Students’ perceptions of online learning in non-L1 environments

ABSTRACT

The current study aimed to explore the perceptions of Saudi undergraduate students towards online learning during COVID-19. A total of 198 students completed a survey to this end. The results of the survey showed that the three factors referred to as ‘effectiveness of online learning,’ ‘interactivity of online learning’ and ‘counteractive online learning’ explained 46.67% of the variance in results. Additionally, the students showed great appreciation for the flexibility and comfort related to online learning. They also acknowledged that online learning helped improve their academic performance, increase their motivation, share ideas, and interact with peers in groups. However, the students expressed their dissatisfaction with online learning with respect to reduced interaction with the instructor, the increased sense of loneliness and isolation, the inability to cater for the variety of learning styles, and their inability to control learning. The results are interpreted in terms of the existing literature and the Multimodal Model of Online Education.

KEYWORDS:

• Online learning
• COVID-19
• multimodal model for online education
• non-L1 learning environments

Acknowledgments

The researchers thank Prince Sultan University and Florida Gulf Coast University for funding this research project through the research lab [Applied Linguistics Research Lab - RL-CH-2019/9/1].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The researchers thank Prince Sultan University and Florida Gulf Coast University for funding this research project through the research lab [Applied Linguistics Research Lab - RL-CH-2019/].