Factors Influencing Student Engagement in Online Learning during the COVID – 19 pandemic period in India.

COVID-19 has severely impacted virtually all sectors, including the education sector, in unexpected ways. Education in India, which is very solid in its own way, has also undergone unprecedented changes during the pandemic. The education system that is mostly offline in India was forcefully converted to an online mode to keep the thousands of students safe from the corona virus and also to cater to their educational need. However, it remains to be seen whether the learning transmitted by the on-line mode has achieved its objective or not. A detailed study is certainly required to understand the impact created by on-line teaching - learning process. This study is part of such an effort to identify the factor that might influence the effectiveness of online education. An effort is made to ensure that students who experience online learning for the first time are assessed. The study conducted with a sample of 290 undergraduate and postgraduate students revealed that student’s engagement in online learning is influenced by factors like student characteristics, instructor characteristics, learning environment, course design, course content and administrative support. Instructor characteristics were also observed to be one of the most important factors influencing student engagement. During the study, some parameters related to e-learning were studied to better understand the factors that influence student engagement. Though there are many studies that have already identified factors influencing student engagement in online education, however, it is quite evident that the online education imparted during the pandemic time is not the same. It is evident that most of the education system has been primarily converted to online education due to an emergency without adequate preparedness. Therefore, the factors identified for a normal on-line learning process may not be similar for on-line education provided in emergency situations. This clearly points out that such a study is necessary