Boosting Motivation to Help Students to Overcome Online Learning Barriers in Covid-19 Pandemic: A Case Study

Abstract

In response to the public health emergency of Covid-19 pandemic, changing learning and teaching from face to face mode to online one is determined to be imperative. The fact that classrooms were temporarily prevented from continuing did not mean that learning and teaching activities were suspended. They were going on in a new approach supported by technology, which challenges students and teachers with various barriers. The paper investigates the correlation between online learning barriers and motivations, whether the motivation-boosting strategies could help students overcome challenges in online learning duration and had any impact on students’ academic achievement or not. A quasi-experimental research was applied for 288 third-year students of law joining the second criminal law course at a university in Viet Nam. The experiment was conducted with the assistance of LMS, Microsoft Teams, Skype and Zoom, along with the software like Socrative, Kahoot and Social networks. The findings revealed that the extrinsic barriers had more impact on motivation than intrinsic ones; extrinsic barriers had high impact on the motivation and the learning results of students compared to the traditional learning method. The data also expressed that the motivation-boosting activities in the online learning process led positive changes in students’ learning motivation and academic achievement.