Assessing Bangladeshi University Students’ Virtual Learning Activities: Experiences and Expectations

Abstract

Everyday there is something new on the Internet. And mostly, it is the youth who are up-to-date with such information and updates. They are using these new pieces of information, updates, and tools for various purposes, one of which is to get help. Nowadays, a lot of students use the Internet to learn more about their subjects, topics discussed in the classroom, and beyond. Due to the advancement of technology and access to information, they have now shifted their attention from many physical learning sources to online learning tools. There are many faculty members who are using online tools while teaching as well, although, there are some teachers who are not using or are not familiar with many of the online tools that are being used by their students. The objective of this paper is to contribute in minimizing the gap. This paper explores students’ online learning activities by studying their experiences and expectation. This study shows how much time students are spending online, what they are usually looking for, their searching techniques, types of online learning tools they use, websites they frequently visit to get information, software or applications they have found useful, classroom activities they do outside the classroom using the Internet, and types of class activities they want to do outside the classrooms. This is an interview based research which focuses on 75 students of three private universities of Bangladesh from various departments and courses. Furthermore, it includes challenges encountered by students while searching or accessing any course related contents and their expectations from their teachers in those circumstances. The outcome of this research will help educators in auditing students’ virtual learning habits and will also help them redesign their course outlines accordingly.