Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education of State Universities Sri Lanka: Student’s Perspective

Abstract

Online teaching and learning became popular among Sri Lankan state universities with the Covid-19 outbreak and due to various other reasons, such as convenience of traveling, lack of sanitary facilities in hostels, continuous electricity breakdowns. It has been continuing even after the pandemic due to the country’s economic crisis. Although most of the state universities have transformed their mode of teaching, learning and assessment from a typical method (student and teacher meet face to face physically) to online method, yet to know about the success of this transformation, in particular from students' end. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the success of adoption of online teaching and learning of state universities in Sri Lanka. To achieve this objective, we collected data from undergraduates of 7 state universities in Sri Lanka and we launched an online survey to collect data. This study was a descriptive study and data were analyzed through Descriptive Statistics tests and post-hoc analysis was done using independent sample T-tests and ANOVA. Results of this study showed that satisfaction, suitability, and future preferences for E-learning differ from gender, university, previous E-learning experience, residential environment, and year of study. Student’s needs, capabilities and facilities should be matched with university expectations to formulate successful E-learning experience in future. The results of this study provide a significant contribution to decision makers in teaching and learning. The main limitation of this study is the sample of this study limited to undergraduates in selected state universities in Sri Lanka.