The relationship between student attitudes towards using virtual education and their satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic

The move to new approaches to higher education has required many universities around the world to use e-learning in their courses. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between the attitudes of the students toward using virtual education and their satisfaction level during the Covid-19 crisis. The research methodology used was descriptive. A sample of 165 undergraduate students (89 technical engineering and 76 psychology students) were randomly selected at Islamic Azad University Shahre Rey in the first semester of 2020-2021. Attitude and satisfaction level toward virtual education questionnaires were used to collect data. The analyses were carried out through SPSS software (26 version), by using the Pearson correlation and t-tests on two independent samples. Findings indicated that there was a significant relationship between attitudes toward virtual education and satisfaction for all participants. Therefore, it can be concluded that the more positive attitudes towards e-learning and virtual education are, the higher the satisfaction level toward virtual education is. In addition, there was no difference between the attitudes and satisfaction level toward virtual education in the two target groups. A more accurate analysis of the questions showed that virtual education generated more problems for technical students when it came to understanding the main concepts. While both groups believed that online examinations were more appropriate given the pandemic circumstances, some difficulties such as internet speed and challenges while uploading the response sheets affected their attitude in a negative way. The findings also indicated that psychology students found using the internet and online platforms more challenging than engineering students