Effectiveness of Virtual E-learning Environment during COVID-19 Pandemic within Malaysian Private Institutions: from QS Lecturers and Students’ Perspectives

Yap, Kar Xin (2021) Effectiveness of Virtual E-learning Environment during COVID-19 Pandemic within Malaysian Private Institutions: from QS Lecturers and Students’ Perspectives. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused huge impacts worldwide and there are also no exceptions towards education segments in Malaysia. The teaching could only be continued by shifting the method towards virtual e-learning. Virtual e-learning environment is more on student-centered learning approach environment, which are contradict with the traditional ways of learning. However, when designing virtual e-learning classes, lecturers do not always take into consideration certain significant elements of teaching which includes the motivation of their student by often assume that all of the students are self-motivated and active students. Therefore, this research tries to focus on finding ways to improve this new learning environment especially for Quantity Surveying courses which can be mentioned as technical courses or STEM courses. This research has studied on the elements that should be taken into consideration when designing a virtual e-learning environment, the factors that may increase students’ motivation within a virtual e-learning environment and finally tried to match the similarities shared by lecturers and students for designing an ideal design learning environment during this pandemic. The literature review based on the objectives set for this thesis had been collected from the various journal articles, books, newspaper articles and more. Mixed method has adopted to collect the primary data of the research through distribution of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. For the questionnaire, there were total of 79 responses collected from the students who study in Quantity Surveying courses regardless the year of studies and the lecturers who teach under the Department of Quantity Surveying at the 9 number of private institutions. The semi-structured interview sessions with the selected 8 numbers of student respondents conducted concurrently with the data collection period of the questionnaire to provide a deeper insight on the research study. The method of analysis adopted for the quantitative data were the frequency analysis, descriptive analysis and Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test, while for qualitative data was the content analysis with pattern matching technique. In this research, it founds that the lecturer emphasised more on the elements related to the course structure and its designation on student-content interaction compared to the human interaction aspect, but the motivation of students is more affected by their own intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation on human interaction aspects like the role and involvement of lecturer and social presence. The only similarity shared was the lecturer chosen the element relate to the classes shall be design in a way which fits diverse characteristics and abilities of students as the least agreed element that that should be taken into consideration when designing a virtual e-learning environment, at the same time the students also chosen it as the least agreed factor that may increase students’ motivation within a virtual e-learning environment. This research study is expected could give some helps or guidelines for the lecturer to have deeper insight on the students’ needs in order to design an effective and efficient virtual e-learning classes especially during Covid-19 pandemic.