PERCEPTION OF BUSINESS STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY IN SULTANATE OF OMAN TOWARDS ONLINE EDUCATION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Educational institutes across the world have closed due to the Corona virus pandemic frightening the academic schedules. Many educational institutes have shifted to online learning platforms to keep the academic activities going. However, the questions about the willingness, designing and effectiveness of e-learning is still not clearly understood, particularly for a developing country like Oman, where the technical constraints like suitability of devices and bandwidth availability poses a serious challenge. In this study, the researcher focusses on understanding Business Student’s perception at one of the Universities in Sultanate of Oman towards the online learning with a sample of 180 students through an online survey. The objective of the study is to understand the problems faced by Business students in pursuing online education and provide suggestions for improving the online education system. Stratified proportionate snowball sampling method is used to collect the data. Spearman correlation and Man Whitney U test is used for analysing the data. Students of both genders have similar opinion that they have technophobia to attend online classes. Students of both genders have different opinion that online learning is stressful during the pandemic. Recommendations are to provide laptops for students with limited income or increase their allowances to buy a laptop and increase the duration of exams due to technical problems.