Analyzing the students' learning behaviour for a technical course during COVID-19

Authors

Ashu Taneja, Chitkara University School of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, IndiaFollow
Ishwar Dutt, Chitkara University School of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, IndiaFollow
Ajay Sharma, Chitkara University School of Engineering and Technology, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh, IndiaFollow

Date of this Version

2-15-2021

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the learning behaviour of students towards a technical course in the two learning modes, remote learning (online) and in-person learning (offline). Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in India, the educational fraternity has successfully reached out to the students using the various virtual tools available. Although, the offline mode of teaching-learning i.e. the actual classroom interaction is quite important as far as a technical course is concerned, but during these tough times the online platforms like Zoom, Webex meetings, Google meet have made the teaching-learning feasible remotely at any time from any place. This paper compares the learning behaviour of students in the two modes, emergency virtual mode and offline mode. A total of 213 Bachelors of Engineering (BE) students studying a technical course, Modern and Computational Physics, participated in the survey and their responses based on a questionnaire were recorded. The questionnaire considered all aspects related to the delivery of contents, the evaluation method, the preferred way of clarifying students’ doubts, course difficulty level and duration of the course. The analysis suggests that 72.3% of students are in favour of learning this course using offline mode, while 27.7 % of students are comfortable with virtual online mode. Furthermore, the present study reveals that 95.7%, 95.3%, and 75.1 % of students are congenial with the offline mode in terms of teacher competency, content delivery, and interaction possibility respectively, whereas 85%, 76.9% and 48.4% of students are congenial with the remote online mode in terms of same parameters. The higher magnitude of average mean value for offline mode (3.99) anticipates its dominance over online mode (3.18). More than 50% students favoured online mode along with multiple choice question papers for the evaluation process irrespective of their preference to offline mode for teaching-learning. Based on the present analysis, some recommendations are proposed as the future strategies to improve the performance of teaching-learning activities during the times of crisis.