Abstract:

Covid has forced all students online. This situation allows us to build two groups of students based on self-assessment of their own online learning readiness on a scale from 1 (highly unconformable) to 10 (highly comfortable). The goal of this study is to understand the most important distinguishing factors between these two groups that can indicate online learning readiness.

Both groups of students are asked to answer two questionnaires. First, the Online Learning Readiness Scale (OLRS), covering five dimensions: self-directed learning, motivation for learning, computer/Internet self-efficacy, learner control, and online communication self-efficacy (doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.004). Second, they are asked to fill the emotional intelligence test Short Form (TEIS-SF) by K. Petrides and Furnham (2000, 2001), which Engin 2017 showed to have correlations with online readiness (DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2017.051306).

The OLRS identifies areas of weakness that can be supported by additional student training in areas of learner control, improved planning or self-efficacy with technology. Teachers can support shy students by enabling anonymous questions. The answers may also provide us with insights into which components need particular curricular support through the university in order to support online situation or general ability to study successfully.
In contrast, the second questionnaire regards emotional intelligence and regards factors that are more difficult to influence. Outcome of the current study may provide a self-assessment for students to indicate their online readiness. In addition, a catalogue of trainable tasks from the first survey provides recommendation on important self-improvements.

186 students participated in the survey from the Cooperative State University of Baden Württemberg. 88% of these came from the major of Computer Science, the rest were business & economics students. Around 75% of the students identified themselves as male. The respondents were about equally distributed across semesters 2, 4, and 6 at the time of the survey.

Looking at the distribution of the self-assessed online learning readiness between 1 and 10, two distributions overlap with the lower mean at 4 and the higher at 8. 42 students consider themselves not ready for online learning (<=5) and 128 students assessed themselves higher than 7.

Out of the five categories in the OLRS, computer self-efficacy, motivation for learning did not pose a challenge for the students. However, self-directed learning was considered difficult for both groups. In particular, managing time and learning goals. While the distribution is on the lower end of ability for the group that judges themselves as less ready to study online, there is a sizable subgroup of the group of online readiness students who need training in this area. The same phenomenon describes the distribution of answers for the questions on directing own learning progress and repeating instructional materials in learner control and confidence in asking questions in online discussions in the area of online communication self-efficacy.

The emotional intelligence survey indicated at least 7 items that differ significantly between the two groups. These refer mostly to being highly motivated persons, believing that life will turn out well, ability to adjust to changes, speak up for themselves, and deal well with stress.

For the final paper, we will study interrelations between the two surveys.

Keywords:

Online Learning Readiness, Emotional Intelligence Level, Distance Learning, Learning strategy, Student Well-being.