“Teachers, I have got something to share!”: NSTRU Students’ Reflections on Online Classes during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This research examined students' reflections on university administration, advantages, and obstacles they encountered while studying online during COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020-2021. The sample consisted of 357 undergraduate students who were randomly selected to answer the questionnaire. Other 19 volunteered students were interviewed to validate the quantitative data. The questionnaires were analyzed through descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and content analysis was employed for the interview data. The results from quantitative and qualitative methods were concomitant. The quantitative results indicated that the top three reflections on management were imposing policy and plan, organizing teaching and learning activities, and follow-up and learning assessment ( = 4.21, 4.15, 4.06, respectively). The advantages of online learning were reducing the pandemic, convenience to study and saving time, and increasing digital literacy ( = 4.50, 4.18, 4.18, respectively). The interview results confirmed all these findings. The key findings on obstacles the students encountered were the inconvenience in doing group work with whelming homework, the low capability of mobiles and electronic equipment, and lack of motivation (  = 4.18, 4.05, 3.82, respectively). The emerging interview results revealed that the students' smartphones or computers performed low capacity to produce quality work, and had physical and mental health deterioration. The students' reflections on advantages can be used to fine-tune policy, plan, systems, and measures to serve the students' needs whereas the disadvantages can be considered in remodeling the policy and measures to prevent or reduce chronic problems in the long run.