Students' Emotions towards Online Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged in November 2019 and has since been declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The pandemic initiated a new norm of living, pioneering various forms of communication by creating new teaching-learning activities and pathways particularly at higher education institutions (HEIs). Traditional learning methods have been replaced with online learning as a mean to reduce the spread of the pandemic in compliance to the social distancing requirements. It has forced many HEIs to adopt remote teaching and learning. Students and lecturers of Kolej Universiti Poly-Tech MARA (KUPTM) also had to immediately change from physical teaching and learning methods to online learning. The adaptability of the students to the new norm is an important concern to the management of KUPTM. As such, this study was conducted to investigate how undergraduate students cope with the new situation and seek to understand their emotions. The students’ emotions towards the new learning method are evaluated using a 24-item questionnaire to measure enjoyment, pride, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and boredom. Eighty two respondents who took mathematics and statistics courses during semester of April 2021 participated in the study. The descriptive and correlation analyses indicate that the respondents enjoyed and pride themselves in attending online class during pandemic. Interestingly, the research also proved respondents’ have low scores on anger, hopelessness, and boredom during the class. Correlation analysis also found that pride, enjoyment, hopelessness, and anxiety have weak correlation with students' CGPA. Alternatively, household income and stability of the internet connection do not have significant correlation with students’ emotions during online learning. This study concludes that students can adapt themselves to new norms in teaching and learning methods.