Page 51 - IMDR EBOOK 20 OCT 2020

"Pandemic and Beyond: Naviga ng the New Normal" E - Book Year 2020

Impact of COVID-19 on the perception of students toward
7 E-learning in India

Dr. Shruti Nagar - Assistant Professor – DES’s IMDR, Pune
Abstract
In the present study an attempt has been made to identify the perception of students
towards e-learning amid Covid-19 lockdown period in India. In this study primary and
secondary data sources have been used. The data is collected through self-
administered, online circulated, structured questionnaire, which has fetched 182
responses from 16 states of India. The respondents were the students who are using e-
learning sources during lockdown pertaining to COVID-19 pandemic. The single cross
sectional descriptive research design has been used. For data analysis tables, pie
charts, bar diagrams and cross tabulation have been used. In this study it is found that
majority of respondents are using online learning for the completion of their regular
education program, signicant number of respondents have used e-learning mode for
the rst time during lockdown, and majority of the respondents are using smart phones
for attending session and nding e-learning platform to be user friendly. The device
being used for attending sessions has been identied as major determinant to decide
the degree of user friendliness of e-learning platform. The network/internet issues are
posing major challenges to success of online sessions in India which also highlights
digital divide across the country.

Keywords: E-learning, students, perception, COVID-19
Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected educational system worldwide. It has forced
educational institutions to close, which has impacted over 90% of the world’s student
population. As the face to face learning method is no longer appropriate during this
unusual phase of Covid-19 pandemic, the situation led to forced immersion of learners
into e-learning during this period of Covid-19 Lockdown. In order to continue teaching
and learning practices in educational institutions, our education system has resorted
to online mode of learning, which is an imperfect yet quick solution to the crises.
Many Covid-19 affected countries are striving to handle this disruption by deploying
different modes of learning through a mix of technologies. In such countries, their
education system has suddenly undergone a considerable change due to lockdown
scenario. To cope up with the situation and to utilize this time productively for the
students, the teachers and administrators are encouraged to continue the
communication with learners by delivering virtual live lessons or Massive Open Online
Course (MOOC)-styled ones.

Online mode of learning has brought a lot to the learning table at all levels of education,
beginning from preschool up to higher level institutions. This move of e-learning has
been facilitated by web service providers such as Google Classroom, Blackboard, Zoom
and Microsoft Teams, all of which play an important role in this transformation.
Teaching and student assessment are moving online, on an untested and
unprecedented scale with the limited required infrastructure .This temporary
lockdown of conventional educational set up is going to cause major interruption in
students’ learning, disruptions in internal assessments; and the cancellation of nal
assessments for qualications.
Many educational institutions have already started using e-learning platforms to
impart education to their students.
E-learning can be classied as – fully-online, hybrid or blended learning (also known as
mixed mode) and web assisted learning. In fully-online learning, there are no physical
contacts between the learner and the instructor, everything is done fully-online
through the use of internet and its technologies. Hybrid learning, unlike fully-online
learning, combines face-to-face meeting and interaction with online learning. Web-

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