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Chapter

The Impact of Online Learning

Strategies on Students’ Academic
Performance
Khaled Hamdan and Abid Amorri

Abstract

Higher education institutions have shifted from traditional face to face to online
teaching due to Corona virus pandemic which has forced both teachers and students
to be put in a compulsory lockdown. However the online teaching/learning consti-
tutes a serious challenge that both university teachers and students have to face, as
it necessarily requires the adoption of different new teaching/learning strategies
to attain effective academic outcomes, imposing a virtual learning world which
involves from the students’ part an online access to lectures and information, and
on the teacher’s side the adoption of a new teaching approach to deliver the cur-
riculum content, new means of evaluation of students’ personal skills and learning
experience. This chapter explores and assesses the online teaching and learning
impact on students’ academic achievement, encompassing the passing in review
the adoption of students’ research strategies, the focus of the students’ main source
of information viz. library online consultation and the collaboration with their
peers. To reach this end, descriptive and parametric analyses are conducted in order
to identify the impact of these new factors on students’ academic performance.
The findings of the study shows that to what extent the students’ online learn-
ing has or has not led to any remarkable improvements in the students’ academic
achievements and, whether or not, to any substantial changes in their e-learning
competence. This study was carried out on a sample of University College (UAEU)
students selected in Spring 2019 and Fall 2020.

Keywords: online learning environment, content-based research, process-based

research, success factors assessment

1. Introduction

With the advent of COVID-19 pandemic and the shutdown of universities

worldwide for fear of contamination due to the spread of the coronavirus, higher
educational institutions have deemed necessary to adopt new teaching strategies,
exclusively online, to deliver their curriculum content and keep from the Corona
virus widespread at bay [1]. Technology was called upon to play this pivotal teach-
ing/learning online role, as it has influenced people’s task accomplishment in
various ways. It has become a part of our ever changing lives. It is an important
part of e-learning to create relationship-involving technology, course content and
pedagogy in learning/teaching environment. Therefore, e-learning is becoming

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E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

unavoidable in a virtual teaching environment where students can take control of

their learning and optimize it in a virtual classroom and elsewhere. So, learning
today has shifted from the conventional face to face learning to online learning
and to a direct access to information through technologies available as e-learning
has proven to be more beneficial to students in terms of knowledge or information
acquisition. Online teaching promotes learning by encouraging the students’ use of
various learning strategies at hand and increases the level of their commitment to
studying their majors. Virtual world represents an effective learning environment,
providing users with an experience-based information acquisition. Instructors set
up the course outcomes by creating tasks involving problem or challenge-based
learning situations and offering the learner a full control of exploratory learning
experiences. However, there are some challenges for instructors such as the selection
of the most appropriate educational strategies and how best to design learning tasks
and activities to meet learners’ needs and expectations. Various approaches can lead
towards strong students’ behavioral changes especially when combined with ethical
principles. However, with careful selection of the learning environment, pedagogi-
cal strategies lining up with the concrete specifics of the educational context, the
building of learners’ self-confidence and their empowerment during the learning
process becomes within reach. Another benefit of using online teaching/learning is
that here is a need to explore new teaching strategies and principles that positively
influence distance education, as traditional teaching/learning methods are becom-
ing less effective at engaging students in the learning process. Finally, e-learning can
solve many of the students’ learning issues in a conventional learning environment,
as it helps them to attend classes for various reasons, as it has made the communica-
tion/interaction between them and their instructors much easier and the access to
lectures much more at hand. Students can attend online university courses and at the
same time meet other social obligations. Therefore, the circumstances in a learner’s
life, and whatever problems or distraction he/she may have such as family problems
or illnesses, may no longer be an impediment to his education. Learners can practice
in virtual situations and face challenges in a safe environment, which leads to a more
engaged learning experience that facilitates better knowledge acquisition.
The work presents the educational processes as a modern strategy for teaching/
learning. e-learning tends to persuade the users to be virtually available to act natu-
rally. There are a few factors affecting the outcomes such as learning aims and objec-
tives, and different pedagogical choices. Instructors use various factors to measure
the learning quality like Competence, Attitude, Content Delivery, Reliability, and
Globalization [2–4]. In this work, we are going to pass in review positive and nega-
tive impacts of online learning followed by recommendations to increase awareness
regarding online learning and the use of this new strategic technology. Modern
teaching methods like brainstorming, problem solving, indirect-consultancy, and
inquiry-based method have a significant effect in the educational progress [5].
The aim of this research is to examine the effect of using modern teaching
methods, such as teacher-student interactive and student-centered methods, on
students’ academic performance. Factors that may affect students’ performance
and success- the technology used, students’ collaboration/teamwork, time manage-
ment and communication skills are taken into consideration [6]. It also attempts
to identify and to show to what extent online learning environment, when well
integrated and adapted in course planning and objectives, can cater for students’
needs and wants. Does online teaching make a significant improvement in students’
academic performance and their personal skills such as organizations, communica-
tions, responsibilities, problem-solving tasks, engagement, learning interest, self-
evolution, and abilities to reach their potential? Is students’ struggle is not purely
academic, but rather related to the lack of personal skills?

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The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425

2. Online learning experience

There are many motives behind the implementation of the online learning
experience. The online learning is mandatory nowadays to all audience due to
COVID −19 pandemic, which forced the higher educational authorities to start
the online teaching [1]. We believe that we reached a tipping point where making
changes to the current learning process is inevitable for many reasons. Today learners
have instant access to information through technology and the web, can manage
their own acquisition of knowledge through online learning. As a result, traditional
teaching and learning methods are becoming less effective at engaging students, who
no longer rely exclusively on the teacher as the only source of knowledge. Indeed,
90% of the respondents use internet as their major source of information. So the
teacher is new role is to be a learning facilitator, a guide for his students. He should
not only help his students locate information, but more importantly question it and
reflect upon it and formulate an opinion about it. Another reason for the adoption of
the online learning is that higher institution did not hesitate one moment to integrate
it as a primary tool of education. So, it transformed the conventional course and cur-
rent learning process into e-learning concept. The integration of the online teaching
into the curriculum resulted in several issues to instructors, curriculum designer and
administrators, starting from the infrastructure to online teaching and assessment.
Does the current IT infrastructure support this integration? What course content
should the instructor teach and how it should be delivered? What effective pedagogy
needs to be adopted? How learning should be assessed? What is the direct effect of
the online learning on students’ performance? [7].
With reference to the survey findings, the majority of students were among
the staunch supporters of online learning taking into consideration the imposed
COVID-19 lockdown circumstances, as they expressed their full support and
confidence in computer skills to share digital content, using online learning and
collaboration platforms with their peers, and expressed their satisfaction with the
support of the online teaching and learning [8].
However, a small percentage of the survey respondents, expressed their below
average satisfaction when higher educational institutions have invested in digital lit-
eracy and infrastructure, as they believe they should provide more flexible delivery
methods, digital platforms and modernized user-friendly curricula to both students
and teachers [9]. On the same lines, the higher education authorities regard the
quick and unexpected development of the UAE’s higher education landscape,
ICT infrastructure, and advanced online learning/teaching methods, imposed by
COVID-19, have had a tremendous adverse impact on the students’ culture, thus
leading to students’ social seclusion from their peers, imposing new social norms
and behavior regarding plagiarism, affecting students’ cultural ethics and learning
and collaboration with their peers, when adopting the digital culture [10].
A current study emphasized the need for adoption of technology in education as a
way to lessen the effects of Coronavirus pandemic lockdown in education to palliate the
loss of face- to- face teaching/learning which has more beneficial aspects of learning
for students than online learning as it offers more interactive learning opportunities.
We recommend that all these questions should be taken into consideration when
designing a new course i.e. the e-learning strategies, the learners’ and instructor’s
new roles, course content and pedagogy and students’ performance/achievement
assessment (Figure 1). In this experience, we focus only on the implementation of
new learning academic objectives- how they are infused into the curriculum and
how they are assessed. The ultimate objective of implementing a new learning pro-
cess is to design a curriculum conveyed by a creative pedagogy and oriented towards
the cultivation of a creative person yearning for the exploration of new ideas [11].

3
E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

Figure 1.
E-learning approach.

The afore-mentioned objectives lead to design a comprehensive learning experience

with new learning outcomes where instructors infuse new practical skills - Critical
thinking and Problem-Solving Tasks, Creativity and Innovation, Communication
and Collaboration. Other skills are implicitly infused into the curriculum such as,
self-independent learning, interdependence, lifelong learning, flexibility, adapt-
ability, and assuming academic learning responsibilities. Online learning is defined
as virtual learning using mobile and wireless computing technologies in a way to
promote learners’ learning abilities [12]. In (Figure 2), each component of the
e-learning process is defined clearly below [13].

2.1 Active instructor

His role is to facilitate learning process in the virtual classroom, to engage

students in the learning process, to allow them to participate in designing their own
course content and to contribute to design learning assessment parameters.

2.2 Active learner

He can access course content anytime and from anywhere, engage with his peers
in a collaborative environment, formulate his opinions continuously, interact with
other learning communities, communicate effectively, share and publish their find-
ings with others in online environment.

2.3 Creative pedagogy

Both instructors and learners decide on what to learn online and how it should
be learned. This experience is designed to promote an inquiry and challenge-based
learning models where teachers and students work together to learn about compel-
ling issues, propose solutions to real problems and take actions [11]. The approach
involves students to reflect on their learning, on the impact of their actions and to
publish their solutions to a worldwide audience [14].
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The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425

Figure 2.
E-learning process.

2.4 Flexible curriculum

A core curriculum is designed, but the facilitator has the freedom to innovate
and customize course content accordingly up to the aspiration of the learners; this
means that the learner’s knowledge of the material will mainly come from his own
online research (formal and informal content), and from his own creativity and
collaboration with his peers (teamwork).

2.5 Communities outreach

This allows a group of students to formulate real-world context research

question, connect with local learning and global communities to find creative
solutions to their problems, create opportunities to connect themselves with
international communities. These opportunities will foster students’ social and
leadership skills [15].
According to students’ observation, more than 70% of instructors found that
the online learning using Blackboard ultra-collaboration boosts students’ learning
interest, engagement and motivation. 84% of teachers use required to use interac-
tive tools in order to engage students in presenting and sharing a five minutes
presentation to their classmates, write a reflective essay on their experience, be
involved in a collaborative project (interest- based learning project). 97% of
students contributed to self and peer assessments, and 97% interacted using online
management systems. Students were also encouraged to interact with their peers
using blackboard group collaborate. Thanks to the online teaching strategy, 70% of
students were able to deliver on time their work.
For the study purpose, several assessments components incorporate both
individual and group work. For the individual work, each student was required to
make an individual presentation on any subject of his own interest, write a reflec-
tive essay, self -assessment, class peer assessment, midterm and final exams. For
the collaborative work, students were assigned teams and each student should
5
E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

Figure 3.
Conceptual model of students’ E-learning environment parameters.

contribute to the project delivered every two weeks in the form of a final presenta-
tion and a final project. Rubrics were designed and all students were well instructed
to use them. Teachers were trained to monitor and facilitate the experience and the
internal learning management systems such as Blackboard.
The subsequent (Figure 3) shows the feedback loop of content mapping of fac-
tors and their relationships in relation to students’ performance and intake. The first
feedback loop begins at the node called “Students”. The second one begins at the
node entitled “Teacher”. There are two major positive feedback loops. For instance,
a good team improves co-operation and creativity which increase the team’s learn-
ing experience. Setting clear goals and interactive strategies will enhance online
learning and performance results. The E-learning process and the project outcomes
are influenced by technology use [13].

3. Research methodology

We studied the impact of online learning using technology in virtual class-

rooms and the effect of performance factors on students’ learning behavior and
achievement. The study focused on a sample of 6045 students, collected from the
enrolment of University College students in spring 2020, at United Arab Emirates
University has used online teaching strategy in comparison to fall 2019 teaching/
learning experience, which used conventional teaching strategy involving 7369
students (See Table 1). The study shows the learning outcomes are similar for
both virtual and conventional learning, although the assessment methods are
different. They include students’ learning outcomes assessment, testing (assessing

Term Pass Not Pass Total

Fall 2019 (FOF) 6839 530 7369

Spring 2020 (OLA) 5488 557 6045

Table 1.
Students’ population.

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The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425

prior and post knowledge acquisition) and quantitative versus conventional

research. The findings of the survey are discussed below. Descriptive statistics
were obtained to summarize the sample characteristics and performance variables.
Pearson Correlation was used to evaluate the association between the learn-
ing outcomes dimensions. Independent Samples t-test was used to compare the
mean overall performance of the online learning. Linear Regression was used to
determine the impact of the learning characteristics (Critical thinking, Creativity,
Communication and Collaboration) on the overall performance score. Factor
Analysis was used to study the inter-relationships among the learning characteris-
tics and compare the online methods.
The objectives of the learning process consist of providing a diversified learn-
ing environment. The positive impact of this diversity is reflected in the students’
performance. Students in various represented colleges have similar passing grades
as high (80–98%) for both Online Approach (OLA) and Conventional learning
-Face-to-Face (FoF). The University College is the largest college in the University
with more than 4000 students. Most of UAEU students start their study in UC; they
take English, Arabic, IT and Math (Figure 4).
This study was limited to GEIL101 foundation students. Surveys were sent out
to all information literacy sections at the end of the first semester 2019/2020, but
there were only 87 respondents. The survey had 2 parts, one part is about students’
achievement/performance, and the second part use is about online learning in a vir-
tual classroom. All sessions were conducted online by trained instructors in tandem
with the University library delivered by professional librarians. In this report, fall
2019 students’ data are used as the sample for the study (Table 2).
Overall, the results indicate the online learning was beneficial for students as it
shown in their academic achievements and in tables below. A significant number of
students reported high comfort levels of attending online courses in virtual class-
room instead of conventional learning. Results indicated students have a positive

Figure 4.
University college percentage passing rate.

Course title GEIL101 Cohort: Fall 2019

Information Literacy

Total number of students 930 Passing 889

Average 30 Average grade 95.59%

class size

Table 2.
GEIL students.

7
E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

reception to online approach rather than traditional classrooms. Additionally,

qualitative data identified a clearconsiderations for the integration of new technol-
ogy into the new teaching and learning experience.

4. E-learning results and analyses

Table 3 shows the IL students’ pre and post tests performance. The analysis on
the pre and post-tests, using the means comparison and one sample test, shows
an increase of students’ performance by 84%, the mean of the pre-test is around
7.5 and the post test is 13.85, a significant difference of 6.35. 65% of students
score above 60% (passing rate for the course) in the post-test, only 2.4% of
students scored above 60% in the pre-test. This means that 97.6% of students did
not have basic information literacy knowledge, but after going through intensive
12 week learning under e-learning conditions, 65% achieved the course outcomes
with higher scores.
The following tables (Tables 3 and 4) shows the students’ performance by each
learning activity:
The scores in the post-test ranged between 11 and 20, whereas it ranged between
6 to 9 in the pre-test (Figure 5).
The above results show that OLA students scored higher than the FoF in the
majority of the learning activities. There is an important performance of online
students in the midterm and final exams though both approaches where offered
the similar assessments criteria under the same test conditions. In the next section,
the online learning process validity, the learning activities, and the learning out-
come achievements, will be discussed in greater details. Several statistical models,
qualitative and quantitative analysis have been applied for this purpose.

Aspect %Yes

Operational Skills 89%

Use of Technology 90%
Communications Skills 69%
Problem Solving 69%
Formulate Critical opinion 79%
Evaluate information 84%
Collaboration 88%
Sharing findings and ideas 86%
Taking academic responsibilities 88%

Table 3.
Students’ academic performance.

5. Impact analysis of the learning activities

It is important for an educator to evaluate which type of learning activity that

has an important impact on students’ performance. It will help the curriculum
designers to adjust and improve the syllabus content accordingly. Two types of
analyses are conducted quantitatively and qualitatively; the first analysis relies
on the learning activities grades and course final scores. The second one relies on
students’ feedback through reflective essays and teachers’ perception towards their
students’ learning progress.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425
The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
Item Participation Individual Reflective Quizzes Midterm Final Project Final Grade
Engagement Presentation Essay (10%) (20%) (20%) (35%) (100%)
(5%) (5%) (5%)

Average 4.61 4.42 4.04 8.85 14.60 12.90 30.55 80.00

Students Total

FoF 796 4.59 4.44 4.02 8.83 14.19 12.44 30.71 79.25

OLA 930 4.64 4.33 4.12 8.94 16.43 14.78 30.10 83.20

Table 4.
Students’ learning activity.
E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

Figure 5.
Pre and post-tests comparison distribution.

5.1 Quantitative analysis

5.1.1 Impact of the learning activities on students’ performance

To analyze the significance of each learning activity on students’ performance,

a regression linear model was used to analyze the impact of each learning skill on
students’ performance. According to the output report, the model is significant at
95% (p < 0.000), and there is a strong correlation between 95.8% of the learning
skills and students’ performance (r2 = 0.919).
Overall, all learning skills strategies have a significant impact on students’
performance. Each student’s learning skills and their impact will be analyzed. The
following graph shows that individual contribution has less impact on the student’s
performance, but the course component is very important where students demon-
strate their interaction with the course content. The quality of the students’ online
participation, their assiduity and interaction with others and their contribution in the
projects are different from class participation. Therefore, statistically speaking, it has
a lower impact. So, it is highly recommended to review how this component is graded.

5.1.2 Impact of each learning skill on students’ achievement

The following table describes the impact of each individual learning skill on
students’ performance. To do this analysis, we used Pearson Correlation Coefficient
to measure the strength of the linear relationship between the learning skills. The
following figure shows the relationship between the learning skills.
From the table below, the test 1 (Midterm Exam) and test 2 (Final Exam) have the
strongest impact (754 and 758) respectively on the final grades, even though students
scored lower in these activities compared to other assessed learning activities. They
are still the most efficient assessment methods to evaluate students’ achievement.
The projects, individual presentation and reflective essays have also a significant
impact on students’ performance. The only learning activity with the lowest impact
is the individual participation and engagement in the class, which is an important
learning activity, and it needs a review on how to assess it in an effective way.

6. Teachers’ observations

Students’ e-learning performance data is processed and presented. The six

characteristic attributes are identified. Each characteristic is divided into further

10
The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425

sub-items that are rated from 1 to 5 by the respondents. Then, for each of the six
main characteristics, the average of the sub-items rating is calculated. The box plot
(see Figure 6) shows a detailed distribution of each response. This is made up of the
results, comparing the responses given to the different factors affecting learning.
The result shows that the teachers rating of the effect of online learning in the fol-
lowing table. Example: 50% of teachers think that 70% of students improved their
creativity skills.
Descriptive statistics for the learning variables are shown below in Table 5.
In general, the mean and median of all the characteristics are quite high-around
3.5 (Table 6). Regarding correlations between learning parameters, the results
show that almost all characteristics are highly inter-correlated (p < 0.001) (See
Table 7).

Figure 6.
Using e-learning in the virtual classroom.

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. 95.0% Confidence

Coefficients Coefficients Interval for B

B Std. Beta Lower Upper

Error Bound Bound

1 (Constant) 19.445 .992 19.601 .000 17.497 21.393

IndivContribution 1.122 .147 .090 7.653 .000 .834 1.410

IndivP resentation 1.878 .151 .161 12.403 .000 1.581 2.175

ReflectiveEssay 1.719 .099 .237 17.431 .000 1.526 1.913

Assignments 1.348 .090 .187 14.060 .000 1.159 1.536

Testi 1.884 .045 .323 22.400 .000 .916 1.092

Test; 1.858 .035 .407 29.210 .000 .986 1.129

a
Dependent Variable: FinalGrades.

Table 5.
Regression model on learning skill of students’ performance.

11
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E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

Correlations
IndivContribution IndivPresentation ReflectiveEssay Assignments Testi Test2 FinalProject FinalGrades
IndivContribution Pearson Correlation 1 .130** .141** .186** .159** .168** .127** .299**

Sig. (2-tailed) .001 .000 .000 .000 .000 .002 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

IndivPresentation Pearson Correlation .130** 1 .406** .328** .31 7** .262** .420** .539**

Sig. (2-tailed) .001 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

ReflectiveEssay Pearson Correlation .141** .406** 1 .429** .328** .302** .473** .624**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

Assignments Pearson Correlation .186** .328** .429** 1 .350** .240** .352** .569**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

Test1 Pearson Correlation .159** .31 7** .328** .350** 1 .549** .261** .754**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

Test2 Pearson Correlation .168** .262** .302** .240** .549** 1 .256** .758**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425
The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
Correlations
IndivContribution IndivPresentation ReflectiveEssay Assignments Testi Test2 FinalProject FinalGrades
FinalProject Pearson Correlation .1 27** .420** .473** .352** .261** .256** 1 .681

Sig. (2-tailed) .002 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

FinalGrades Pearson Correlation .299** .539** .624** .569** .754** .758** .681** 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

N 623 623 623 623 623 623 623 623

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 6.
Correlation between the learning skills on students’ academic performance.
14

E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

Correlations

Creativity Technology Collaboration Better Time Management Communication

Innovation Skills Used Team Work Thinker Organizing Skills Skills
Skills
Creativity Innovation Skills Pearson Correlation 1 .393* .685** .767** .659** .653**
Sig. (2-tailed) .019 .000 .000 .000 .000

Technology Used Pearson Correlation .393* 1 .632** .599** .575** .543**

Sig. (2-tailed) .019 .000 .000 .000 .001

Collaboration Team Work Pearson Correlation .685** .632** 1 .845** .773** .836**

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

Better Thinker Skills Pearson Correlation .767** .599** .845** 1 .862** .897**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

Time Management Pearson Correlation .659** .575** .773** .862** 1 .796**

Organizing Skills

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

Communication Skills Pearson Correlation .653** .543** .836** .897** .796** 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .001 .000 .000 .000

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 7.
E-learning characteristics.
The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425

7. Students’ results and analysis

The survey was to collect feedback from students after they started using online
learning courses. The effects of this methods on students’ learning and understand-
ing A scale of 1–5 range from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). Different
dimensions of online approach are analyzed and Eighty-seven UAE College
Students coming from different Universities were asked to give their perception on
different aspects of online learning methods.
For the question (1), “Do you like online learning technology?” 84 respondents
representing 97.6% of the students said they do. As for the question (2), “Do you
feel ready to use online environment?”, 61 students representing 71.2% said they do.
While 7 students or 8% said, they do not. Only 19 student or 21.8% were neutral
(see Table 8).
As for question (3), “whether students have all the required technology tools
for online learning”, 71 of the respondents representing 83.53% agreed but only 4
students disagreed (See Table 9).
Regarding the question (4), as to “whether students have reliable internet con-
nection for online learning, 56 of the respondents representing 64% said that they
agreed, while 7 students said that they disagree (See Table 10).
For question (5), “Did Online learning help your study when you have flexible
schedule?” 53 students representing 63% of the respondents said it helped them
because of time restriction. On the other hand, 31 students representing 37% said
that time was not visible (See Table 11).
For question (6), “Did online learning help you to be more productive?”
38 students representing 45% of the respondents said that online class helped them
to be more organized and productive. On the other hand, 19 students representing
23% said that it was not productive for them (See Table 12).

Frequency Percent

Agree 61 71.2%
Neutral 19 21.8%
Disagree 7 8%

Table 8.
Ready for online transformation.

Frequency Percent

Agree 71 83.53%
Neutral 10 11.76%
Disagree 4 4.70%

Table 9.
Do students have the required tools for online learning?

Frequency Percent
Agree 56 64%
Neutral 24 27.59%
Disagree 7 8%

Table 10.
Do students have the reliable internet connection for online learning?

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E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

For question (7), “How do rate your experience with your team online” 58
students representing 60% of the respondents said that online learning class is like
normal class. On the other hand, 9 students representing 10% said that they were
not satisfied with online learning (See Table 13).
For question (7), “How do rate your internet connectivity and how often
problems occurred?” 37 students representing 43% of the respondents said that
online class runs into technical issues which lead to reduce their productivity and
confidence. On the other hand, 42 students representing 48% said that there were
no issues with their internet connections (See Table 14).
For question (8), “Did you develop any health issues since the start of online
learning? 41 students representing 48% of the respondents said that online class
causes health issues which lead to reduce their productivity and confidence. On
the other hand, 25 students representing 29% said that there were no health issues
using online learning (See Table 15).
For question (9), “Rate the distractions you have had online”, 31 students
representing 37% of the respondents said that online class did not face distractions.
On the other hand, 23 students representing 27% said that there were not issues
concerning online distraction (See Table 16).

Frequency Percent

Yes 53 63.10%
No 31 37%

Table 11.
Did you have a flexible schedule when online learning was used?

Frequency Percent

Agree 38 45%

Neutral 27 32.14%
Disagree 19 23%

Table 12.
Did online learning help you be more productive?

Frequency Percent

Satisfied 52 60%

Neutral 25 29.07%
Unsatisfied 9 10%

Table 13.
How do you rate your online experience with your team?

Frequency Percent

Perfect 42 48%

Neutral 28 32.18%
Sometimes / Never 37 43%

Table 14.
How often do you face technical problems?

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The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425

Frequency Percent

Agree 41 48%
Neutral 20 23.26%

Disagree 25 29%

Table 15.
Did you develop any health issues since the start of online learning?

Frequency Percent
Unsatisfied 31 37%

Neutral 30 35.71%

Satisfied 23 27%

Table 16.
Rate the distractions you have had at home.

8. Conclusion

The ultimate purpose of this investigation was to explore the impact of online
learning on students’ academic achievement as the demand has increased in recent
times for online courses among institutions and college students who solely rely
on flexible and comfortable education. We tried to measure in quantifiable terms
the students’ final academic performance after their exposure to online learning
during this pandemic lockdown. The final results obtained in this study were quite
self-eloquent, as they unequivocally show the tremendous impact of e- learning
on students’ academic performance and achievements, as it can benefit students
in many ways, including enhancing and maximizing their learning independence
and classroom participation. It is a good experience for students’ transitional
preparation to pursue college education and seek employment. Students were more
engaged in the learning process than in conventional teaching, and online learning
experience has revealed that didactic teaching style is no longer effective. They no
longer regard teachers as the only source of information, but as learning facilitator
and online learning from different internet sources as their main source of infor-
mation. They have proved that they can assume their responsibilities, contribute
to course design assessment and learning process personalization. Online learn-
ing also helped overcome time and space constraints imposed by the convention
learning process and helped students to effectively communicate their findings
and share their ideas with their peers locally and globally. The introduction of a
new technology such as the online learning will undoubtedly have more impact on
the learning outcomes only if we reconsider the delivery mode, content redesign,
new assessment system. A suitable pedagogy and an appropriate content are the
most important sources of students’ learning motivation. Finally, e-learning has
a bright future, tremendous learning potentialities and excellent organizational
culture. Universities will incontrovertibly use many of the lessons learned during
this pandemic lockdown period of this forced online teaching to adjust curriculum
contents, teaching methods/lesson delivery, and assessment tools.
E-learning is here to stay and can make a much stronger contribution to higher
education in the years to come. However, there are some negative effects of online
class as it does not offer real a face to face contact and interaction with instructors
and imposes time commitment and less accountability on students. There are also

17
E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

many online struggles that students face such as the impossibility to stay motivated
all the time, as they sometimes feel that they are completely isolated. In addition,
instructors feel impotent to control students’ cheating, impose classroom discipline.
In addition to that, poor students struggle to get the necessary electronic equipment
to access this new mode of learning to interact in due time with their instructor,
make necessary comments and raise questions to clear ambiguities and any equivo-
cal statements and get appropriate feedback from their instructor.
There are other academic issues that need to be investigated deeply such as
the perspectives of higher education quality focusing on the study of cultural,
emotional, technological, ethical, health, financial or academic achievements.
Furthermore, more academic research should be done about e-learning theo-
ries/distance learning to truly improvise a new and adequate teaching/learning
approach.

Author details

Khaled Hamdan* and Abid Amorri

UAEU-University College, UAE

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.

18
The Impact of Online Learning Strategies on Students’ Academic Performance
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94425

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