A SURVEY found that 70% of students would like their virtual learning experience to be more fun and engaging.

“This is higher than in the previous year’s survey, where only 37% of students reported the same,” social enterprise Project ID said in a report.

“Clearer and more consistent learning structures continue to be a major need according to students, with 56% indicating that in 2021 compared to 47% in 2020.”

The online survey in March interviewed 761 students aged 13 to 21 across the country. 

“About two in five students say better internet access and technical devices would improve their online learning experience,” Project ID said in its reports.

A 70% chunk, or 524of the respondents, said they preferred more fun and engaging activities to improve their learning; 428 said they wanted a clearer and more consistent learning structure; and 383 said they wanted more active and interactive engagement during class.

Preferred tools and platform

A majority of students preferred the Google Meet learning platform.

“Google Meet on average scored slightly higher than Zoom (6.40 v 5.78), indicating a slight preference for Google Meet over Zoom. This may be due to the wider use of Google Meet in Malaysian public schools as a primary video conferencing tool.”

WhatsApp and Telegram were the students’ favourite apps for learning, trumping Instagram, Twitter and Facebook which the students said were inefficient.

However, that could change depending on who answered the questions. A notable finding was the differences between students who responded in English and in Malay.

“For respondents who selected Bahasa Melayu, Telegram was their most preferred platform, followed by WhatsApp. They also tend to rank synchronous platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom lower than students responding in English.

“This was reflected in the 57% of Bahasa Melayu respondents who ranked either Telegram or WhatsApp as their top platform, compared to only 20% of English respondents,” the report said.

Younger students need more support

Ninety-five percent of students said they needed more help from their teachers particularly in the learning of new subjects. This is especially true of Form One students.

“Most Form One students (77.8%) indicated that they needed a high level of support when learning a new topic.

“Students who indicated that they required a low level of support were three times more likely to prefer fully online classes compared to students who said they needed medium or high levels of support.”

A large number of students (118) also said that their preferred learning method was individual revision classes with resources from teachers, compared to 97 students who said they preferred classroom based lessons led by teachers.

“Students rank individual revision as their most preferred learning method (35%), followed by classroom-based lessons (29%), small group discussions (21%), and project-based activities (15%).

“For students who indicated that they preferred fully offline classes in the future, they were also more likely to rank classroom-based lessons as their most preferred method of learning (40%).

“This was in contrast to students preferring fully online classes, who were least likely to select classroom-based lessons (10%), and instead prefer individual revision (48%) or small group discussions (31%).”

The report was the last of a series of three documenting students’ online learning experience in the past year. – June 4, 2021.