ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This study is pertinent due to the Covid-19 global pandemic that has affected many economic sectors, education being one of the worst affected. This empirical study was undertaken to understand factors that affect mental wellness of final semester students at a public university in Malaysia. This targeted group of students had been exposed to two semesters of face-to-face teaching before the forced change to virtual learning. The study aimed to understand how mental wellness is affected by technology, transition challenges and lecturers. This is a descriptive, correlational study and data was collected via online questionnaire which was made available via Google link. A total of 119 students participated in this online survey. The measurements were based on valid and reliable studies and the data was analysed using the PLS-SEM technique. The predictors (technology, transition challenges and relationship with lecturers) explained 39% of the variance in mental wellness of the students. Interestingly, it was discovered that technology did not affect the students’ mental wellness. However, both transition challenges and relationship with lecturers had positive relationship with mental wellness of the students. Transition challenges had a higher impact on students’ mental wellness more than relationship with lecturers (?=0.387, p<.01).. Future research needs to focus on challenges faced by lecturers due to virtual teaching. Equally important is to understand the transition challenges faced by students.
Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psy¬chological Bulletin, 103(3), 411-423.
Aucejo, E. M., French, J., Araya, U. M. P., Zafar, B. (2020). The impact of COVID-19 on student experiences and expectations: Evidence from a survey. Journal of Public Economics, 191, 104271(2020). doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104271
Bower, M. (2019). Technology?mediated learning theory. British Journal Education Technology, 50,1035-1048 (2019). doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12771
Davis, N. L., Gough, M., & Taylor, L. L. (2019). Online teaching: advantages, obstacles, and tools for getting it right. Journal of Teaching in Travel & Tourism, 19(3), 256–263. doi: 10.1080/15313220.2019.1612313
Froman, V., Beruman, D., Rodriguez, J., & Stute, C. (2020). Covid-19 Student Survey: Online Learning Experiences and Challenges Experienced Related to the Covid-19 Pandemic. California: Mt San Antonio College.
Hair, J., Risher, J., Sarstedt, M., & Ringle, C. (2019), When to use and how to report the results of PLS-SEM. European Business Review, 31(1), 2-24. doi:10.1108/EBR-11-2018-0203
Henseler, J., Ringle, C., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A New Criterion for Assessing Discriminant Validity in Variance-based Structural Equation Modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115-135. doi:10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8
Hilliard, A. T. (2015). Global blended learning practices for teaching and learning, leadership and professional development. Journal of International Educational Research, 11(3), 179–188.
Irawan, A. W., Dwisona, L. M. (2020). Psychological impacts of students on online learning during the pandemic Covid-19. Jurnal Bimbingan dan Kaunseling, 07(1), 53-60. doi:10.24042/kons.v7i1.6389
Junus, K., Santoso, H. B., Putra, P. O. H., Gandhi, A., & Siswantining, T. (2021). Lecturer readiness for online classes during the pandemic: A survey research. Education Sciences, 11(3), 139. doi:10.3390/educsci11030139
Kumar, A., Kumar, P., Palvia, S. C. J., & Verma, S. (2017). Online education worldwide: Current status and emerging trends. Journal of Information Technology Case Application Research, 19, 3-9. doi: 10.1080/15228053.2017.1294867
Lee, J. (2020).Mental health effects of school closures during COVID-19. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 4, 421. doi: 10.1016/S2352-4642(20)30109-7
Mheidly, M., Fares, M. Y., & Fares, J. (2020). Coping with stress and burnout associated with telecommunication and online learning. Frontiers in Public Health, 8:574969. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.57496
Odhiambo, O., & Acosta, F. R. (2009). An evaluation of the usability and interactivity of e-learning platforms used in Kenyan universities. In E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education. 2009; pp. 1016- 1025. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Ramayah, T., Cheah, J., Chuah, F., Ting, H., & Memon, M. A. (2018). Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 3.0: An Updated Guide and Practical Guide to Statistical Analysis (2nd ed.). Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Pearson.
Shmueli, G., Sarstedt, M., Hair, J. F., Cheah, J. H., Ting, H., Vaithilingam, S., & Ringle, C. M. (2019). Predictive Model Assessment in PLS-SEM: Guidelines for Using PLSpredict. European Journal of Marketing, 53(11), 2322-2347. doi: 10.1108/EJM-02-2019-0189
Wong, L. P., Alias, H., Fuzi, M. A. A., Omar, I. S., Nor, M. A., Tan, M. P., Baranovich, D. L., Saari, C. Z., Hamzah, S. H., Cheong, K. W., Poon, C. H., Ramoo, V., Che, C. C., Myint, K., Zainuddin, S., Chung, I. (2021). Escalating progression of mental health disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from a nationwide survey. PLoS ONE. Mar 25,16(3): e0248916. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248916.
Zeng, Y., Wang, G., Xie, C., Hu, X., & Reinhardt, J. (2019). Prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety and symptoms of stress in vocational college nursing students from Sichuan, China: a cross-sectional study. Psychological Health Medicine, 24(7): 798- 811. doi: 10.1080/13548506.2019.1574358
In-Text Citation: (Samuel et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Samuel, R., Ismail, I., & Mahmud, N. (2022). Mental Wellness of Students Affected by Online Learning. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. 12(6), 1203 – 1211.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non0-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode