Department of English language and Lingustics, Ra.C., Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran
Abstract: (64 Views)
Objective: Today, technology across all fields helps humans do things better. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of social distancing policies, many countries sought to capitalize on the affordances of online education. Inspired by this, the present study aimed to survey the opinions of EFL teachers and students regarding the use of learning management systems (LMSs) for English instruction in the post-COVID-19 era.
Methods: In this research, using a questionnaire, the opinions of 70 EFL teachers and students who had experience with online education through LMSs regarding the potential utility of these systems were surveyed across three aspects: “user-friendliness”, “cognitive benefits”, and “affective benefits”. Data were collected through availability sampling and from the participants of three institutions (Azad University and two non-profit universities). Participants' opinions were analyzed in SPSS to identify specific perceptions and potential perceptual mismatches.
Results: Students held overall positive attitudes toward these systems, which increased the likelihood of communicating with teachers and solving problems outside the classroom. In contrast, they expressed their most negative views concerning the disconnection or slowness of the systems. The results also showed that there was no statistically significant difference in perceptions between teachers and students regarding the pros and cons of using LMSs.
Conclusion: The results show that participants generally believe that online education through LMSs is beneficial for them across three perspectives: user-friendliness, cognitive benefits, and affective benefits. The majority of participants believed that LMSs are beneficial to them because they create communication conditions outside class time between teachers and students, as well as the ability to save and replay classes, while both groups also have concerns. In return, technical problems such as internet slowness and disconnections were reported by almost all participants.
Methods: In this research, using a questionnaire, the opinions of 70 EFL teachers and students who had experience with online education through LMSs regarding the potential utility of these systems were surveyed across three aspects: “user-friendliness”, “cognitive benefits”, and “affective benefits”. Data were collected through availability sampling and from the participants of three institutions (Azad University and two non-profit universities). Participants' opinions were analyzed in SPSS to identify specific perceptions and potential perceptual mismatches.
Results: Students held overall positive attitudes toward these systems, which increased the likelihood of communicating with teachers and solving problems outside the classroom. In contrast, they expressed their most negative views concerning the disconnection or slowness of the systems. The results also showed that there was no statistically significant difference in perceptions between teachers and students regarding the pros and cons of using LMSs.
Conclusion: The results show that participants generally believe that online education through LMSs is beneficial for them across three perspectives: user-friendliness, cognitive benefits, and affective benefits. The majority of participants believed that LMSs are beneficial to them because they create communication conditions outside class time between teachers and students, as well as the ability to save and replay classes, while both groups also have concerns. In return, technical problems such as internet slowness and disconnections were reported by almost all participants.
Keywords: EFL teachers’ perceptions, EFL learners’ perceptions, LMS, perceptual mismatch, post-COVID-19 era
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This work is licensed under a Creative Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)