THE UNIVERSITY of Mindanao Institute of Popular Opinion conducted an online survey from Sept. 26 to Oct. 6, on college students to assess their readiness, attitudes, behavior, perception of usefulness, ease of use and acceptability of online learning.
Since the survey was done online as physical contact was not allowed during the time of conduct of the study, IPO relied heavily on online survey of Facebook users who are college students and are enrolled in any higher education institution in Davao City who matched the predetermined criteria within the defined geographical radius.
Six questions were asked to cover basic questions such as readiness in using technologies in online learning, accessibility of the online learning platform used, ease of its use, perceived productivity in learning, and usefulness of learning platforms in daily learning.
The survey yielded N=1,171 responses after certain quality checks were made to each respondent.
When asked about their general behavior in using technology in learning amidst pandemic, 3 in 10 students (or 34.4%) responded that they are generally hesitant of using technologies in the conduct of the study.
Meanwhile, almost 4 in 10 college students (38.3%) responded that they are neutral, or simply cannot tell whether they are at ease with technology or otherwise, while about 3 in 10 (27.2%) said they are fine in terms of technology use.
All college student respondents asked were all currently enrolled students in any HEI in Davao City, and all are using or required to use learning platforms in their studies.
When asked about accessibility of their learning management systems (LMS), nearly 5 in 10 (45%) said that they can access their learning platforms regularly, if not most of the time. In addition, 3 in 10 responded neutrally (32.6%) while 2 in 10 students (22.4%) said they encountered difficulty in accessing their lessons via learning platforms.
Of the students who found ease of accessibility of learning platforms, nearly 5 in 10 students (47.25%) have either agreed or strongly agreed that it was easy for them to use their learning platforms. Only a few of those who can access their platforms (4.36%) said that they have difficulty in using LMS.
Respondents were also asked about the usefulness of learning platforms and their perception of their productivity in learning in their respective higher education institutions. These questions were asked because no physical face-to-face classes were allowed at the time of the survey in compliance with the directives of the IAFT and the City Government of Davao.
Nearly 5 in 10 college students (45.9%) said that they cannot comment whether online classes through the use of learning platforms made their learning experience a lot easier, and only nearly 3 in 10 (28.5%) are convinced that learning platforms are better at this time. Also, nearly 5 in 10 (45.9%) students are neutral on the question of whether online learning has made them productive, while 3 in 10 students (34.11%) agreed that they are productive in terms of online learning.
Finally, when students were asked about the acceptability of using learning platforms in their daily learning, 4 in 10 students (42.1%) said that they find them useful in this time of pandemic, 4 in 10 (44.5%) were neutral, while about 2 in 10 (16.9%) disagreed on the usefulness of learning platforms on their daily learning.
