Acceptance and Use of Emergency Online Learning Post Covid-19 Pandemic: A Study Based on ESL teachers and Students in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted tremendously on daily functions, and the education sector has undergone major changes. Notably, the shift to emergency online learning has led to a myriad of positive and negative perceptions from both teachers and students. Though e-learning has been prevalent since Education 4.0 emerged as an aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, it came into the spotlight during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a post study to the two preliminary studies the researchers have done on the attitudes of ESL teachers and students towards online learning, this study was developed with the objective of investigating if both the teachers and the students would prefer online learning in a post Covid-19 world. For the purpose of achieving the objective, the researchers conducted survey research with online questionnaires and interviews as a part of the mixed-method approach employed. The same sample of sixty teachers from primary, secondary, and tertiary levels and a hundred tertiary level students from major state universities were selected. As the data disclose, the majority of the teachers have mentioned that their computer literacy is low level and connection issues are a major barrier. If e-learning is to be continued post pandemic, teacher-training programs and projects related to enhancing the facilities of e-learning are essential. The student responses reveal that they are deprived of social interaction that might lead to increased stress, frustration, anxiety, avoidance of lessons, and notable behavioural changes. Therefore, both the teachers and the students prefer on-sight classrooms post pandemic. Observing the results of the previous research studies and upon the comparison of the results of the two preliminary studies, the researchers came to the conclusion that the ESL teachers and tertiary level students in Sri Lanka highly believe on-sight classes should be conducted in the post Covid-19 world.