Adult and Youth Students’ Perceptions of Distance vs. Face-to-Face Courses’ Effectiveness in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

On account of its contagious nature, COVID-19 has resulted in various containment measures and mandatory isolation, affecting the personal interaction between students and instructors tremendously. In the absence of face-to-face interaction and traditional classroom teaching, computer-based learning has come out as the closest substitute for offline teaching. In addition, adult and youth students’ perceptions of courses’ effectiveness towards online learning as compared to traditional face-to-face learning have largely been overlooked and thus should be designed based on the needs of adult learners. This paper aims to fill this void in the literature, presenting results indicating all students’ positive perceptions towards e-learning and thus acceptance of this new learning system. It also empirically demonstrates the significance of e-learning in the time of this COVID-19 crisis. The results also point out surprising differences in students’ perceptions of the importance of communications and collaboration, effectiveness, and self-efficacy, and surprisingly differences exist between the performances of youth and adult learner groups. Under the current debates on the cost and teaching quality of higher education, the findings herein should help educational institutions in their improvement of higher education and student enrollment and retention.