Impact of online education during covid-19 in Kerala agricultural university:students' and teachers' perspectives

Abstract

The present study entitled “Impact of online learning during COVID-19 in Kerala Agricultural University: Students’ and teachers’ perspectives” was conducted in the four colleges of Kerala Agricultural University viz, College of Agriculture (CoA), Vellayani; CoA, Vellanikkara; CoA, Padannakkad and CoA, Ambalavayal. The objective was to study the perception of students and teachers about effectiveness of online education, delineation of factors affecting its effectiveness and identification of constraints therein. The sample consisted of 150 students and 40 teachers from the four colleges under KAU. Based on the judges rating and literature review, ten and eight independent variables were selected for the students and teachers, respectively. Perception of students and teachers about effectiveness of online education were selected as the dependent variable for the study. The variables were measured and analyzed with the help of various statistical tools like frequency, percentage analysis, mean, standard deviation, quartiles, chi square test, correlation and t test. The detailed investigation on the profile characteristics of students pointed out that, majority of the students (80%) were females, more than half of them (60%) belonged to rural family background and majority of them (55.8%) had medium annual income. Majority of the students (58.67%) were quite ready for the online classes during COVID-19 and most of them (86%) had self-owned devices for attending online classes. Seventy-one percentage of students had medium exposure to technology and seventy three per cent of the students used digital technology at a medium level. Majority of the students (68%) had medium adaptability with digital platforms and learning management system and nearly half of the them (46%) had fair quality of internet connection for attending online classes during COVID-19. The proportion of students who intend to continue their education online (50.67%) is marginally higher than the reverse (49.33%). Analysis of the profile characteristics of teachers revealed that majority of the teachers (65%) were female and half of them (50%) were middle aged. Majority of the teachers (65%) had less teaching experience. More than half of the teachers had prior 140 online experience before COVID-19 (60%) and had received training for taking online classes (65%). Sixty three percent of teachers belonged to the category of medium use of digital technology and majority of them (60%) had good quality internet connection for conducting online classes during COVID-19. More than half of the teachers (52.5%) had positive continuance intention for online education. The results of the study revealed that majority of the students (64%) and teachers (60%) had positive perception about effectiveness of online education. There was no significant difference observed between the perception of students and teachers about online education during COVID-19. Based on the result of chi square test, profile characteristics of students such as place of residence, annual income, continuance intention, e-readiness, exposure to technology and internet accessibility were found to have significant association with the perception of students about online education. In case of teachers, profile characteristics such as gender, age, prior online experience, training received and continuance intention had significant association with perception about online education. Among the five factors affecting effectiveness of online education viz., selfefficacy, subjective norm, attitude, digital competence and technostress, subjective norm had the highest score for students as well as teachers. Self-efficacy and attitude had positive significant correlation whereas subjective norm and technostress had negative significant correlation with the perception of students about online education. For teachers, self-efficacy and attitude had positive significant correlation whereas technostress had negative significant correlation with the perception about online education. In case of constraints in online education during COVID-19, technological and health constraints were ranked as the important constraints faced by students whereas insufficient/ unstable internet connectivity followed by the technical problems were the important constraints faced by the teachers. To conclude, students and teachers had shown interest in the use of online education in their academic activities and its use was no doubt intensified by the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though online education had worked as an 141 aid during COVID-19, shifting completely to online mode may not be possible in agricultural education system where many courses are practical oriented. Hence, there is a need of designing a hybrid mode of education which will be beneficial for both teachers and learners during any future crisis-like situations.