The sudden transition to remote learning in response to COVID-19: lessons from Malaysia

Abstract

Higher education students are frequently required to assess lecturers with a convenient, fast, and anonymous learning management system. Following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, Universiti Teknologi MARA Malaysia (UiTM) adopted a remote teaching and learning approach. This study examined how lecturers’ professionalism, course impression, and facilitating conditions at UiTM affected undergraduate and graduate students’ remote learning pre- and mid-pandemic. The higher prediction accuracy of the model demonstrated that students’ remote learning activities were highly related to lecturers’ professionalism, course impression, and facilitating conditions. The structural model demonstrated that the t-statistics of all measurement variables were significant at 1%. The strongest predictor of students’ enjoyment of remote learning pre- and mid-pandemic was lecturers’ professionalism. In the importance-performance matrix, lecturers’ professionalism was in the quadrant for ‘keep up the good work’. Facilitating conditions and course impression did not require further improvement even during the pandemic. The influence of remote learning was demonstrated in the students’ graduation rates and grades. The results also presented theoretical and practical implications for the UiTM hybrid learning plan post-pandemic.