Perceptions of parents toward online learning among secondary school students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted education systems worldwide, including in Malaysia, leading to the widespread closure of school facilities to control the situation. This development heightened parents’ awareness and concern about the quality of their children’s education. This study aimed to determine the parents’ perceptions towards their children online learning during the pandemic. This was a cross- sectional study conducted among the parents of secondary school children. The study based on online survey via Google Form. The questionnaire was mainly focused on parents’ perceptions on benefits, challenges, and involvement on their children’s online activities. Parents who were having secondary students were recruited using snowball technique which was a type of convenient sampling technique. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS (version 27). A total of 275 respondents participated in this study with the majority of parents agreeing that online learning could help their children develop technological competence (43.3%), followed by the ability to understand online learning materials (34.2%), despite the learning process being conducted through e-learning. However, parents claimed that their children could not maintain their concentration (31.3%) as well as their improvement in communication skill (30.5%). Most of the parents (62.5%) had limited time to accompany children’s learning activities. As a result, online learning emerged as a new and demanding task, compelling parents to adapt to the evolving educational norm. Overall, this study highlighted the positive impacts on the education sector during the pandemic.