Remote Learning Versus Traditional Learning: Attitudes of University Students

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In the time of current crisis that is exponentially spreading globally and changing well-being and lifestyles of world population, educational institutions need to adjust to the changing world. The most important action so far has been to replace traditional teaching/learning by remote teaching/learning seeking to avoid a wide circulation of virus infection. Experts of different fields, in particular psychologists, do not fundamentally support such an approach because of the lack of the usual social communication among learners. Others believe that remote learning (RL) makes education flexible; students and teachers do not commute, which saves time, money and energy. However, it is essential to find out perceptions and opinions of the most affected people by contemporary changes of learning environment. This article investigates students' opinions about remote learning versus traditional classroom activities.

In response to the coronavirus outbreak in January 2020, the Ministry of Education in China announced the postponement of the 2020 spring semester for all schools and colleges and issued guidelines for online teaching and learning as temporary measures until schools could reopen. All educational institutions were expected to make full use of a variety of online courses to arrange appropriate activities to maintain and guarantee teaching quality, i. e. online teaching was not optional but required for all higher schools [1. P. 345—348]. In response to the crisis, a nationwide educational experiment in China has spread globally worldwide. It means online teaching was not optional but obligatory for all schools and universities which were forced to change plans how to implement it. H. Pu shares his experience of online teaching and describes the challenges and fears he had to overcome, such as a digital divide among students, slowdown of the Internet caused by too many users being online at the same moment as well as the syllabus, the problems of participants' insecurity, isolation and lack of social presence [1]. Teachers all over the world who have never had the experience of online teaching had the same problems. They were involved into the unique experiment and had to adapt themselves to the new educational environment and learn how to employ new ways in online teaching. It meant to update their teaching and learning philosophy and apply their common beliefs and methods of teaching and learning online.

A. Tombrella, for instance, points out that he needed to revisit his teaching philosophy and apply that philosophy to the new situation. He describes the teaching philosophy as a statement of one's beliefs and thoughts about what is important in teaching and learning. The author points out some typical statements found in a teaching philosophy: "Differentiation in the classroom helps every student to succeed" and "Lesson pacing minimizes student behavior issues" [2]. However, when faced with a crisis, the author suggests condensing the teaching philosophy to three brief statements which are: 1) concepts are crucial, 2) process over product, 3) relationships rule. The next step that A. Tombrella suggests is using a novel philosophy. He outlines it as the following framework to his revised teaching philosophy:

Capability: What are the capabilities of your learning platform, yourself, and students? Reliability: Are your plans and software reliable? 

Inability: What are you not able to do in this situation?

Suitability: Are your plans suitable for the current situation? 

Ingenuity: How can you be ingenious and still hold true to your philosophy?

Sustainability: Is what you're doing sustainable in the long term [2]?

The application of this teaching and learning philosophy might be beneficial to majority of teachers who need to adapt the teaching within their own setting, to grasp the local situation and understand the global relevance of this issue.

Another contribution to the philosophy of education is a magnificent review of the latest book Peacebuilding in Language Education by R.L. Oxford et al. [3]. It describes peacebuilding as an important source for our personal use as human beings developing our own inner peace and thus being able to function happily in life—at peace with ourselves and at peace with the others and the world. The mission is to turn our attention to the importance of peace and the role education has in spreading it. This book is recommended as a tremendous read which offers a refreshing, creative, eye-opening perspective on what we as teachers can do in the L2/foreign language classroom to contribute responsibly to the world around us, even beyond our immediate zones of action, at the time of Pandemic.

According to a recent research by E. Asagli in Israel, many studies have indicated that despite the assimilation of new and varied technology in schools and universities, the teaching and learning culture has not changed and remains traditional, which is a direct result of the fear of online learning. In the meantime, the education and learning system is at a crossroad: either online learning triggers a change in the system or it becomes an alternative to it. We will have to wait a number of years to see which road the education system goes down in the future [4].

H. Coker argues that to develop online practice and ensure that the learning which takes place is high-quality and comparable to the face-to-face setting, it is important to consider the philosophy, purpose, and pedagogy of the online lecturer. In her research, three foci were identified, which related to lecturer's approaches to communications: knowledge, affect, and dialogue [5].

The researchers in Taiwan conducted 4 weeks of synchronous teaching with the aim of evaluating learners' satisfaction with ICLHE (Integrated Content and Language in Higher Education) online activities during the Pandemic. The students completed a weekly online survey to evaluate their learning, the practitioner's teaching, and the platform. Results revealed that online lessons may not work well in a remote learning due to decreasing motivation, greater distraction, lack of actual interaction, peer pressure, teacher monitoring, and practitioner's fatigue. The study cautions against implementing ICLHE according to a distance learning model despite the limited number (40) of participants. Nevertheless, it is suggested that future studies may lead to different findings [6].

In the study in Hungary, ELTE (Eötvös Loránd University) students had to evaluate their experience with e-learning during the quarantine imposed by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and indicate their online courses' perceptions with a comparative cross-reference to a traditional classroom. Students showed quite different expectations and experiences, ranging from satisfaction to displeasure with the e-learning process [7]. However, on the whole, students found their e-learning experience favorable. Lack of prior ICT instruction by students did not significantly deter this finding. The study results suggest that future e-learning initiatives have great potential in Hungarian universities [7].

The researchers in Russia draw the following conclusions of the empirical study of students' attitudes to distance learning: 1) the directive transition to a distance learning format at a university during the coronavirus Pandemic provoked students' psychological resistance to accepting it as the main form of education (about 80% of students called for full-time education); 2) a negative attitude to distance learning of students (51.5%) is determined by the psychological unwillingness of students to study online due to technical problems; 3) a positive attitude towards distance learning was expressed by 41.2% of respondents;
4) the majority of students have not formed an internal motivation to study remotely; 5) the experience of online education has revealed many contradictions that need to be identified, studied and promptly responded [8].

F.P. Wiesenberg and E. Stacey explored the similarities and differences between Canadian and Australian university teachers' face-to-face and online teaching approaches and philosopies. Quantitative data were collected using the "Teaching Perspectives Inventory," which assessed participants’ teaching approaches and philosophies in terms of their beliefs, intentions, and actions. The authours argue that in order to make a successful transition from a traditional to a virtual classroom, teachers need to rethink their approach to teaching and learning processes, and about their role as educators [9].

The research by Ranjit Vyjayan included diverse scientific disciplines such as social sciences, computer science, and life sciences, as well as learning in support systems, including libraries, information technology, and mental health. The following six key themes were identified: (i) the impact of COVID-19 on higher education institutions, and challenges faced by these institutions; (ii) the use of various tools and teaching strategies employed by these institutions; (iii) the teaching and learning experience of schools and school teachers; (iv) the impact of COVID-19 on the training of healthcare workers; (v) the learnings about COVID-19, and treatment strategies from patients; and (vi) the mental health of students as a result of COVID-19 and e-learning. Regardless of the key themes, what stood out was the inequities in education as a result of the digital divide [10].

To solve the mentioned issues that teachers encountered with the obligatory introduction of remote teaching/learning, it was important to find out the students' attitudes to online learning. The new challenges suggested that the mentioned above key ideas would be included in designing a research survey which is described in this article, and which was delivered to university students to find out how their philosophy of learning had been modified and how teachers reconsidered their teaching philosophy.

Educational research should result in knowledge about education. A well known definition among scientists is "Education is intended and guided learning". Education has been transformed by the COVID-19 Pandemic which made remote learning its particularly important part. In some linguistic references mentioned in this article, their authors use terms "distance learning" or "online learning" that might refer to either correspondence courses or blended learning. In this research, for the sake of clarity, we prefer to call it "remote learning".

Some scientists claim that universities have been searching for the best learning environments and have already employed different ways to meet the needs of their students. They have used "correspondence courses, courses on tape, televised courses, and most recently the Internet based distance education along with the traditional classroom" activities [11]. M. Hannay & T. Newvine collected data from the 22-question survey, which was completed by 217 respondents. In their research the authors examined "why students chose distance education and student perceptions of the quality and difficulty of those courses as compared to courses taught in the traditional classroom" [11]. The data collected by the researchers exhibit that "students strongly prefer distance education, largely because it allows them to balance their other commitments more easily" and also "achieve higher quality educational outcomes in the distance learning environment" [11]. The conducted research brought the authors to the conclusion that "while distance learning may be most appropriate at colleges and universities with large numbers of adult learners, there may be some educational advantages for institutions to integrate some of the best aspects of distance learning into traditional courses to build a "hybrid" learning environment" [11].

With the growing popularity of distance education opportunities, students' attitudes towards distance education are rapidly changing. In 2010 and 2014, B. Celik and Uzunboylua H. investigated the changes of attitudes of high school students to distance education [12]. To achieve this purpose, "Distance Learning Attitude Scale" (DLAS) and "Personal Information Form" (PIF) developed earlier by Celik were used. These mentioned measuring tools were applied to high school students: 92 in 2010 and 99 in 2014. Statistical ANOVA computations using the SPSS software were conducted to analyze if students' gender, socio-economic level and internet usage time had an significant impact on their attitudes. No change was detected on learning attitudes between the year 2010 and 2014.

In Denmark, J. Dorup conducted research into students' attitudes to IT during a five-year period [13]. A total of 1159 students (78%) responded; 72% indicated access to a computer and this number did not change during their studies. By the end of the studies, about 30% of students indicated that they would like to exchange traditional learning for e-learning, and about 80% indicated that they would like to use ICT resources as a supplement.

In general, distance learning is characterized by a combination of pros and cons. Pros include students' ability to learn new tech, their confident approach to IT. Some cons may include technical difficulties with online learning, irregular work of the Internet websites and programs software [14].

E. Inman et al. surveyed the attitudes of 11 community college instructors and 334 students [15]. Data showed the conflicting instructors' attitudes to distance learning. The students demonstrated high satisfaction with instructors and the courses due to direct interaction with instructors.

The meta-analysis described by M. Allen et al. indicates a slight student preference for a traditional educational format over a distance education format, and little difference in satisfaction levels [16]. A comparison of distance education methods demonstrates no difference in satisfaction levels. The findings support researchers who argue that distance education does not diminish the level of student satisfaction when compared to traditional face-to-face methods of instruction.

C. Neuhauser compared two parts of the same course: online and face-to-face. The comparison was conducted regarding gender, age, learning preferences, media familiarity, effectiveness of tasks, course effectiveness, test grades, and final grades [17]. The author found out that the "results revealed no significant differences in test scores, assignments, participation grades, and final grades, although the online group's averages were slightly higher". The research demonstrated that "ninety-six percent of the online students found the course to be either as effective or more effective to their learning than their typical face-to-face course. There were no significant differences between learning preferences and styles and grades in either group". The study showed that "learning activities can be equally effective for online and face-to-face learners" [17].

L. Muilenburg et al. analyzed ten factors that comprise barriers to distance education, namely: administrative structure, organizational change, technical expertise, social interaction and quality, faculty compensation and time, threat of technology, legal issues, evaluation/effectiveness, access, and student‐support services [18].

According to N. Croft et al. the physical separation of a tutor and a student, and between students themselves, can lead to feelings of isolation [19]. The author underlines that the lack of social interaction between students reduces the quality of the learning experience and omits a significant element of the creative approach to learning. The author researched the experiences of distance learning students at the University of the West of England while focusing on collaborative study and student isolation. The research brings about several recommendations including the provision of service level agreements to clarify expectations, designation points to encourage and motivate, development of student generated content in the learning material, humanization of the material, etc. [19].

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used by I. Sahin & M. Shelly to analyze the usefulness of distance education and its satisfaction [20]. The participants of this study were 195 undergraduates. The data were analyzed using a software SPSS. The findings show that a distance education course should provide students with great flexibility in interacting with their instructor, classmates, and the course content.

This article aims at investigating the attitudes of University students on remote and traditional learning of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and revealing relevant advantages and disadvantages.

The results were obtained from a specially designed survey containing 18 items (Appendix). This survey was designed in accordance with the standards of constructing surveys [21]. Due to the global COVID-19 Pandemic, there was no opportunity of piloting the questionnaire at various stages of its developing. In other words, the approbation of the survey has not been possible under the crisis conditions. Moreover, up to now no publications of relevant questionnaires on the issues of remote learning have been available. This research has been the first attempt to analyze the innumerable difficulties that students encounter in a novel remote classroom in comparison to the traditional instruction face-to-face. Some external feedback is indispensable. There is only one way to find out — to receive feedback from language practioners after this research is published. All the statements of the survey are presented on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). This scaling technique is simple, versatile and reliable [21]. The survey was completed by the full-time 1st- and 2nd-year students who study ESP at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (Vilnius Tech). There were 9 groups — 180 students altogether. The responses were analyzed using SPSS software.

As it has already been mentioned before, students have encountered innumerable problems in the time of crisis. The key feature in life is the change of routine, i.e. their everyday activities. The traditional learning (TL) in classroom settings has been replaced by remote leaarning (RL) via different online platforms.

With regard to students' responses towards learning preferences, it is essential to find out which learning — RL or TL — is more beneficial to university students. Second, it is important to clarify the pros and cons of RL vs TL. Third, for learning to be successful, the roles of activities and the syllabus have to be evaluated. Finally, learning from home deprives learners of social interaction and affects their psychological well being — might be for the worse or for the better.

Due to the limitation of the article scope, just a few Charts out of computed 12 graphs are shown below. Chart 1 shows the computed Means of learners' responses (9 groups) to the statement "The quality of remote learning (RL) is good". Chart 2 shows the computed Means of learners' responses (9 groups) to the statement "The quality of traditional learning (TL) is good".

At the first sight, data seem very similar in spite of its scattering. It should be emphasized that the length of columns is misleading — it reflects the number of a group and does not contain any significant information. The essential information is shown on a vertical axis — the Mean values of students' responses which vary from one group to another. Different Ranges of Mean values demonstrate the disparity of respondents' answers to the survey statements.

Chart 1. Students' responses to the statement "The quality of remote learning (RL) is good"

Chart 2. Students' responses to the statement "The quality of traditional learning (TL) is good"

A great diversity of students' responses is revealed via the computation of the Mean Values which vary widely within a single group or between groups and depend on a particular statement of the survey. To clarify the interpretation of these results, some supplementary data are included in Appendix next to the survey statements. The data demonstrate the scattering of the Means by providing the lowest Mmin and the highest Mmax values in the 2nd and 3rd columns and their differences in the 4th column of Appendix. The difference between the highest and the lowest scores is known as the Range of Mean Values. Although this exposition of digital numbers might be difficult to grasp, however this additional information reveals the huge variety of respondents' opinions and attitudes that makes the obtained results significant in trying to understand the novelty of remote learning during quarantine. It is obvious that in some cases the Range is insignificant. For instance, it is equal to 0.25 for the statements of students' sharing experiences. However, it indicates that respondents' opinions are very close, i.e. there are no important contradictions between groups. Meanwhile, the Range is quite considerable in other cases, for instance, it is equal to 1.75 regarding the evaluation of quality of remote learning and is equal to 1.47 concerning an issue of learners' insecurity. In other words, high Range values signify essential discrepancy of attitudes. The intermediate magnitudes of the Range values that are shown in Appendix vary between 0.45 and 0.95. These data point to the dispersal of the respondents' attitudes. It seems that distributions of responses follow the theory of randomness, which claims that there is no apparent predictability in events and results do not follow conformity to natural laws, but are rather consistent with probability distributions. Therefore, it is essential to emphasize that such digital differences in the Ranges of Means are the indirect indication of students’ educational backgrounds and their perceptions and reflections on the novelties of learning online.

The feelings of learners are demonstrated in Chart 3 and Chart 4. As may be seen in Chart 3, learners' frustration in RL classes is often caused by the unreliable Internet connection while learners' insecurity at facing computer instead of the friendly contact with a teacher leads to stress of being insecure. This is displayed by the data in Chart 4.

It is necessary to emphasize that a visual analysis of all 12 computed Charts makes the researcher use other means of investigation because the whole picture remains obscured — too difficult to understand. The interpretation of the data needs to be clarified via statistical treatment. There are various ways of applying it. Professional analysis of two samples is adequately treated by computing a Student t-test due to it being ubiquitous. It might be appropriate in order to reveal the differences within the responses of one individual group (a sample). In other words, the idea is to clarify learner's individual approach to each aspect of learning.

Chart 3. Students' responses to the statement "Slowdown of the Internet during RL meetings is annoying"

Chart 4. Students' responses to the statement "Face the computer" rather than "face the teachers" tends to raise students' insecurity.

For the sake of getting insights into learners' perceptions of benefits of communication and sharing experiences, it is expedient to apply a different approach for presenting the frequencies of responses. Namely, instead of tabulating a particular frequency for each group, the averaged frequency for all groups is computed. As it may be seen in Table 1, this approach clearly shows the trend of collective thinking. 39% of students are positive about effectiveness of online communication with teachers. However, the same numbers of learners (39%) are not sure of the idea. 49% of respondents believe that group discussions make useful interactions among learners, while 14% of students express doubts, and 37% are uncertain about benefits. Sharing experiences by students can build their confidence: 78% support this point of view. Moreover, sharing experiences help overcome the isolation of staying indoors — 61% vs 34%.

Table 1. Averaged frequencies of the students' responses to 4 survey statements

Similar approach has been applied for the analysis of students' attitudes to textbooks and syllabus. These results are displayed in Table 2. Students claim that textbooks are more important in Traditional classroom learning than in Remote online learning: 75% vs 62%. As far as the syllabus is concerned, a very similar number of respondents are not sure that it is not fully implemented — 48% in RL and 49% in TL. Therefore, the obtained data have not indicated learners' priorities to either RL or TL so far. The current research reveals that despite the difficulties of COVID-19 Pandemic university students are mature adults who have sound knowledge of every aspect of education and know very well what they need for their future jobs. In other words, they are able to cope successfully with the challenges of everyday life and accept various ways of study.

Table 2. Averaged frequencies of the students' responses to 4 survey statements

With reference to the analysis of multiple samples (in this research — 9 groups), ANOVA test has been applied to measure if the differences in response variations are significant (meaningful) or not. Using the obtained survey data, it has been determined whether scores differ across the involved groups.

The key results of conducted computations are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3. One-Way ANOVA Computations results for 9 groups and some survey statements

As seen from Table 3, the 1^st column displays the survey statement. The values of computed F-ratio are shown in the 2^nd column. Critical F values, Sig. p and Probabilities P are displayed in the 3^rd column. The 4^th column lists the interpretations of computed results. The computed F-ratios vary within a wide range depending on a specific statement. However, the statistical interpretation is straightforward and displays the limitation of ANOVA since it does not indicate which groups differ statistically.

To sum up it can be concluded that:

• the students' attitudes to the effectiveness of online communication are equally divided between the positive and „unsure“ responses (39%), and 49% of respondents believe that group discussions make useful interactions (Table 1);
• students are positive (78% and 61%, respectively) towards sharing experiences because such activities can build their confidence and overcome the lockdown isolation (Table 1);
• learners claim that textbooks are useful in RL (62%) and TL (75%) activities (Table 2);
• t-test results failed to provide evidence on any significant differences within a single group;
• the computations of One-way ANOVA indicate that the differences between groups are significant (Table 3).

However, the respondents have not reached a consensus on the worst and the best aspects of RL vs TL — ANOVA differences are not significant.

It is well known that IT rationalizes human experience. Remote learning via various video-conference platforms reflects changing views about the goals and nature of higher education. The technology remains just a tool to enhance education and it can produce negative as well as positive results. The key philosophy of contemporary teaching is to promote students' learning by a means of diverse tools in order to achieve the best positive outcomes in various situations such as ongoing COVID-19 process.

Post hoc remark

It might be of interest to mention the brief comments of some students in the United States who said how they coped with remote learning. The comments were printed in April of 2020 by D. Goldstein [22]:

'Oh my goodness … Why there is so much homework?' — 'The workload has been overwhelming.' — 'I find it impossible to actually learn anything new through the remote learning.' — 'I did not realize that I took my routine and school day for granted until now.' — 'I'm often anxious that I will not be able to join and maintain access to online classes and assignments. ' — 'I miss seeing everyone, especially my friends.' — 'I am actually quite fond of it. ' — 'A lot of the time, I get confused.' — 'I've noticed that staying on task gets harder as the week goes on.' — 'I feel for our teachers who have had to change everything about their classes' [22]

Some views on remote learning in Lithuania

Most of the comments show that students are not happy with remote learning. But the article and comments were published in April, at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Therefore, probably students faced more difficulties because it was a novelty for everybody.

Over time, I think, students and teachers got used to organise their work better and most of problems were solved. If we ask them how they cope with remote learning now, maybe answers would be different.

Another remark — I don't know a lot about American students, but our students sometimes like to complain about everything. In fact, online learning can be as good as classroom learning. You just have to be motivated to work and gain new skills for new challenges.

The good thing of remote classes is that students now miss going to school which they took for granted until now. They will be very happy to come back to schools when the quarantine ends. So, in every even dark moment we can find the bright side. The Pandemic forced us to re-evaluate many things. And this was the best lesson for all of us.

Janina A. (a manager, 42 years old).

Students find different pros and cons of distance learning depending on their characters. Some of them feel great satisfaction that they can learn the material at their own pace, at their own time, with breaks when they need them. They may get up late. The school stressful environment has changed for the better. Meanwhile for other students it causes a lot of fear, stress, confusion, and anxiety. The students feel like their education is not being fulfilled. They have significant lack of motivation and they miss thought-provoking discussions they used to have with their classmates. A lot of them miss their friends, sports activities, lunchtime conversations.

Rimantas R. (an IT expert, 50 years old).

 The attitudes of the USA students to learning online are very different. Many students think that online learning is a stressful process because in many places it is hard to get access to the internet and all the time they are anxious about joining online classes.

They miss seeing their friends, other students in a classroom, they miss situations when they can ask different questions. They miss their activities, even a loud and crazy lunchroom. Obviously the school was the main source of communications for them. In addition, they lost their everyday schedule: when to go to school, wake up, or go to bed. There is a lack of motivation for them to their tasks and they feel that their education is not being fulfilled.

However, some students enjoy a new schedule of routine learning. They can sleep as much as they need for their rest, can learn at their own pace and plan the days as they wish.

In my opinion, all students are right. Routine learning depends on many factors — the quality of internet connection, students' digital devices and computers, level of teachers and their competence, skills, and motivation of students.

Dalia S. (Prof. Dr. Habil. 70 years old).

 

Appendix. Survey. Remote Learning (Rl) Versus Traditional Learning (Tl).

To clarify the interpretation of some aspects of current research, the computed Mean Values for 9 samples are displayed in columns 2, 3, and 4. 

About the authors

Irena Darginavičienė

Author for correspondence.
Email: idargintt@gmail.com
PhD, professor 11, Saulėtekio al., LT-10223, Vilnius, Lithuania

Jolita Šliogerienė

Email: j.sliogeriene@gmail.com
PhD in Social Sciences (Education Science), professor 11, Saulėtekio al., LT-10223, Vilnius, Lithuania

References