Students’ Perspectives of the Economic, Financial, and Psychological Effects of Online Learning and Its Gender Association: A Cross-Sectional Study in Jordanian Universities

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Abstract

Introduction: Jordan declared a quarantine in March 2020 and shut down all educational institutions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. E-learning was a novel way to continue the educational process in the wake of the pandemic. The study evaluates online learning (OL), aiming to examine the economic, financial, and psychological effects of OL on students, as well as their concentration, university instructors' efficiency, and satisfaction with OL. This research also explores the gender association of OL effects in Jordanian universities.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. A self-filled questionnaire was generated using an online form and distributed to students at public and private universities through social media. The questionnaire utilized a five-point Likert scale to assess various aspects related to OL. The main evaluation involved a Chi-square test and posthoc test to examine gender-based differences in the factors associated with OL. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of 0.721 and a Cronbach's Alpha of 0.7.

Results: A total of 720 responses were collected and analyzed. The results revealed a significant gender association with the economic/financial (P=0.001) and psychological (P=0.002) effects of OL. It was observed that 65.3% of students reported feeling depressed due to online learning. Moreover, a significant correlation was found between students' concentration and university instructors' efficiency (P=0.00). Interestingly, only 14.72% of students believed university instructors were 100% efficient in teaching theoretical and practical subjects. Additionally, 55% of the students expressed their desire for university instructors to record lectures for ease of access.

Conclusion: The study concludes that OL's poor economic/financial effects disproportionately affect female students. On the other hand, male students were more likely to strongly disagree with the poor psychological effects of OL. Moreover, female students were more inclined to strongly disagree with the notion that OL has no psychological effect. Lastly, significant findings indicate that both students and university instructors share equal responsibility for the success of OL in Jordanian universities.

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Risk and Protective Factors for Prospective Changes in Adolescent Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Natasha R. Magson, Justin Freeman, Ronald M. Rapee … (2020)

The restrictions put in place to contain the COVID-19 virus have led to widespread social isolation, impacting mental health worldwide. These restrictions may be particularly difficult for adolescents, who rely heavily on their peer connections for emotional support. However, there has been no longitudinal research examining the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among adolescents. This study addresses this gap by investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents’ mental health, and moderators of change, as well as assessing the factors perceived as causing the most distress. Two hundred and forty eight adolescents (M age = 14.4; 51% girls; 81.8% Caucasian) were surveyed over two time points; in the 12 months leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak (T1), and again two months following the implementation of government restrictions and online learning (T2). Online surveys assessed depressive symptoms, anxiety, and life satisfaction at T1 and T2, and participants’ schooling, peer and family relationships, social connection, media exposure, COVID-19 related stress, and adherence to government stay-at-home directives at T2 only. In line with predictions, adolescents experienced significant increases in depressive symptoms and anxiety, and a significant decrease in life satisfaction from T1 to T2, which was particularly pronounced among girls. Moderation analyses revealed that COVID-19 related worries, online learning difficulties, and increased conflict with parents predicted increases in mental health problems from T1 to T2, whereas adherence to stay-at-home orders and feeling socially connected during the COVID-19 lockdown protected against poor mental health. This study provides initial longitudinal evidence for the decline of adolescent’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results suggest that adolescents are more concerned about the government restrictions designed to contain the spread of the virus, than the virus itself, and that those concerns are associated with increased anxiety and depressive symptoms, and decreased life satisfaction.

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Online University Teaching During and After the Covid-19 Crisis: Refocusing Teacher Presence and Learning Activity

Chrysi Rapanta, Luca Botturi, Peter Goodyear … (2020)

The Covid-19 pandemic has raised significant challenges for the higher education community worldwide. A particular challenge has been the urgent and unexpected request for previously face-to-face university courses to be taught online. Online teaching and learning imply a certain pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), mainly related to designing and organising for better learning experiences and creating distinctive learning environments, with the help of digital technologies. With this article, we provide some expert insights into this online-learning-related PCK, with the goal of helping non-expert university teachers (i.e. those who have little experience with online learning) to navigate in these challenging times. Our findings point at the design of learning activities with certain characteristics, the combination of three types of presence (social, cognitive and facilitatory) and the need for adapting assessment to the new learning requirements. We end with a reflection on how responding to a crisis (as best we can) may precipitate enhanced teaching and learning practices in the postdigital era.

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Distance learning in clinical medical education amid COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan: current situation, challenges, and perspectives

Mahmoud Al-Balas, Hasan Al-Balas, Hatim M. Jaber … (2020)

Background As COVID-19 has been declared as a pandemic disease by the WHO on March 11th, 2020, the global incidence of COVID-19 disease increased dramatically. In response to the COVID-19 situation, Jordan announced the emergency state on the 19th of March, followed by the curfew on 21 March. All educational institutions have been closed as well as educational activities including clinical medical education have been suspended on the 15th of March. As a result, Distance E-learning emerged as a new method of teaching to maintain the continuity of medical education during the COVID-19 pandemic related closure of educational institutions. Distance E-Learning is defined as using computer technology to deliver training, including technology-supported learning either online, offline, or both. Before this period, distance learning was not considered in Jordanian universities as a modality for education. This study aims to explore the situation of distance E-learning among medical students during their clinical years and to identify possible challenges, limitations, satisfaction as well as perspectives for this approach to learning. Methods This cross-sectional study is based on a questionnaire that was designed and delivered to medical students in their clinical years. For this study, the estimated sample size (n = 588) is derived from the online Raosoft sample size calculator. Results A total of 652 students have completed the questionnaire, among them, 538 students (82.5%) have participated in distance learning in their medical schools amid COVID-19 pandemic. The overall satisfaction rate in medical distance learning was 26.8%, and it was significantly higher in students with previous experience in distance learning in their medical schools as well as when instructors were actively participating in learning sessions, using multimedia and devoting adequate time for their sessions. The delivery of educational material using synchronous live streaming sessions represented the major modality of teaching and Internet streaming quality and coverage was the main challenge that was reported by 69.1% of students. Conclusion With advances in technologies and social media, distance learning is a new and rapidly growing approach for undergraduate, postgraduate, and health care providers. It may represent an optimal solution to maintain learning processes in exceptional and emergency situations such as COVID-19 pandemic. Technical and infrastructural resources reported as a major challenge for implementing distance learning, so understanding technological, financial, institutional, educators, and student barriers are essential for the successful implementation of distance learning in medical education.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Cureus

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Cureus

Journal ID (issn): 2168-8184

Title: Cureus

Publisher: Cureus (Palo Alto (CA) )

ISSN (Electronic): 2168-8184

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 5 August 2023

Publication date (Electronic, collection): August 2023

Volume: 15

Issue: 8

Electronic Location Identifier: e42994

Affiliations

[1 ] Department of Health Allied Sciences, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, JOR

[2 ] Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Balqa Applied University, Al-Salt, JOR

[3 ] Department of Biopharmaceutics and Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, Amman, JOR

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Husam ALSalamat husam.salamat@ 123456gmail.com

Article

DOI: 10.7759/cureus.42994

PMC ID: 10476692

PubMed ID: 37671204

SO-VID: 87df7af4-a3ba-4f48-ba77-03915a0f91e2

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This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Date accepted : 5 August 2023

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Students’ Perspectives of the Economic, Financial, and Psychological Effects of Online Learning and Its Gender Association: A Cross-Sectional Study in Jordanian Universities

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Risk and Protective Factors for Prospective Changes in Adolescent Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Online University Teaching During and After the Covid-19 Crisis: Refocusing Teacher Presence and Learning Activity

Distance learning in clinical medical education amid COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan: current situation, challenges, and perspectives

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