Online teaching during the covid-19 pandemic: how do high school students describe their attitude towards e-learning in bhutanese classroom?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unforgiving disruptions in public education all over the world and brought about coercions of fragmentation in society. In Bhutan too, the continuity of education and learning has been greatly affected as a result of the closure of schools and the imposition of public restrictions and health protocols following the COVID-19 pandemic. E-learning was adopted hurriedly in the country to provide continuous education amid the pandemic lockdown. Therefore, to foresee the acceptance and applicability of e-learning in Bhutanese classrooms, this study focused on examining high school students' attitudes towards e-learning and their preference between classroom learning and online learning. Adopting the simple random sampling technique, 101 high school students who were exposed to e-learning for almost two years were selected as study samples. A purposive sampling technique with preceding information relevant to the study was used to select the sample school. A mixed methods approach was adopted to assemble the data. Grounded theory coding systems, descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The result of the quantitative data revealed that more than fifty percent of the student participants showed a positive attitude towards e-learning. It was revealed that not only perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use influenced the students' favorable attitude towards e-learning but also accessibility to ICT gadgets in their daily lives incurred a positive impact on it. On the contrary, the lack of in-person interaction, the tediousness of prolonged online lessons, and distraction by the play apps were some of the aspects that contributed to having an unfavorable attitude towards e-learning. The result from qualitative data revealed that most of the students preferred classroom learning over online learning based on different motives like classroom learning being more reliable, has in-person interactions, and their prolonged exposure to the classroom approach, which is more realistic. The findings from the study can be handy for curriculum developers, school administrators, and educators while making decisions on the adoption of e-learning.