Literature Review

In more than a decade, the information and communication technology in education

had been significant and widely used as a supplementary teaching material in learning
process over a world. However, the sudden presence of Covid-19 pandemic by the
end of 2019 had change the curve of technology used in education. The widespread of
Covid-19 pandemic crisis has affected educational system worldwide from early
childhood education to higher education institutional, since the government had
announced total lockdown in which leading to closures of schools, university and
college. On 26 March 2020, UNESCO had reported that there are 1.7 billion students
from over 191 countries who are out of school due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Malaysia is one of those countries affected which has consequently lead to more than
90% usage of digital learning among the Institutional of Higher Education policies
due to this pandemic. However, there are less than 89% participation of the students
in digital learning as announced by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia and 3
out of 4 students have difficulties in internet connection. Therefore, this paper is
conducted to study the issues and challenges in adopting digital learning among the
students in the Institutional of Higher Education in Malaysia.

In e-learning environments interaction, cooperation and community play an

important role to support learning. The developments in the area of e-learning
environments provide new forms of interaction for learning experience. It generates
new relationships between learner and computer and also form a new learning
community. However, COVID-19 has shown a huge gap in digital divide among our
students. In order to learn online via these platforms, a student would need to have
access to the platform. In terms of access, the prerequisite to learn via the online
platform would be to have internet and a device such as computer, laptop, tablet or
smartphone (Wan, 2020). Generally, many studies has shown that providing facilities
such as internet access and devices are the biggest challenge in adopting online
learning. It includes the perception from teachers and learners side not because of
incompetence to get data connectivity, but somehow some area especially in rural
area does not have support of internet coverage. In Malaysia, there are some rural and
remote area such as the Orang Asal villagers in Peninsular, Sabah and Sarawak do not
even access to electricity, or it is very limited for night- time usage only. Therefore
the unavailability of internet access in some area was found difficult in applying the
distance learning. This statement had been supported by Hasan & Khan (2020),
Chung et.al. (2020), Wan (2020) and Yusoff et.al. (2020) as referring to the report in
Table 1 below:

Table 1: The most influencing factors in adopting digital learning

 Other factors that influence online learning include accessibility and affordability
of computers. There are complaints that students have to share devices with other
sibling or even their parents. Parents work from home have their responsibility in
fulfilling the job task and they work most of the time in a day. The concept of ‘one
family, one laptop’ are not practical anymore since every student nowadays are
compulsory to have one to fulfill their online learning requirement. Inaccessibly of
computers and internet technologies combined with lack of technical skills may cause
computer anxiety. Researchers found that the effective online learning required both
access and technical know-how (Rodriguez, Ooms & Montanez, 2008).

Although it is undeniable that online learning is deemed the best solution to

ensure continuity in learning in the era of “new norm”, there may be some setbacks
such as lack of human touch such as sensing students’ incomprehension via facial
expressions, cracking small jokes to enlighten mood, student engagement and
interaction which can be done more effectively in traditional face to face learning.
The absence of social interaction and the inability to form study groups previously
enjoyed by students are also some of the challenges they now have to contend with. In
this era of new norm, people get more demotivated because they are restless mentally,
physically and emotionally. Some students found that there was inconvenience
environment when applying online class at home. Interference from the current
condition is one of the factor that disturbing student’s focus on online learning. Some
family find this is the hard time for them to survive in continuing life, as the economic
goes down all over the world. Therefore, students are forced to work and study at the
same time and these will make them restless and lack of focus to fulfill the learning
requirement.

The practical usage of video conferencing platforms such as WebEx, ZOOM,

Google Meet as well as learning management systems conducted by the learning
institution have been encouraged to support students’ learning in all possible manner
during lockdown. Prior to the implementation of full online learning, blended learning
(BL) was used. The concept of BL was introduced to most disciplines by combining
the traditional face-to-face teaching and online communications. It is aimed to prepare
the students for self-directed learning, the overall satisfaction towards the theory and
real practices are still scarce (Abu Seman, Hashim, Mohd Roslin, Mohd Ishar, 2019).
Since the use of i-Learn was not compulsory, many lecturers chose other more user-
friendly and free platforms such as Google Classroom and other social media such as
WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube (Chung et al, 2020).

Lee, Yeung & Ip (2016), made a comparison among three key constructs of self-
directed learning (SDL) such as self-management, desire for learning, and self-
control, computer technology use and personal factors such as age, gender, language
learning anxiety and language learning style a university context. The major factors
that affected technology use for learning were students' own computer technology
skills, their attitudes towards it, learners’ learning styles as well as peer and teacher
support.

From the educators perspectives, the biggest challenge in adopting digital mode
of teaching is the method used in delivering content in practical or laboratory session.
Students will not get truth experience in conducting experiment or live skills since the
facilities are all in the learning institutions. If this new norm extended in long time
period, it will consequently leads to lack of student’s skills and practical knowledge to
be used in their career later on. Besides, there are some issues in measuring student’s
assessment on the subject. There are no standard policies in assessment method such
as examination through online learning. According to Chung et.al. (2020),
examination cannot be conducted fairly and truthfully since lack of monitoring
students when examination held.

Many factors influence students’ satisfaction with online teaching. This includes
interaction between students and teachers, interaction with fellow peers, content,
delivery method, technical support and support services. Technological know-how
and certain level of comfort with computer and internet technologies is the
prerequisite for learners to benefit from online instructional activities. Students’
satisfaction with online classroom is determined by students’ lived experiences of the
online classes. Satisfaction results from quality teaching and learning in online
environment. Studies supported time factor as a vital element in online teaching and
learning and reflected that flexible study time and use of multiple sources of media to
supplement instruction also affected students’ online learning. Interactive and
engaging course design by using graphics and text with learners having multiple
options to respond also influences students’ satisfaction with online learning.
Concerns have also been raised about the opportunities and quality of interaction
between instructors and fellow peers being provided in the online platforms. Human
to human social connection and relationship is also missing in online learning making
learners deprived from the benefits of learning with peers. Many studies supported the
view that lack of direct communication might also cause a feeling of isolation and
loneliness among learners using online learning platforms.

REFERENCES

Chung, E., Subramaniam, G., & Dass, L. C. (2020). Online Learning Readiness
among University Students in Malaysia amidst COVID-19. Asian Journal of
University Education, 16(2), 46-58.

Hasan, N., & Khan, N. H. (2020). ONLINE TEACHING-LEARNING DURING

COVID-19 PANDEMIC: STUDENTS’PERSPECTIVE. The Online Journal of
Distance Education and e-Learning, 8(4), 202.

Rana, H., & Lal, M. (2014). E-learning: Issues and challenges. International Journal
of Computer Applications, 97(5).

Shahzad, A., Hassan, R., Aremu, A. Y., Hussain, A., & Lodhi, R. N. (2020). Effects
of COVID-19 in E-learning on higher education institution students: the group
comparison between male and female. Quality & quantity, 1-22.