Online-Learning: A Solution for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper describes two teaching and learning approaches that were adopted and compared across five different faculties (i.e., Health Sciences; Natural Sciences; Educational Sciences; Humanities, Social Sciences and Law; lastly Commerce and Administration) over a two-year period (2019 and 2020). Students are subjected to assessments that comprise of essays, practicals, presentations, and written tests. Students were taught using the traditional method (face-to-face learning) in 2019, whereas in 2020 students were taught and assessed using e-learning methods on Blackboard. The Mann-Whitney U test showed that students performed significantly different in 2019 compared to 2020, with greater performance in 2020 than 2019. As a result, there is sufficient data to conclude that online learning is more successful compared to face-to-face learning.

Keywords: Traditional method, e-learning, teaching, Higher Education, Students.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/13-27-07

Publication date:September 30^th 2022