Factors influencing the effectiveness of e-learning environment during Covid-19 pandemic within Malaysian private institutions: From Qs lecturers and students perspectives
List of Authors
  • Mazura Mahdzir , Sharifah Mazlina Syed Khuzzan

Keyword
  • virtual environment, e-learning, quantity surveying, private HEIs, effectiveness

Abstract
  • The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused huge impacts worldwide, and Malaysia has not been an exception. The impact of the pandemic was also felt by the educational segments in Malaysia. All layers of education, be it the pre-schoolers, primary, secondary well as tertiary students felt the impact. These education institutions were closed for several months during the first Malaysian Movement Control Order (MCO) 1.0. The teaching could only be continued by shifting the method towards online learning. Previous research found that one of the main reasons for high dropout rates of online classes is because online instructional design and delivery does not account for the distribution of diverse characteristics of online students. Therefore, this research tries to focus on finding ways to improve the new learning environment especially for Quantity Surveying courses which can be mentioned as technical courses or STEM courses. To achieve this aim, this paper has set the primary objective, which is to identify the factors that should be taken into consideration when designing an e-learning environment. A quantitative method was adopted to collect the primary data of the research through questionnaires. There were a total of 79 respondents involved in the Quantity Surveying courses. The method of analysis adopted for the quantitative data was the frequency analysis and descriptive analysis (using the IBM SPSS Statistic version 26). Based on the findings, it was found that a two-way interaction between student-lecturer, a clear course structure and organisation and designing the course content in an alive and interesting way placed in the first three rankings by the respondents. Therefore, by highlighting these findings, it is hoped that the lecturer can have a deeper insight into the students’ need to design an effective and efficient online learning environment, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.

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