Summary
Numerous sectors and aspects of life were immediately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including entertainment, social interaction, and work and educational practices. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the educational system has shifted away from biological studies during the last two years in favor of a larger dependence on distance learning.On social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, sentiments on transitioning from traditional knowledge to current virtual knowledge are investigated (Alavudeen et al., 2021).
In light of this setting, the objective is to examine opinions and problems with remote learning in Saudi Arabia from the previous year. This article uses NLP techniques to analyze Twitter users’ posts to examine feelings and important themes to fully understand the ideas and emotions. The analysis examines Saudi Arabia’s distance learning programs concerning technological advances.
In many fields of research, media influence has become an important information source. For instance, to learn more about societal issues like business, politics, and health, scientists look through user reviews on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (Alavudeen et al., 2021). One of these websites that stands out as being the most immediate is Twitter, where users’ message boards are perpetually inundated with tweets. To quickly gather information on media sway during COVID-19, such as opposition to the resumption of on-site teaching. Researchers usually favor evaluating Twitter users’ opinions on remote learning as an alternative.
Impact of In-school Teaching on Saudi Citizens
Notably, a well-known flaw in social media data analysis is that it ignores social elements like gender, age, and employment connected to social users’ emotions. A study found that COVID-19 is linked to psychological unease, despair, anxiety, and terror (Alavudeen et al., 2021). Lockdowns are harming people’s mental health, and quarantines all around the world, and this problem won’t be fixed unless something is done about it. Many people not used to learning from home have found it challenging to switch to distant learning. However, now that the situation has changed, individuals question the value of attending lessons offline because the COVID-19 outbreak is still a concern.
The announcement of off-school teaching was due to health concerns following the diagnosis of coronavirus infections in Saudi Arabia. The decision was made with only a few confirmed cases of COVID-19. However, the resumption of in-school teaching was announced when there were thousands of confirmed and active cases (Alshehri et al., 2019). Most people struggled to adapt to the “remote life” and shared their varying experiences in the tweets. The announcement to resume on-site classes triggered similar reactions, with hundreds of people citing stress and other degrading factors of mental health.
Educational Impacts
Due to large, unforeseen changes in online learning, institutional colleges have altered their mode of teaching and administration of exams. It is clear that they were not prepared for such big changes but have nevertheless adapted to the current environment. New graduates encounter articles, texts, or modules using machine learning technologies over the web (Aldamegh et al., 2020).
Online learning can be either synchronous or asynchronous. Saudi Arabian students quickly adjusted to the new material, and the return to the classroom produced anxiety and annoyance. Twenty incidents of COVID-19 were reported daily when they converted to a traditional manner, and now there are 4,000 cases, and students think the government’s actions are unreasonable. Two types of tweets were established: direct tweets and replies, as summarized in the table below. A total of 115 tweets and 434 replies were included in the tweets.
Table 1. Distribution of tweets and replies
The recorded tweets were examined for five keywords closely related to the announced changes in teaching. The words’ frequency is considered on an hourly basis. The phrases “stress,” “digital,” “challenges,” “home,” and “adapt” are among them. The frequency of the respective words in the tweets and replies is presented in the table below.
Table 2. Frequency of engagement of words in tweets and replies.
“School” and “teach” dominated the Twitter discussions, with 73 and 76 engagements, respectively. The words “challenges” and “stress” did not have any engagement in the tweets and replies. The table data is visually presented in Figure 2 below. The choice of words by different users implies their reaction to the announcement concerning the key terms “in” and “school.” In this regard, the higher prevalence of the words “school” and “teach” as compared to” challenges” implies the users were more concerned about the subsequent education than accustomed to challenges.
Not all students are suited for distance study. Since they are inappropriate for many departments, online courses are a great chance for theoretical courses, like basic knowledge. Online pupils were less competent than their offline counterparts. However, for reasons of safety, students with COVID-19 prefer to learn online. Due to the many advantages, some high school students study online (Khalil et al., 2020). Online education offers a great chance to concentrate on useful subjects while avoiding trip expenses and time costs.
The capability of reviewing lectures to better retain the material is a crucial component of online learning. Nearly all students saw this as an opportunity to use the recorded lectures to learn the material more thoroughly. Most students on their social networks detailed the transition to offline education and explained why it was inherently impossible to abandon offline education since they are so used to online learning. Twitter feed responses generally show that online courses are superior to campus courses since recorded lectures have advantages (Khalil et al., 2020). Many students no longer feel stressed because of online learning and do not want to return to the classroom.
However, because different types of learners have varied criteria for how they should perceive and absorb content, online learning also exposes students to content perceptual limits. Some subjects require more effort to teach and communicate knowledge about. Many people who tweet about student discontent think that non-verbal cues, such as eye contact, are essential to the way that the learning process is organized (Khalil et al., 2020).
Students can discuss their coursework while on campus, which helps to clarify numerous ideas. Although the material of online classes may be explained, there are few opportunities to acquire pragmatic ideas. This prompted a massive welcome for the in-school teaching.
Time Management
Time management dominated the responses, and analysis shows that everyone concurred that virtual sessions helped them save time while improving their performance. Being able to study anywhere is considerably more convenient than having to drive or walk to a specific location to attend a lecture. The examples below illustrate this: Online learning provided more study time, and participants had better time management (Khalil et al., 2020). Since it generally takes two hours per day to commute to college from where individuals reside, virtual classes greatly reduce the time spent traveling to and from class.
Being in their comfort zone decreased their anxiety, making them happier with online classes. They made the following statements to express their thoughts: Online classes helped people save time and effort by minimizing campus-based temptations like obsessive involvement in conversation, adjusting to unwanted noise, and wasting time looking for a suitable place for personal studies.
@isowosheisid2 posted, “I enjoyed taking online courses. I used to pick a place in my house for my online studies where I could be comfortable, which also provided me time to relax anytime I wanted. The time and effort I saved enabled me to study well. Most participants were happy with the online learning environment because they could spend ample time with their families. @majed_online tweeted, “Online sessions exposed me to a new way of organizing my time. I saved time through online classes and had more time to spend with my family and enjoy whenever I needed a break from my studies.”
Challenges Encountered
Participants identified specific barriers to taking online courses. These are addressed under three sub-themes: behavioral barriers, methodological issues, and technical issues. Participants may be pessimistic about the first sub-theme, procedural barriers, which include quality assurance issues in delivering session materials and implementation issues (Khalil et al., 2020). The need to adapt and participate in the new system was seen as an obstacle to the formation and maintenance of online learning, and there were various concerns about the length and timing of training sessions. However, after adaptation and the news about going offline, Twitter began to talk about the benefits of online education and the desire to stay in such a system.
Online lectures allocate the strictly necessary time for each lecture online. In addition, the order of online lectures was well chosen, indicating online education’s convenience. @ 141613 Amani stated that “many lectures were planned for one day! Honestly, I did not have enough time to study them thoroughly. Much of the lecture material was extensive and needed to be covered quickly, and some lecturers missed the required lecture length“ (Tanveer et al., 2020).
@MINAYt4 tweeted, “Some of the lectures were quite long! The time allocated to lectures by teachers was not maintained. Several teachers were late for lectures and did not start lectures on time.“ @Abdulaziz_SaudM tweeted, “I noticed a significant breakdown in communication between students and teachers. Sometimes, I needed clarification on certain lecture topics, but the instructor could not resolve such issues due to a lack of understanding and communication. I did not talk directly to my classmates and professors in my classes on campus.”
The second sub-theme addresses the participants’ technical difficulties. Thus, this includes all necessary technical components, for example, internet connectivity and web-based tools (Khalil et al., 2020). Participants noted technical difficulties they encountered when participating in online sessions, such as a slow internet connection.
@Tja0G22fFDn7Uq1 noted, “The majority of professors were not experienced in giving online lectures, which was the second big issue. Time was wasted every day due to technical issues. It was difficult to follow lectures with instructors because of the frequent internet disconnections experienced during daily online lectures”.
Our third sub-theme covers unfavorable attitudes toward adopting new learning models and examines behavioral and acceptability issues. The participants’ views regarding their acceptance of online learning as inappropriate due to differences in preferred learning modes (Muhammad et al., 2018). @ sama_taif32 said, “I must acknowledge that while taking classes online improved my grades, it did not advance my understanding.”
@aumahmadgh said, “Even though I could handle online instruction, I severely missed using body language like making eye contact with teachers and writing on the board. I missed engaging, dynamic events like group discussions, peer instruction, and team-based learning. I like to attend a face-to-face class on campus.”
@Nd1nSy noted, “Most of the time, I thought that the atmosphere there was not conducive to listening to online lectures since I could not find a space at home that was appropriate for taking my online lessons. @Xa50Dn lamented, “My family was unaware of how the online system was occupying my time, which made them put much pressure on me.” “If online lectures continue, I am worried they will make me lazy and hurt my performance because it takes me longer to master the content. The nicest aspect of online courses was “recorded lectures.”
However, this feature also had drawbacks, as I could not use recorded lectures to link theoretical ideas (Linjawi & Alfadda, 2018). “While learning online, I was constantly preoccupied with my classes and studies, which distanced me from my family. I had little time to enjoy my social life while taking online classes as I was always preoccupied with my lectures and stopped interacting with my classmates.”
Future Preferences
Online education is mostly preferred; many students have expressed anxiety about going back offline due to COVID-19. However, many people find arguments in favor of studying on campus: “Group discussions can help you learn some difficult concepts and save time. Some lectures require active participation and direct eye contact with the lecturers, while others require collaborative methods such as group teaching (Aldamegh et al., 2020). Online classes cannot be used to teach courses that require practical application
Some students liked online learning but limited themselves to the following explanations: They like it only if the teacher uses virtual learning tools, including screen recording and scribbling. @mc4xp6qNYbZUtlA tweeted, “For female students like me who live outside of Unayza, online learning is suitable because it is better than studying on a college campus.”
People would like to continue taking online courses until the system is secure and ready before they reuse it. Online learning is great as it saves study time and creates a safe learning environment during COVID. One day a week should be set aside for online learning to cover certain theory courses but not all coursework for the year.
Discussions
Based on comments made on Twitter, this study investigates how Saudi Arabian students feel about going back to traditional classroom settings. The inclusion of the words “school,” “stress,” “challenge,” “teach,“ and “adapt“ in the tweets and replies is a clear indication of the user’s reaction to the announcement. The benefit of acquiring an idea sooner than in a regular college seems to encourage the participants in our study (Aldamegh et al., 2020). They used educational technology, which matched the demands of adult learners and promoted effective student-centered learning. This teaching method guided pupils toward self-directed learning while successfully managing their scholastic needs (Linjawi & Alfadda, 2018).
And lastly, it enables pupils to utilize their time wisely. However, specific students draw attention to various time management issues. The survey discovered a typically high degree of virtual learning pleasure, and students’ perceptions of it as a novel approach to learning compared to conventional learning approaches were slightly upbeat.
Although e-learning brings success to higher education graduates, it does not mean virtual learning can replace the current face-to-face classes. For our study participants, the adoption of digital learning faced several barriers. The most common limitations were technical shortcomings such as poor internet access and teachers’ inability to use computers (Muhammad et al., 2018).
However, these obstacles were not as significant as the main limitation of COVID-19 (Kaczmarek et al., 2020). The need for high-impact use of technology in education lies in the willingness and expertise of the institution to use technology to facilitate learning. The Twitter participants tend to agree that the barrier between conventional and online studies will take time to solve.
The rampant lack of non-verbal cues is a significant barrier. However, the reactions analyzed show that the COVID-19 problem is the biggest. Students are dissatisfied with the decision of the authorities to go offline, but the authorities do not listen to the opinion of society. Most people on Twitter are ironic about the situation because they do not consider the actions of the authorities to be logical. Students want to stay online despite technical problems because safety and health are a priority.
References
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