Digital Academic Education during Covid-19 Pandemic – Perception of College and School students in Andhra Pradesh

The purpose of this study is to examine the view of college and school students of Andhra Pradesh on virtual education through web conference tools in response to the Covid-19 crisis. From July to September 2020, an online survey was conducted, with 123 responses selected for the study. For answering the study objectives, the data was examined using the Mann Whitney U test and the Friedman test. Out of 123 people who took part in the online survey, 48% were high school students and 52% were college students, male respondents made up 63% of the overall population while female respondents made up 37%. The majority of school pupils (30%) were aged 12 to 15, while the majority of college students (39%) were aged 20 to 23. When it came to accessing web-conference applications, the most popular choices among survey participants were Mobile and Tablet. The most often utilized web conferencing tools for virtual learning were Zoom (90%) and Cisco Webex Meeting (87%). The results of the Mann Whitney U test revealed that college students scored higher than schoolchildren, implying that the former population was more responsive to certain aspects of online education than the latter. The test revealed a statistically significant discrepancy between college and school students’ expectations of the benefits and drawbacks of online learning. Furthermore, the Friedman test revealed a significant difference in total satisfaction between college and school students (χ2 (1) = 29.121, p ≤ 0.000). Additionally, both the school and college populations benefited from online library services such as virtual book exhibitions, webinars, and awareness programmes on Covid-19 and academic/research-related topics; lowering penalty/ overdue charges on borrowed library materials; providing licenced electronic resources and educational video materials.