Teachers Understanding of Students’ Learning Environment during Online Classes

Learning environment has a great influence on learners’ motivation irrespective of whether the class is conducted physically or through online. As online education is expanding at a fast pace, online educators have a need to understand the learning environment of the students. In this context, the current study contributes to the existing knowledge on the learning environment, by studying what the teachers understand about the learning environment of the students. The study follows a quantitative method. Convenient sampling is done to obtain the samples. The lecturers and students of a pre university college formed the sample. The data collection tool used is the Online Learning Environment Survey (OLES) tool for teachers and students prepared by Curtin University and which has been tested for reliability, validity and consistency. The tool comprised of 8 Likert scales with 32 Likert items. Statistical tools for testing normality and non-parametric test such as Mann-Whitney U-test used to analyse the data obtained through the instrument. It is found that there is significant difference in the preference on online learning environment among teachers and students. The effect size was found out to be 0.39. The learning environment, computer usage had a large effect size of 0.46 compared to other learning environment teacher support, student interaction, personal relevance, authentic learning, student autonomy, equity and asynchronocity.