The Investigating The Undergraduate Students’ Readiness to Participate in Online Classes Amid Covid-19 Outbreak: A Survey of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sindh, Pakistan
A SURVEY OF SHAHEED BENAZIR BHUTTO UNIVERSITY, SINDH, PAKISTAN
Keywords:
Readiness; online classes; undergraduate students; COVID-19 outbreakAbstract
The study aimed to investigate undergraduate students’ readiness to participate in online classes amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The study was quantitative by method and descriptive by purpose. Convenience sampling was used. Data was analyzed through pie charts and the percentage was calculated. The survey was conducted online through multiple WhatsApp groups of the undergraduate students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Shaheed Benazirabad. A self-developed questionnaire containing 10 items, with a 5-Point rating scale was sent online to 245 participants, amongst 156 (63.6%) participants responded. 74 (47.8%) of the participants were not prepared and rejected the online classes. 82 (52.3%) participants had not gone through online training sessions, just 54 (34.8%) participants were trained. 72 (45.8%) did not want to move towards online education, they prefer face-to-face classes. The institution had even not proposed any online tool to drag students online. 108 (69.6%) participants had limited internet connectivity. 97 (62.5%) participants had not laptops/desktops but they had smartphones available. Most 129 (82.6%) of the participants had not substitute power source available as they faced power outage. 82 (52.2%) participants couldn’t utilize possible alternative resources to participate in online classes. 7 (4.2%) respondents had even not either laptops or smartphones available. Findings show that the students rejected online classes due to facilities unavailable. It is recommended that the university must include online classes in its policy and arrange pieces of trainings, and propose online learning platforms before any disruption of on-campus classes
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