An Investigation on Students-Instructors' Interaction in Online Learning Environment: A Survey among ESL Students

Abstract

As interaction is required in the online learning environment, it emphasizes that the most important key to create an interactive online language learning is the initiation of interaction by the instructors. The use of technology has made it possible to have more fascinating and productive teaching and learning process, particularly in language learning. Thus, when students and instructors engage, there is a chance for an educational transaction to occur. However, it remains unclear the action and reactions take places during the teaching and learning process. This leads to a question on how the teaching and learning process will be balanced between the instructors and the students. Hence, this study was carried out to investigate the students-instructors interaction in online learning as interaction is needed in learning environment. This study used a quantitative method through survey, with data obtained via an online questionnaire. The respondents were 40 ESL Postgraduate students enrolled in online learning at public university in Malaysia. Data collected were analysed using Statistical Package Social Science (SPSS) version 26. It also been presented in the form of frequency, percentage and mean scores. The findings revealed the students-instructor interaction is vital and ESL students had positive respond towards it. Most of the students believe that in online learning most of the instructors have good content of knowledge (M = 4.50). This shows their instructors still manage to engage with the students and did a lot of preparation in order to transfer the knowledge. Besides, future research could further explore on the gender of the instructors which it might have any effects on students interaction in online learning. It could contribute to a deeper understanding on the influence of instructor towards students interaction.