Improving Student Learning Performance during Online Lectures

Abstract

The comparison of pre and post Covid-19 performance is now being made in many areas. The invisible enemy in the form of Covid-19 virus has put a sturdy impact on many sectors and has forced these sectors to change their mode of operation. Education sector is the most affected sector due to this pandemic. Teachers have adapted to the online teaching methodology through various e-platforms. Feedback collected from the teachers suggested that most of the teachers are facing the problem of engaging the students effectively during the online lectures. Also it is challenging to ensure that students have acquired all knowledge levels as per Bloom's Taxonomy during online learning.

A study was undertaken wherein 200 students were randomly divided into four equal groups. Online lectures on the same topic by the same instructor were arranged for every group. A different methodology of content delivery namely a) explanation by display of textual information, b) use of pictures, c) use of video content and d) use of numerical examples based on different learning styles reported in the literature. At the end of the lectures, students were assigned six questions corresponding to each level of the Bloom’s Taxonomy.

The student responses were mapped and analyzed. The ranking of groups has been calculated using Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). It shows that group number four where text, picture at low level and video, numerical at high level has first rank with score of 0.350. The Pearson correlation between the groups was also determined. The correlation indicates that there is a positive correlation between group two and group four that means a combination of pictures, video and numerical at high level may leads to better results.

This result can be useful for teachers to finding the most effective proportion of content type to map various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and thereby improve the learning performance of students during online teaching.