Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Teaching and Learning: Perceptions of Civil Engineering Students Towards the Online Class and Its Challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology and greatly transformed the way humans communicate. Since the start of the pandemic, the delivery of lectures and workshops shifted from face-to-face to online. However, this shift in the mode of teaching may or may not suit learners. This study was conducted to determine the students’ perception of the mode of teaching, their learning experience after attending the online classes throughout the semester, and the major challenges they faced during the classes. The participants were Year 1 students from an AutoCAD workshop, Year 3 students from a Traffic Engineering Course, and Year 4 students from a Highway and Pavement Design course. The results show that prerecorded classes with the addition of live-streaming classes were more preferred in computing classes because students can learn at their own pace, especially when learning the new software. For lecture-based courses, physical classes or a mix of physical and online classes were favored by students because physical classes can be more interactive. There were also challenges encountered by the students during online classes such as poor internet connection and distractions at home. Thus, instructors need to personally communicate with the students to understand their learning preference so that the necessary adjustments can be made to the mode of teaching, particularly with the use of hybrid teaching.