E-learning versus face-to-face civil and environmental engineering education: A case study of the COVID-19 pandemic

Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: abdul_19000967@utp.edu.my

Abstract

The Malaysian Government implemented a countrywide lockdown due to COVID-19, which also affected the educational institutes. Under these circumstances, the e-learning educational strategy was initiated for the resuming of educational activities. A need for the study was devised and performed to assess the students’ perspective on this transition from face-to-face learning to e-learning for the effective implementation of the system. Students’ feedback data was evaluated for the January 2020 semester, which was collected before the pandemic and the September 2020 semester, which was collected during the pandemic by the end of the semester. Both data were analysed by adopting parametric Student’s t-test and non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test. Overall, it is concluded that students were comfortable with the e-learning educational system. However, the effectiveness of the e-learning system is dependent on the course type and requirements. This study will help the instructors to evaluate and improve their teaching strategy for the e-learning educational system by the preview of students for the deficiencies, in comparison to face-to-face learning, as the current lockdown situation is uncertain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.