Abstract:

The pandemic of the past year forced higher education institutions to move from frontal to synchronous online learning via Zoom. This constituted a significant change, since only a few of these institutions had already integrated some form of online learning into their existing curricula.

The discussion regarding online learning in academia prior to the pandemic focused mainly on asynchronous courses. Thus, for example, academic MOOCs were first used to disseminate knowledge to a wider public. This was followed by the use of asynchronous MOOCs as an integral part of the academic curriculum mainly for introductory courses in degree programs.

Our study measured the attitudes of students in a pre-academic preparatory course during the pandemic period in which they were required to participate in an online asynchronous cMOOC-type course.

Participants were 64 students who were asked to complete a questionnaire containing multiple choice and open-ended questions. This questionnaire was based on: the questionnaire on Web Digital Leaders, Governmental and Local; the Perception of Self-efficacy Questionnaire and the Quality of Online Learning Questionnaire.

It should be noted that the students had already been attending synchronous courses on Zoom for several weeks, but had had no prior exposure to academic asynchronous courses. The research aim was to examine the students’ expectations and attitudes regarding asynchronous online learning while synchronous learning was also taking place via Zoom.

The study consists of pre- and post- questionnaires. The first asked the students to respond prior to the asynchronous course, and the second is to be completed after the course ends. The 64 students are all those studying in the online course. The first questionnaire has been administered and has undergone a preliminary analysis, while the second will be administered about a week from now, once the asynchronous online course ends.

References:
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[4] Mackness, J. (2017). Learners’ experiences in cMOOCs (2008-2016) [Doctoral dissertation, Lancaster University]. Lancaster University Publications & Outputs. https://doi.org/10.17635/lancaster/thesis/49
[5] National Union of Students (Sept. 2020). Student survey. (in Hebrew). https://drive.google.com/file/d/13qUSqwz0EN_BiiA7mDfmMOj_9xBJn-6x/view
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[8] Schreibman, Y. (2017). Everyone needs a leader, a “flipped classroom” model based on a high-quality MOOC. Teaching in Academia, 7, 40-45, (in Hebrew).

Keywords:

e-learning, Covid 19, cMOOC, Distance learning.