Attitudinal, Awareness, and Perceptional Differences in Virtual and Offline Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The education industry was completely transformed by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. The industry has upscaled itself to cater to millions of consumers. The purpose of this paper is to understand the attitudinal, awareness, and perceptional issues in virtual and offline learning, especially during the pandemic, as well as to study the academic industry in total and adopt a combined approach. The use of technology and the increased use of the Internet in the last few years have made various new interventions in the industry. This paper also highlights the alteration and dissimilarities between modern education and the traditional mode of education. This study was undertaken to understand which mode of education is more preferred by the students, through the use of primary data and secondary data. One of the findings is: a majority of the people in this research are conscious about virtual education, but prefer the offline mode of education. This paper has also tried to categorise the trials faced by the stakeholders of the industry, in terms of the attitude of the faculty as well as the students, awareness regarding the technological advancements, and perceptions regarding the same. The researchers conclude that all the stakeholders have to bring about huge changes in their skills and attitude to make blended learning a reality.

Keywords: COVID-19, E-Learning, Attitude, Awareness, Perception, Offline Education, Blended Learning

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