Student Perceptions of Online Education and Digital Technologies during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

Abstract

We designed a bibliometric review combined with a systematic review of relevant research on student perceptions of online education, which was conducted from March 2020 until September 2022 (focused on emergency remote teaching). By exploring the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases, we selected 154 articles addressing mostly positive/negative as well as neutral student perceptions. The methodology followed the Khan five-step approach and included a PRISMA flowchart integrating keywords for selecting the relevant quantitative data for the analysis. Evidence was brought forward identifying the advantages of online education based on efficiency-related factors, contributing to the supportive attitudes of the learners (digital technology application, self-directed learning and flexibility). Our analysis revealed that the pursued research field is still insufficiently explored. Universities must prepare more consciously for embedding current technological challenges to cope with unforeseen situations, such as an immediate switch from the classic face-to-face teaching to online based on digital technology education. The greatest challenge for the universities in the digital society is given by the just-in-time, flexible adaptation to the unplanned situations. Therefore, universities must always be prepared to make the switch from offline to online and vice versa—at the same time, guaranteeing the quality of teaching processes and student satisfaction. Future trends in education reveal the role of digitalization of the educational sector in integrating innovative technologies in the educational curriculum and calls for a new pedagogical approach that is centred on learners’ self-directed learning, collaborative learning and the cognitive and social presence of students and teachers. The most important contributions of the paper reside in an in-depth analysis of student perceptions of online education processes and their perceived advantages and disadvantages related to online learning experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. These advantages were analysed against efficiency-related factors, and, among them, the “application of technologies” is considered relevant for a niche investigation of the technology acceptance model (TAM).