Use of information technology and problems faced by students in the teaching-learning process in higher education during the 2019 Covid pandemic

ABSTRACT

The 2019 Covid pandemic has changed the interaction of human life in the education sector. The teaching-learning process in higher education uses online communication techniques more, both synchronous and synchronous. Various information technology-based applications are used for students learning to obtain learning resources and to conduct teaching-learning interactions. This is useful, but there are also many problems faced by students. This study aims to explore online communication techniques and the problems that arise in using these techniques. The research object included 80 students of the master's program. The research design used mixing methods, supported by google form as a data collection technique. Descriptive statistics were used for qualitative data analysis. The results showed that widely used online techniques by students were Google Meet, WhatsApp, Google Search, Google Scholar, Zoom Meeting, Sipejar, YouTube, and Scopus.Com. Meanwhile. Problems were related to the use of Zoom Meeting, Sipejar, Google Meet, WhatsApp, Scopus.Com, YouTube, Google Scholar, and Google Search. The source of these problems included network problems, mastery of applications, ease of use, costs, the amount of data, the troubles in the using process, and so on. Based on these problems, effective strategies for using online communication techniques are suggested. © 2023 Author(s).