Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 affected online teaching processes in higher education all over the world. Universities have suddenly been forced to switch to online teaching and adapt their online teaching methods to a large number of students and learning materials. The transition to online methods was complicated because fluency and high quality of teaching had to be maintained at the same time. The aim of our study was to reveal the attitudes and perceptions of the impact of online teaching on Janos Selye University (JSU) students during the second wave of the pandemic (2021). The goal was to show how students perceived online teaching, what positives and negatives flowed from online teaching, what teaching methods suited them the most and, conversely, which they considered worse than face-to-face teaching. The study also assessed the level of materials provided, tasks and testing methods, teacher readiness and stress factors in online teaching. Due to the lockdown, the study was conducted electronically in the format of an online questionnaire. 202 students of the Faculty of Education and Economics of JSU answered the questionnaire.

The results showed that 36% of students were satisfied with the transition to online learning. However, almost as many students as 29% perceived it negatively. We did not find a significant difference according to gender and place of residence. As the main negatives of online teaching, students identified long-term social separation from classmates (70%, SD=14.33), lack of personal contact and interaction with teachers (50%, SD=12.15), and technical problems (62%, SD=9.81). On the other hand, the biggest positives were home comfort and the elimination of the need to travel to the university (78%, SD=11.42), more flexible time for learning (62%, SD=17.11), protection against COVID-19 (56%, SD=9.23) as well as time spent with family and financial savings (51%, SD=8.84). Communication and teaching of students during the second wave of the pandemic took place online through the MOODLE or BigBlueButton systems, respectively, individual consultations via e-mail, chat and social networks dominated. As the study's results indicate, modern online technologies contribute to the sustainability of the educational process during an emergency and will become an integral part of higher education even after the end of the pandemic situation.

Acknowledgement:
This research was supported by the Cultural and Educational Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic (Project No. 002PU-4/2021).

Keywords:

COVID-19, online teaching, higher education, Slovakia.