Classes During Covid-19 Lockdown

Abstract

Online learning has already increased in the last decade tremendously but the COVID-19 outbreak has made the countries to adapt themselves to the new situation even in the education sector. The pandemic has made the learning institutions to adopt online learning. Like other countries, the government of Pakistan has decided to adjust the education from face-to-face mode to online mode. The present research aimed to determine the attitude of undergraduate students towards online classes in a Public sector university (University of Malakand) in KP. The study objectives were to measure the attitude of undergraduate students towards online classes and to find whether the attitude of the students towards online classes varies according to gender or not. Survey type and comparative research designs were used. The instrument used to gather the data was a questionnaire regarding the topic. The Questionnaire was pilot tested before implementation. The Cronbach’s Alpha was calculated 0.83. The sample size was 680 students selected from eight different departments through two-stage random sampling technique. Statistical tools employed were descriptive statistics. It was found that, there is a positive attitude of undergraduate students towards online classes. It was mentioned by the participants, that in spite of certain hurdles, the execution of online classes was a best option for utilization of time during COVID-19. It was recommended that appropriate policies should be prepared by policy makers to cope with the challenges in a calamity particularly in providing education to students. Funds should be provided by the government for the implementation of online learning system across the country. It was suggested that future research should be conducted on teachers, teaching and learning strategies and the impact of online classes in several other universities.