African Educational Research Journal - Vol. 9(3) - September 2021 - Online learning perception among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic around the world

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen

A systematic review synthesizes college students’ perceptions of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, covering 21 cross-sectional studies from Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. Findings show students in Asia and Africa largely held an unfavorable view. In multiple African and Asian countries, over 75% of students used mobile phones, facing issues such as high data costs, unreliable networks, limited storage, limited prior experience, technical access problems, heavy assignments, weak communication, domestic distractions, and insufficient practical/clinical exposure for medical students.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Search methodology and article selection

Literature Search

Inclusion Criteria

African Educational Research Journal Vol. 9(3), pp. 790-799, September 2021 DOI: 10. 30918/AERJ.93.21.120 ISSN: 2354-2160 Full Length Research Paper Online learning perception among college students during COVID-19 pandemic around the world: Review Christine Ouma University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA. Accepted 10 August, 2021 | ABSTRACT
The author conducted a systematic review of the perception of online learning among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review included 21 studies from institutions in Asia (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia, and The Philippines), Europe (Romania and Poland), Africa (Ghana and Algeria), and South America (Chile) . The results indicated that students from Asia and Africa overwhelmingly had an unfavorable view of online learning during the pandemic. More than 75% of students in Nepal, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Algeria, and Ghana used mobile phones to access course material which brought challenges, such as the high cost of data bundles, unreliable network, and lack of adequate cellphone space to download the materials needed for class. Other than Poland, Romania, and United Arab Emirates, students from the rest of the countries reported unreliable internet access. Additional challenges reported include lack of prior experience with online learning, technical difficulties accessing materials online, high volume of assignments, poor communication between learners and educators, distractions from home environment, and lack of practical and clinical experience for students in medical schools. The findings from this systematic review could help administrators of higher education institutions acknowledge the online learning difficulties experienced by college students and prepare for future disruptions.
Keywords: Online learning, COVID-19 pandemic, college students, student perception. | | --- | | E-mail: [oumaresearcher@gmail.com](oumaresearcher@gmail.com). | INTRODUCTION The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic led to an unprecedented closure of schools, colleges, and universities around the globe in the spring of 2020. By April 2020, almost 1.5 million learners enrolled at preprimary, primary, upper-secondary, and tertiary education levels were affected by the country-wide school closuresin 172 countries due to COVID-19 (UNESCO, 2020) . In China, where COVID-19 was first detected, the start of the spring semester was suspended for all colleges (Xiao, 2020); and face-to-face classes were canceled or shifted to online classes in almost all of the countries to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus (AguileraHermida, 2020; Hodges et al. , 2020) . By the end of May 2020, in the United States, 4,234 higher education institutions were impacted, and 25,798,790 higher education students were affected by COVID-19 (Alexander, 2020) . To curtail the coronavirus spread and ensure the continuity of teaching and learning, colleges, universities, and learning institutions, without warning or preparation, hurriedly shifted their in-person courses to remote or online. Students, many of whom had little to no experience in learning fully online, were suddenly thrust into this new mode of learning. At the minimum, for online learning to be successful, students need reliable internet access, computers or tablets, and familiarity with the online learning tools (Garcia and Weiss, 2020) . Given the abrupt nature of the switch to online learning, many higher education institutions worldwide were not adequately prepared. Thus, the overarching aim of this review was to identify and synthesize empirical research findings on the perception of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic among college students. The review Ouma 791 specifically sought to identify the barriers and challenges that students worldwide were experiencing while learning online. MATERIALS AND METHODS Search methodology and article selection I followe

FAQs

What was the main purpose of the systematic review?

To identify and synthesize empirical research on college students’ perceptions of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, with a focus on barriers and challenges experienced while learning online.

Which countries and regions showed the most unfavorable perceptions of online learning?

Students from Asia and Africa overwhelmingly reported an unfavorable view of online learning during the pandemic.

What access-related challenges affected students who used mobile phones?

Students commonly faced high costs of data bundles, unreliable network access, and inadequate phone storage space for downloading needed course materials.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen