Browsing by Subject "pandemia"

Aims. The purpose of this study was to picture e-learning in higher education during a global pandemic from the students’ point of view. The study focuses on how higher education students experienced e-learning, either meaningful or unmeaningful. The theoretical framework consists of previous studies concerning e-learning and meaningful learning. The theoretical background also contains a view of personality differences from the perspective of studying. The research questions are as follows; 1. How higher education students have experienced e-learning during pandemic? 2. Which factors have helped to experience the e-learning be meaningful? Methods. The research data has been gathered in individual interviews which took place at the autumn of 2020. Most of the interviews were conducted in zoom. The individual interviews were semi-structured theme interviews. Ten higher education students participated in the study, they were all between 21 and 25 years old and their institutions located all over Finland. The data of this research was analysed with qualitative methods using the databased content analysis. Results and conclusions. From the interviewee’s point of view e-learning was experienced as either meaningful or unmeaningful, depending on the individual preferences. Issues with technology, the lack of instructions and support were mostly experienced as declining the feeling of meaningfulness. Simultaneously longing for social interaction was connected with the personality differences. Of the features of personality orientation, mainly the introverts experienced e-learning to be more meaningful than extroverts. On the other hand, the experience of e-learning was also attached to individual’s attitude towards it. The findings give support to the idea that e-learning can be experienced in a meaningful way. However, it should pay attention to individual learning preferences.