Graduate Students Experience with E-Learning: A Distressed Country Context

Abstract

E-learning has always been adopted in higher studies since the rise of the web and internet among the technological revolution. Hence, when the global COVID-19 pandemic hit all the countries, responsible authorities in the educational sector worldwide came to a conclusion that e-learning must be adopted and implemented in all educational levels with no exceptions in order to escort the educational programs already set for the year and to save the educational system especially with the lockdowns that took place all over the world. In fact, as any newly implemented system, there has been some deficiencies as it is reflected on further in this research study, but these deficiencies are more remarkable in developing countries rather than in developed countries which is due to the lack of IT infrastructure and resources, and very bad internet connectivity among other factors in those developed countries. The aim of this study is to explore the factors that affect students’ satisfaction with online learning in a distressed country context, as well as to compare public and private educational sectors in terms of e-learning readiness elements in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We took Lebanon, a distressed country, as a case to assess students experiences with e-learning in both private and public educational sectors. Using a convenience sampling method, a sample of 307 graduate students agreed to participate in the study and filled in a survey, where 146 of them were graduate students at a private university in Lebanon (American University of Beirut) and 161 were graduate students at a public university in Lebanon (Lebanese University). The study found that institutional readiness for adopting online learning, lecturers’ readiness to design their courses through e-learning setting and students’ readiness to use e-learning were significantly and positively associated with students’ satisfaction with online learning. However, the students’ psychological distresses caused by COVID-19 pandemic were shown to be negatively associated with students’ satisfaction. More specifically, students experiencing higher levels of psychological distresses are less satisfied with online learning. Moreover, the study found that students who are employed and have a greater level of institutional and lecturer readiness are more likely to have a positive experience with online learning. On the other hand, students in public educational sector are less likely to have a positive experience with e-learning compared to students in the private sector. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the private educational sector was more ready to implement online learning than the public sector where institutions, lecturers, contents/materials and students in private sector were ready for the new learning system compared to the public sector. Also, it was revealed that some demographic factors affect students’ readiness where males and employed students were shown to be more ready for distance learning than females and unemployed students.