Exploring the Students’ Perceived Academic Value in an Exclusive Online Learning Environment

Abstract

The pandemic generated by the COVID-19 challenged the education system to face the constraints of exclusively online teaching and learning. Like many other areas of life, education required rapid adaptation and finding the best solutions to continue the instructional-educational process. Teachers and researchers, educational policymakers, the community, students, and even parents, have made efforts to minimize social, emotional, cognitive losses so that the current generation is not deprived of quality education and to benefits from the optimal conditions that influence their development as autonomous, creative, physically and mentally healthy personalities. In this context, unexpected challenges arose, which teachers had to face: how to achieve a quality education in an exclusively online environment (deprived of face-to-face interaction), how to communicate effectively and transmit not only words but attitudes, examples of conduct, principles, and values, how to motivate students and how to keep in touch with each of them. The research aims to explore the students’ perceived academic value of online/distance lectures using online learning platforms (Microsoft Teams and Zoom). A model has been developed and tested on a sample of 298 university students from Lithuania and Romania. The results show that perceived enjoyment and perceived learning effectiveness are the main antecedents of the perceived academic value.