Academic Demands, Learning Styles and Coping Strategies

of Students in the time of the Global Pandemic

CLARENCE B. BALTERO
Researcher

Research Plan
Introduction

The COVID-19 has resulted in schools shut all across the world. Globally, over 1.2 billion

children are out of the classroom. As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the

distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms.

Research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, and

take less time, meaning the changes corona virus have caused might be here to stay. While

countries are at different points in their COVID-19 infection rates, worldwide there are currently

more than 1.2 billion learners in 186 countries affected by school closures due to the

pandemic. With this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe, some are

wondering whether the adoption of online learning will continue to persist post-pandemic, and

how such a shift would impact the worldwide education market. he world seems to have ground

to a halt because of the novel coronavirus.

However, students continue their education through online learning and via video calls with their

teachers, especially in big cities such as Jakarta. The model is currently the best alternative as

keeping schools open poses a safety risk for students.

Globally, many countries have adopted this approach. Schools in New York, the United States,

prepared for online learning by distributing gadgets to their students, ensuring they had access to

learning materials. As of early April, education authorities distributed around 500,000 laptops

and tablets to their students, allowing them to participate in classes online. When the first two

COVID-19 cases were announced in the Philippines in early March, the country was in a panic.

On March , President Rodrigo Duterte announced that all schools in Jakarta were to be closed.

However, many schools were not ready to apply home learning programs yet. The online classes

implemented in Philippines work differently from those in the US. This is due to a lack of
preparation in this country. As a student participating in the home-learning program, online

school was confusing to adjust to as we had not been prepared through simulations or practices

beforehand. Students reported the home-learning program to be even more stressful than regular

classrooms. Some of the common reasons for this went along the lines of: "Normal classes may

have been difficult, but having friends makes it so much more manageable and less stressful.

Online classes take out the benefits of having friends to socialize with and being stuck alone with

nothing but assignments."

Many students participating in home-learning programs also say that the workload of online

classes is larger than that of regular classes. The general consensus is that home-learning

programs — although highly beneficial and a good alternative to school as schools are closed —

still require some getting used to by students, as it is a novel concept and not many are

experienced with them.

However, although the closing of schools does have a silver lining (home-learning programs

where students are still able to learn), the true sufferers of the government order of school

closings are the students in less fortunate situations and the students who are in schools that are

not well-funded. This is because those students lack the devices and internet access to be able to

participate in online classes, and the schools do not have the capacity to teach online. Unlike in

New York where devices are distributed to students by schools and private companies, in

Philippines, there is yet to be this kind of effort.

This leaves many students in a bad spot where they are unable to receive an education. Although

internet service providers have been giving out free data packages, they are simply not capable of

supporting video calls on programs such as Zoom. To further complicate things, it seems that

COVID-19 will last a while in Indonesia. For context, in China, it took months for the
transmissions to stabilize — and this was with a fast government response, instant lockdown and

people obeying the rules and quarantine policies.

Despite the lack of a nation-wide lockdown, schools remain closed, meaning that students who

have no access to a device or internet connection will have a difficult time maintaining their

education. Due to these factors, they will be in a very difficult spot educationally until the

COVID-19 pandemic dies down in Indonesia. In this situation, the government should make

extra efforts to support the education sector and build a sense of solidarity among schools, such

as by facilitating networks between international and national/public schools to share

experiences and study methodologies for online teaching.

A. Problems to be Solved

Generally, this study aims to determine the academic demands, learning styles and coping

strategies of student during the time of the COVID pandemic. Specifically, this study seeks to

answer the following questions:

a) What are the socio-demographic profile of the students who are currently active

learners during the pandemic?

b) What are the academic demands that are being faced by the learners?

c) What are the learning styles of that the learners employ during the pandemic?

d) What are the coping strategies that the learners employ to cope with the various

academic demands faced during the pandemic?

strategies of the learners when grouped according to their profiles?

B. Goals/Expected Outcome/

a) To determine the socio-demographic profile of the students who are currently active

learners during the pandemic.

b) To determine the academic demands that are being faced by the learners.

c) To determine the learning styles of that the learners employ during the pandemic.

d) To determine the coping strategies that the learners employ to cope with the various

academic demands faced during the pandemic.

e) To ascertain if there are there significant differences on the academic demands;

learning styles and coping strategies of the learners when grouped according to their

profiles.

Hypothesis

a) a) There are no significant differences on the academic demands; learning styles

and coping strategies of the learners when grouped according to their profiles.

C. Procedures
Design and Development of the Online Survey Questionnaires

As a new medium for questionnaire delivery, the Internet has the potential to

revolutionize the survey process. Online (Web-based) questionnaires provide several advantages

over traditional survey methods in terms of cost, speed, appearance, flexibility, functionality, and

usability. The questionnaire will be divided into four sections : Profile, Academic Demands,

Learning Styles and Coping Strategies. Prior to initiating the study, permission to survey the

learners will be sought and granted from the adviser. Before administering the questionnaire to

the selected sample, a pilot study was conducted to evaluate content validity and to identify

potential problems . It will then be encoded in a free web-based application Google Survey.

Distribution of Questionnaires and Evaluation

These questionnaires will be sent out to an initial 30 randomly selected students of Colegio de la

Purisima Concepcion - Junior High School (JHS) Department. Snowball sampling will be used.

Snowball sampling is a non-probability sampling method. It doesn’t have

the probability involved, with say, simple random sampling (where the odds are the same for any

particular participant being chosen). Rather, the researchers used their own judgment to choose

participants.

Snowball sampling consists of two steps:

1. Identify potential subjects in the population. Often, only one or two subjects can be found

initially.
2. Ask those subjects to recruit other people (and then ask those people to recruit. Participants

should be made aware that they do not have to provide any other names.

These steps are repeated until the needed sample size is found. Ethically, the study participants

should not be asked to identify other potential participants. 

Data Gathering and Analysis

When the survey forms are being answered an automated report can be generated or

accessed. Further analysis can be done manually and by SPSS.

D. Research Design

The research design to be used in this study is the Descriptive Research Design.

E. Statistical Tool

The statistical tools to be used for analysis of data are the Frequency, Mean and T-test

will be employed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Software.