The attitudes of students of Dhofar University towards online learning during

Covid 19 pandemic

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Contents
1.0. Introduction..........................................................................................................................................3
2.0. Aim (s) and Objectives of the Study.....................................................................................................3
3.0. Topic Justification................................................................................................................................4
4.0. Scope and Limitation of the Study........................................................................................................4
5.0. Initial/Brief Literature...........................................................................................................................4
6.0. Research Questions...............................................................................................................................5
7.0. Methodology and Data Collection........................................................................................................6
8.0. Ethical Considerations..........................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

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1.0. Introduction
Online learning has emerged as one of the emerging concepts as there is great influence of
technology on the individual learning due to the pandemic COVID-19 as majority of education
institutions were closed and the situation turned out to be quite challenging at every stage for
students. Online learning is the recent technological innovation to influence the system of
learning management and find suitable solution for educators and policy makers in order to
implement information technology during the season of quarantine and cover their coursework.
The stakeholders actually have effectively implemented technology since there is procedure of
education and reduce gaps to find result of consequence for different situation. However, Covid-
19 has made educational sector across Oman to suffer and there are e-learning activities
conducted by e-tutorials, e-lectures and e-case based learning etc. as the constant education is
provided in respective period. There are different online teaching software implemented by
teachers in order to facilitate students for maximum ease and convenience.

This study aims to explore the attitudes of students at Dhofar University towards online learning
during the COVID-19 pandemic. This approach will eventually assess the student’s attitude for
acquainted effective system. The results shall determine the perceptions of students at Dhofar
University as they prefer to understand the online learning procedure during the COVID-19.

2.0. Aim (s) and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to analyze the attitude of students at Dhofar University to the online
learning system in COVID-19 pandemic.

The objectives of the study are:

1. To study students objective towards online learning in Dhofar University during the
pandemic COVID-19
2. To assess whether students are able to study well online during the online lectures in the
COVID-19 pandemic
3. To highlight the challenges faced by the students during online learning in Dhofar
University during the pandemic COVID-19
4. To suggest suitable measures to enhance the process of online learning in Dhofar
University in the pandemic COVID-19

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3.0. Topic Justification
The concept of online learning gained importance due to the pandemic COVID-19 as every
educational sector is supposedly to be closed unless the world is free from the pandemic
situation. However, the reason to select this topic is that there is difference evident among the
students attitude in Dhofar University towards the practices of online learning and since the
growth of COVID-19 there is serious attention required to be paid on the situation to assess the
attitude of students towards the online learning platform. The reason to work on the topic of
online learning during the pandemic is that it is being practiced everywhere and the world is
majorly dependent on the online education system of learning.

4.0. Scope and Limitation of the Study

The scope of this study is to analyze the student’s attitude in Dhofar University towards the
practices of online learning in the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the world today is under the
influence of pandemic and Coronavirus actually sweeps its way across the globe and has created
an emergency situation worldwide. This study is to explore the perception of students towards
the online learning as educational sector such as Dhofar University practices social distancing.
The study is limited to Dhofar University, Oman and is conducted in the timeframe of the
shutdown in the lockdown during the pandemic situation.

5.0. Initial/Brief Literature

There is serious change in terms of perspective on online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic
as the emergency situations has brought a major change in the recent scenario for public entities.
A study by Adnan and Anwar (2020), indicate that the Pakistani higher education students have
compulsion on the distance learning and digital learning practices as online learning does not
produce any desired results in the regions and there is need to have access to internet with
monetary complications. There should be face-to-face interactions while the lack of socialization
has made huge issues to raises with education standards.

Similarly, Khalil et al (2020), presented in a study regarding the educational activities in Saudi
Arabia because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has brought unplanned change from the
traditional learning setup as there is digital teaching along with learning. The study reveals that
there is effectiveness based on the medical student’s perceptions and reveals online study has a

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major shift for effectiveness of learners. Kapasia et al (2020), states that the lockdown has
serious effect on the postgraduate learners as different universities and colleges in West Bengal
have considered online survey and use of structural learner phase in e-learning as students face
major problem connected with anxiety, depression and poor internet connection.

Allo (2020), investigate the perception of learners during online learning in COVID-19 and the
study indicate that there are major issues if internet availability faced by the students. The
condition of learners is quite complicated and Online Learning System has made the lectures and
individual tasks to affect since the pandemic has brought in the social distancing issues and have
made it difficult to study and access the online learning material. A study by Rajab et al (2020),
coronavirus (COVID-19) has eventually affected many sectors and eventually the reported issue
has actually brought negative influence on the world. The results indicate that there is major
online teaching/learning to be a major challenge as COVID-19 to actually boost the level of
confidence as the challenges have resulted in pandemic situation. Chang et al (2020), e-learning
has made the instructions to change when it comes to the suspension of online learning and the
study indicates there are difficulties and solutions prepared for online challenges. The results
reveal that the learning behaviors of students are compared with online learning levels which
have made it difficult to identify the major issues in online learning during the COVID-19.

A study by Radha et al (2020), indicate that e-learning during the lockdown has made the
situation deadly and there are no major effective teaching techniques available from national and
international perspectives. The study indicates that as far as the e-learning perspective of students
is examined there is need to study the interest of learners who prefer e-learning resources to
impact students’ performance in college and universities.

6.0. Research Questions

This study finds answer to the following research questions:

1. What is the attitude of students in Dhofar University towards online learning during the
COVID-19 pandemic?
2. What makes students to learn well during online lectures at Dhofar University due to the
pandemic COVID-19?

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 3. What are the challenges faced by the students during online learning in Dhofar University
during the pandemic COVID-19?
4. What are the suitable measures to enhance the process of online learning in Dhofar
University in the pandemic COVID-19?

7.0. Methodology and Data Collection

The primary data for this research is gathered by questionnaire that is distributed among the
students at Dhofar University. The secondary data for this study is collected from different
sources such as books, journals, magazines and websites etc. The methodology applied for this
study uses questionnaire with 23 questions designed by faculty member’s team and participates
with Dhofar University students. The students selected are from first year and second year of the
university. The questionnaire is distributed among the students and is in two formats i.e. multiple
choice questions along with rating questions based on five-point Likert scale. The simplified
statistical analysis uses five categories is grouped in three main categories such as agree, neutral
along with disagree.

There are questions based on demographics of students (gender, age and education year) along
with current experience based on online learning in Dhofar University. The assessment is based
on to review the consent of the participants of the study and use statistical package for the social
sciences (SPSS). The results gathered by questionnaire comprise of descriptive statistics as well
as chi-square test.

8.0. Ethical Considerations

The ethical consideration followed in this study is informed consent of the students of Dhofar
University in order to evaluate the participation and find access to the key findings. The
participants have informed consent and evaluation is necessary to make sure the participation is
effective. Another ethical consideration applied is voluntary participation of students from
Dhofar University as they are free to participate in the survey. The personal information of the
students at Dhofar University is kept confidential and it is made sure that confidentiality is based
on to make sure that the details of the participants are considered during the study. Anonymity is
a strict privacy ethical consideration and participants are totally unknown to make sure that the
research is free from all sorts of biases in terms of the social context of the study.
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References
Adnan, M. and Anwar, K., 2020. Online Learning amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Students'
Perspectives. Online Submission, 2(1), pp.45-51.

Allo, M.D.G., 2020. Is the online learning good in the midst of Covid-19 Pandemic? The case of
EFL learners. Jurnal Sinestesia, 10(1), pp.1-10.

Chang, C.L. and Fang, M., 2020, June. E-Learning and Online Instructions of Higher Education
during the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) Epidemic. In Journal of Physics:
Conference Series (Vol. 1574, No. 1, p. 012166). IOP Publishing.

Kapasia, N., Paul, P., Roy, A., Saha, J., Zaveri, A., Mallick, R., Barman, B., Das, P. and
Chouhan, P., 2020. Impact of lockdown on learning status of undergraduate and postgraduate
students during COVID-19 pandemic in West Bengal, India. Children and Youth Services
Review, 116, p.105194.

Khalil, R., Mansour, A.E., Fadda, W.A., Almisnid, K., Aldamegh, M., Al-Nafeesah, A.,
Alkhalifah, A. and Al-Wutayd, O., 2020. The sudden transition to synchronized online learning
during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia: a qualitative study exploring medical students’
perspectives. BMC medical education, 20(1), pp.1-10.

Radha, R., Mahalakshmi, K., Kumar, V.S. and Saravanakumar, A.R., 2020. E-learning during
lockdown of Covid-19 pandemic: a global perspective. International journal of control and
automation, 13(4), pp.1088-1099.

Rajab, M.H., Gazal, A.M. and Alkattan, K., 2020. Challenges to online medical education during
the COVID-19 pandemic. Cureus, 12(7).