PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF ONLINE LECTURES DURING THE PANDEMIC: A CASE STUDY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Abstract

The educational process changed significantly in the context of the pandemic generated by the Coronavirus. University students had to move from the traditional classes and laboratories to the online platform. As extant research shows, this shift to online education has both advantages and drawbacks. The objective of this research is to analyze the advantages of online lectures as perceived by engineering students from a Romanian technical university in Bucharest. The analysis has been done on a sample of 109 university students. The results revealed two kinds of benefits: educational and personal. The most important educational benefits were the online participation and the possibility to record and review courses or seminars any time and from anywhere. The most important personal benefits were time-saving, comfort, and money-saving. Overall, the perceptions of engineering students are suggesting a relative acceptance of the online lecture format which contrasts with the results of similar studies in the literature