MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ TECHNOLOGY USAGE EXPERIENCE IN THE ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

This paper examined university students’ technology usage experience during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia. As this crisis continues into its third year, universities and schools across the world have had to close their campuses and adopt new norms of teaching-and-learning. What are some of the problems which students had encountered during their online teaching-and-learning (OTL) sessions or classes? In this study, the authors had surveyed eighty-five students from a local university, located in the mid-northern region of Malaysia. The study had used convenience sampling and an online survey form which was distributed via WhatsApp and emails. It was a quantitative study. The main findings include that a majority (88.2%) of the students reported using a combination of laptops and other devices, such as smartphones and home desktops. Moreover, one in four of them had shared their devices with their parents or siblings. In addition, slightly over half (51.8%) of the students surveyed reported difficulties with Internet access during their classes. The issues they cited mainly revolved around ‘poor internet connection’ and ‘unstable connection’. As a result, students were sometimes unable to respond to their lecturers’ questions in class or enter classes late due to Internet lagging issues. This showed that while the technology penetration rate is reasonably high among the students, their access to stable Internet bandwidth and connection remains a challenge and a problem. The authors concluded that the Malaysian government should continue to improve the country’s Internet speed and digital infrastructure while taking steps to narrow the pre-existing digital gap between the country’s haves and have-nots.