COVID-19 Pandemic: Malaysian Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning

Abstract

he Covid-19 pandemic has introduced a new normal characterized by online learning. Students and instructors have been forced to familiarize with the online technologies and media that will foster learning. While many institutions and learners have embraced it, they have different perceptions of online learning depending on their experiences. The following research, therefore, seeks to research on Malaysian undergraduate students’ perception of online learning. Participants were obtained from one of the Malaysian universities. Ten participants engaged in the research and data was collected using a semi-structured interview where the participants were asked questions related to the topic. On the type of media commonly used by the leaners, all said that they preferred WhatsApp groups while 30% and 10% preferred zoom meeting and Moodle respectively. On whether the faculty had adequate resources, 70% of the participants agreed while the rest disagreed stating that they miss lessons as a result of insufficient resources. 80% of the learners also pointed out the intensity and quality of the internet as the main issue. Moreover, they were being given more assignments than course material because of the low innovation among undergraduate teachers. Half of the participants agreed that teachers had adequate resources to facilitate online learning.