Adoption of e-learning during covid-19: higher education students’ perspective in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the educational system around the world; it has forced the closure of educational institutions, which has a negative impact on the students’ fraternity around the world. COVID-19 required containment and enforced isolation because of its contagious nature, which has a significant impact on teacher-student interactions. Computer-based learning has emerged as the closest equivalent for off-line instruction in the absence of traditional classroom teaching and one-to-one engagement. In light of this, its important to look into students' adoption and readiness for the online-learning system that has been implemented at the university level during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify the attitude of the students’ towards e-learning and the e-learning system during the Covid 19 pandemic. The present study adopted a quantitative approach, with responses collected from 128 university students from several Higher education institutes via an online questionnaire. This investigation was carried out during January and June of 2021. This study finds that students' demonstrated positive attitudes towards e-learning, as a result, students accepted the new learning system as a learning platform. In reality, e-learning has evolved as a new technique that increases the learning process with social media interaction so that potentially e-learning facilitates the learning process. The study's findings will help educational institutions and policymakers take online learning to the next level in a more effective way