Evaluation of E-learning Experience in the Light of the Covid-19 in Higher Education

Abstract

Covid-19 has been stated as a worldwide outbreak of pandemic disease and crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically affected the teaching and learning experience at universities and schools. In response, governments and higher education institutions around the world put significant efforts to ensure that students continue to obtain the best possible level of education and learning outcomes. As such effective evaluation of e-learning is essential in order to ensure that students get proper learning and education especially during the current circumstances of Covid-19. Our study was carried out to determine the main elements and factors related to students’ satisfaction and quality of e-learning during the Covid-19 pandemic era based on various aspects and dimensions of e-learning. The main findings of the study indicated that students satisfaction and evaluation of the e-learning experience during the pandemic were not promising. Therefore, higher education institutions should reconsider their efforts and approaches to improve the quality of e-learning and the learning outcomes achieved. For example, IT infrastructure, Internet access, and particularly network connectivity could be improved to support fully online courses. Such elements need to be addressed because of the prevalence of the current Covid-19 pandemic which perhaps will lead to e-learning occurring for a long time. With the move to e-learning, the size of the class (the number of students in each class) has been increased leading to other significant challenges related to communication and participation in the class and reducing the possible interactivity for each student. Furthermore, it has been also observed that new students need relevant training on IT and e-learning applications to ensure sufficient use and utilization of these applications in their e-learning journey.