Analysis of Synchronous and Asynchronous Approaches in Students' Online Learning Satisfaction during Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 Pandemic forced the global closure of numerous activities along with education and shifted traditional education to an online version via two e-learning platforms, i.e., synchronous and asynchronous. This transition was unplanned for all educational institutions, due to which teachers and students had to face several teaching/learning challenges. Thereby a quantitative study was designed to investigate the learning satisfaction of students in both synchronous and asynchronous learning environments from public universities of Karachi, Pakistan. The participants of the study were selected through simple random sampling, and 108 students from different universities filled the complete questionnaires. The data were analyzed through various statistical tests, i.e., (mean, standard deviation and Pearson correlation, and T-test. The Findings identified that students showed significantly higher satisfaction in the synchronous learning environment. Thereby, the study mainly suggests that the learning process should be facilitated by synchronous e-learning mode by providing adequate institutional support to optimize their learning satisfaction by raising their digital competence. Besides, teachers should employ activity-based teaching Strategies for keeping students involved in the learning process. © 2021 IEEE.