Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Academic Performance and Attitude of Nursing Students towards E-Learning

Bollineni NJ¹* and Jahnavi K²

¹Principal cum Professor, Department of Community Health Nursing, NRI College of Nursing, India ²M.Sc.N, NRI College of Nursing, India

Abbreviations

WHO: World Health Organization; SARSCoV-2: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2; COVID-19: Coronavirus Disease 2019.

Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was potentially severe and acute respiratory infection caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus

2 (SARSCoV-2) [1]. Education and awareness are major determinant factors in improving the quality of life to limit human interaction and help minimize the covid-19 spread. World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020 termed it a pandemic. The pandemic of covid-19 had disrupted the global educational system as most countries around the world implemented a closure of all educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the pandemic [2, 3, 4]. According to the report by UNESCO (2020), the closures of schools and other learning spaces impacted 94% of the world’s student population and up to 99% of lower and middle-class family income [5].

The traditional way of teaching is not possible because of the fast spreading of COVID-19. The approved face-to- face teaching was currently archaic because of COVID-19. The newly adopted online teaching is not very effective in all geographical territories. Online education needs uninterrupted networks and supportive devices. Achieving those facilities is not easy for a developing and populated country like India. Geographical diversity is also a problem for online education. The population who lives in rural and hilly areas approximately 65% to 70% does not have sufficient access to electricity and internet facilities. The students from such remote areas suffered a lot because of device unavailability, interrupted electricity, and internet connectivity. There are also certain family issues such as poverty and economic instability due to the loss of jobs by parents due to the COVID-19 lockdown had showed an impact on the student’s performance in their academic studies [6].

All the Students had been obligated to become accustomed to a total shift to online teaching and learning processes by using electronic devices [7]. Electronic learning may be valued by some students, but they value its pliability in location and time, in contrast, other students will have a negative attitude towards it as they do not have information about use of technology or the absence of teacher-student face-to-face teaching.

Teaching was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in many institutions, especially in medical and nursing education colleges. The rapid spread of COVID-19 all over the world has triggered a range of public health responses both by parents and students [8]. Online learning was a need of the day in India, hence the government and other educational organizations have designed policies for online learning to implement in the education field at the university level. However, due to less knowledge about the ground realities, the policies fail to achieve the desired outcomes. Barely any research was made on various dimensions of online learning, its barriers, the attitude of students, and its impact on the student’s academic achievements. Moreover, the studies were made at secondary and intermediate levels but no formal efforts were made to conduct research on the undergraduate nursing level [9], as graduation is a crucial stage in nursing academics as it focuses more on clinical practice and skill development along with theoretical knowledge. Therefore, the researcher was curious to know about their attitude towards online learning and its impact on their academic performance.

Objectives of the Study

• To assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nursing students on their academic performance.
• To analyze the perception of nursing students regarding the digital mode of teaching and learning process.
• To analyze the comparison between the attitude and academic performance of the nursing students during COVID-19 pandemic.
• To find out the association between the academic performance and attitude of the students during COVID-19 pandemic with their selected baseline variables.

Materials and Methods

The research approach used for the present was quantitative. The research design used for the study was descriptive comparative research design. The study was conducted in two selected colleges in Guntur (DT), AP. The population of the study was 3rd and 4th year B.Sc. Nursing students. The systematic random sampling technique was used by taking every alternative subject to draw the sample size of hundred (n=100) 50 students from each college from 3rd year B.Sc. Nursing students and another hundred (n=100) 50 students from each college from 4th year B.Sc. Nursing students were selected respectively.

Results

We have received a total of 200 total responses from respondents. As per Table I Majority (86 from G1 and 80 from G2) of the samples were females. The majority (78%) of the subjects in G1 were between the age group of 20- 21 years and (56%) of them were between 22-23 years of age. Respondents were distributed in different levels of socioeconomic status. All 100% of the samples who were studying nursing were from different selected private colleges.

Regarding the E-learning material and its importance on their academic performance, as depicted in Table 2 most of the respondents (89%) from GI and (84%) of GII had used Smartphone for attending online classes and the majority (54%) in GI and (68%) in GII revealed that they had spent 2 to 4 hours per day towards E-learning classes.

A greater part (60%) of respondents from GI and (74%) of GII had felt that the COVID-19 Figure 1 pandemic had greatly affected their academic performance. Most of the subjects (93%) of GI and (95%) of GII said that it was true that E-learning provides digital multimedia content like written text, audio, video, and images that helped them to study. There was a mixed response from both groups that E-learning was considered less expensive than standard learning. Most of the sample overall 90% in both groups had expressed that E-Learning was a type of telecommunication. There was a mixed response from GI (56%) of them felt that it was false and GII (75%) of the samples said as it was that E-learning can cover the practical aspects of nursing education.

Click to enlarge

The overall COVID 19 impact on academic performance as it was projected in Fig:1 that the Majority of GI 63% and 47% of GII were moderately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic which hurt their academic performance, another 54% of GI and 80% of GII had a low level of impact on their academic performance. Hence H1 was accepted that there will be a significant relationship between the impact of Covid 19 and the level of academic performance of nursing students. The attitude of subjects towards E-learning was estimated in Figure 2 which show the Majority of GI 90% and 63% of GII had favorable attitudes towards E-learning and another 10% of GI and 37% of GII had unfavorable attitudes.

Click to enlarge

Table 3 reflects the Correlation between GI and GII on the Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Academic performance of nursing students, with a mean score was 56.61±4.7 there exists a moderate correlation r=0.61 at (P >0.05). There was a moderate correlation between the Impact of Covid 19 Pandemic and the attitude of the respondents, with the Mean score being 31.43±1.9 and “r”=0.89 at (P >0.05) the level of significance. The obtained calculated ‘r’ value was greater than the table value. It shows that there was a significant relationship between attitude and academic performance.

Table 4 shows the Significance of the relationship between the attitude of respondents towards E-learning within and between GI was computed and the mean score was 33.38±1.14 and the impact of covid 19 on academic performance was 52.53±0.5 with t=12.34 (df=98) at (P >0.05). The relationship between attitude towards E-learning within and between GII mean score was 29.48±3.01, and academic performance mean score 54.4±4.07 with t=15.89 (df=98) at (P >0.05). The obtained calculated ‘t’ value was greater than the table value 2.00. It shows that there was a highly significant difference between attitude and academic performance. The Chi-square was computed to find out the association between the impact of the covid 19 on the level of academic performance and selected demographic variables and in GI it was found that there was an association between age, gender, residence, and level of academic education. In GII there was an association between socioeconomic status, level of academic education, and level of academic performance at (p=0.05). Hence H2 was accepted that there will be a significant association between the level of academic performance of samples and selected demographic variables.

Discussion

E-learning draws near to make easy and provides educational content from the teacher to the learner with horizontal communication through the use of computers all around the world is called E-learning. The realization of E-learning in higher education has enabled an elemental change in teaching and learning methods. The progression in technology affects all the organizations around the world [10, 11, 12]. The quick advances in knowledge of late put the organizations towards the use of E-learning in all spheres of academic institutions. The present study results would tell us that the majority 105(52.5%), of the subjects in the age group of 20-21 years, and 72 (36%) were 22-23 age group

23 (11.5) were 24-25 years. The majority 166 (83%) of subjects were female gender. In a similar study conducted in Oman, most of the participants were female (67.5%) and were in the age group between 18 to 27 years (93.9%) [10]. Just more than half of the respondents 103 (51.5%) had come from rural areas. Most of them were unmarried 199 (99.5%). About the SES 73 (36.5%) of the sample belonged to the Lower middle (III) based on the Kuppuswamy socio- demographic scale.

The present study results in greed with some studies that conducted that the academic performance of the students was negatively affected. Age and sex were other demographic variables that showed a significant relationship with academic performance. It was also observed that academic performance was associated with their residence living and level of socioeconomic status. The present research findings suggest that the academic performance of the students during COVID-19 was influenced and impacted their learning. A study conducted on Afghan students and their level of satisfaction with online teaching and academic performance also revealed that there were significant differences existed in the academic performance of students and their level of satisfaction with online teaching across genders. A strong positive correlation was found between the academic performance of Afghan students and their level of satisfaction with online teaching during the Covid-19 outbreak. According to the findings of the study, several implications and recommendations have been provided [10]. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the academics of nursing students negatively. Online academics can be compensatory only to a certain extent, where practical training is the least. Professional clinical exposure and training are unavoidable for the nursing profession.

The present study also reveals that 76.5% of nursing students had favorable attitudes towards the use of E-Learning during the Covid-19 pandemic and it was consistent with another study conducted at Lahore [11]. One of the major troubles with E-learning was the relationship between teacher and student in the virtual flat form but not the real world. Therefore, since the students were not at hand in front of the teacher, if the teacher does not involve them in class, they might get out of contact with the group face-to-face, and it will not be possible for the teacher to return them to the class circle. In addition, dishonesty on tests and exams was unavoidable. On another hand, Clinical proficiency was a very significant practical component in nursing education and the most important aspect for students [13]. The experiences found varied according to the groups of students. Depending on how close they were to the end of their training or whether they were in graduate school and needed skill-based training as nurses or health care professionals, they might find e-learning ineffective. Most

studies do emphasize that professional teaching should be done in a traditional classroom lecture and demonstration method since theory and practical skills need to be enhanced with each other.

Recommendations

Based on the findings of the study the following recommendations were made.

• A similar study can be undertaken with a large sample size to generalize the findings
• A comparative study can be conducted to assess the attitude and academic performance of nursing students between traditional classroom teaching and virtual teaching.
• A study can be carried out to identify the impact of attitude and academic performance on the outcome of nursing students in their academic results and behavioral changes.

Conclusion

The study concludes that most of the respondents suffered from disturbances during online classes because of internet and electricity problems; also students were compelled to use data packages which are expensive for their online classes. Though technology has improved the various e-learning flat forms nursing education is more hand on skill training and demonstrations are needed. Hence the researcher felt that students were not able to learn nursing procedures adequately through e-learning. New virus strains are emerging and there is still doubt regarding the end of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Hence, online is the only solution to complete the nursing student’s curriculum but the clinical training component will be difficult to address. Even virtual simulations are recommended by nursing experts. Nursing educators should prepare their students to cope with this form of crisis even in the future prepare themselves for virtual demonstrations and bring about a positive attitude among the students to adapt to upcoming challenges.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank all the study participants for their cooperation in completing the study successfully.

Conflict of Interest

The author(s) declared that there are no potential conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.