The Perceptions of Year 4 Pupils on Google Classroom as a Tool for Teaching and Learning

Learning through the online classroom is one of the challenges that education across the globe encounters during the pandemic COVID-19. It allows learners to interact with teachers, view various presentations or videos, communicate with other peers, and engage them in the resources. One of the current trending additions to the virtual classroom is Google Classroom, which was announced to be a new tool in Google Apps for Education. As such, this study explored the effectiveness of Google Classroom among the Year 4 pupils by identifying the pupils’ perceptions as well as their satisfaction towards the Google Classroom. This quantitative research served as a pilot study in order to assure reliability of the Use of Google Classroom as a tool for teaching and learning. It is also a common paradigm in quantitative research. 30 pupils were selected at random and questionnaires were distributed to them online. The researchers followed the procedures to get feedback from the participants. The feedback then was analyzed and tabulated using the IBM SPSS Statistics (version 23) to calculate the percentage to identify the effectiveness of Google Classroom among the pupils. The results obtained shows that a higher number of the students are satisfied with Google Classroom application as all the scores obtained were above averages. In particular, the performance is good in the areas of ease of access, perceived usefulness, communication and interaction and students’ satisfaction towards the Google Classroom’s learning activities.


Introduction
Online learning is a platform that has been widely used to support education, particularly in today's teaching and learning to make the lesson fun and meaningful. For online learning, online instruction is used as an innovative approach in delivering learning materials to the learners. Many advancements have been made to support and encourage teachers and students, but now, technology information is expanding very fast where many applications and websites can be used as a medium for teaching and learning. One of the new virtual classroom features is Google Classroom which is a school-based learning system that makes planning, distributing, and grading easier. Most of the government, private and international schools opted to use Google Classroom as it helps in sharing the knowledge. Siu (2016), mentioned that Google Classroom is a blended learning platform which is an easy, simple, yet powerful way to broaden classroom experience by reducing the use of energy, time and money. It combines a broad variety of technology and media with conventional, face-to-face classroom activities which aims to enhance the knowledge and performances to increase students' involvement. It also encourages collaborative learning and builds learners' skills, especially on how to operate and utilise the system (Poon, 2013). During a situational crisis, such as the Covid-19 outbreak, the present traditional technique cannot be used in a classroom since students must study from home as the government has made a policy to do social distancing. Therefore, the schools have to apply online learning systems so that the education can be delivered to the students.
In the present day, all the learners are expected to perform well in writing and communication as stated in Malaysian Education Blueprint (Sani & Ismail, 2021). However, both teachers and students are facing a hard time to meet face-to-face in schools. Therefore, teachers can use different types of platforms to carry out their lessons from home. Google Classroom is designed to enhance teachers' and students' workflow with the use of some helpful features. Google Classroom helps to save time, manage the lessons, and communicate with the students effectively which is also intended to go paperless by utilising Google Docs, Google Drive, and other suitable applications. It enables teachers and students to communicate by having activities and discussions which makes them use minimal time on preparing task sheets and teaching aids (Azhar & Iqbal, 2018). It also allows teachers to create assignments, quizzes, multiple-choice questions and other fun activities to encourage active participation. Google Classroom helps students keep their files organized so that they can be easily accessed. It enables teachers to keep an eye on the student's work and performances systematically. Teachers can easily determine the pupils who failed to submit the assignments since the tracking systems are linked with assigned activities. Besides, the grading element also aids teachers to provide feedback quickly as it is linked with students' tasks.
There are many features of Google Classroom that are important for both teachers and students. Google Classroom allows the teachers to add connections to key class websites, file attachments for students and instructional materials which makes the material-sharing easier. It enables the teachers to create, distribute, and collect assignments quickly and easily where they can always assign or schedule a task whereas the students can submit their responses before the due date just by attaching their answers. Teachers may give points to the answers that the students provided and add private feedback to their work to encourage or improvise in the future. Google Classroom helps to grasp the students' attention towards the lesson because teachers can create online quizzes, multiple-choice questions, comprehension questions and many more to create a fun learning environment. Teachers can also attach visual aids such as presentation slides, a whiteboard, and a visualizer to deliver the lesson. Lastly, it also generates an assignment calendar for students and teachers to keep track of due dates as it could notify the deadlines of their future assignments. According to Goyal (2012), Google Classroom is a tool which is created to simplify the instructional interface and alternatives for delivering and tracking students' work in class. It is easier to communicate with the entire class or with individuals via announcements and emails even if they are not able to meet face-to-face. According to Gorra and Bhati (2016), Google Classroom allows teachers to export grades to Google Sheets, which makes it easier to alter the grade point scale, keyboard navigation for inputting grades and sorting by name on the grading page. Additionally, Google Classroom allows teachers to more readily experiment with and influence "flipped educational approaches," as well as automate and coordinate the distribution and collection of assignments and communications across numerous educational settings (Muslimah, 2018).
This study identified Year 4 pupils' experiences on the usage of Google Classroom. This research explored the pupils' perceptions of Google Classroom, how the pupils use it, how the Google Classroom helps the pupils to develop their communication and interaction with their teachers, as well as the students' satisfaction in using Google Classroom. As such, four research questions were formulated which are: 1. What are the pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to ease of access? 2. What are the pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to perceived usefulness? 3. What are the pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to communication and interaction? 4. What are the pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to students' satisfaction?

Literature Review
The social constructivism theoretical framework was used in this study, which states that people learn more from their surroundings and experiences. This indicates that when Year 4 pupils begin using Google Classroom services, they benefit from their relationship with the teachers as well as their experiences with taking in management frameworks from teachers. According to Mafa and Desmond (2017), they stated that the pupils may study at their own pace without being pushed by others as the learning may take place at any time with no time constraints.

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
Nowadays, technology acceptance issues have taken a central attention in the literature concerning educational technology. This is mainly related to the growing interest of integrating technology into classroom settings in an attempt to foster learning as well as to improve students' problem solving skills through utilizing technology (Avelino & Ismail, 2021). Towards this end, policy makers have set technology integration as the crucial part of educational reforms while beholding teachers as the major vehicles of this process who will carry technology into classrooms. Teachers' level of technology acceptance, therefore, has been regarded as one of the major determinants of such an agenda. As Aboderin (2015), puts it, without teachers' acceptance of technology, it is almost impossible to develop educational technology projects as teachers are both gatekeepers of technology and the most important sources of delivering information in the classrooms.
There have been various models developed by researchers to investigate users' acceptance of new technologies which have been used by many people. The most widely researched model on user acceptance that investigates why a user chooses to use or not to use technology is Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This is a popular model, which can be related to this study. It is the underlying concept which was adapted from Al-khatiri (2015). TAM is known as an intention-based model which was developed mainly to explain and predict user acceptance of computer technology. This model was designed in 1986 which aims to anticipate a tool's acceptability and find out the necessary modifications that must be brought to that particular system so that it will be accepted by users. There are two main factors of the actual system used which are perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU). The perceived ease of use (PEOU) is identified as the degree to which the person believes that the use of the system will be effortless while perceived usefulness (PU) is known as the degree to which the person believes the use of the system will improve one's performances.

Past Studies on the Use of Google Classroom
Google classroom is one of the popular social networks that has been used widely which connects teachers and students to do teaching and learning activities online. It also aids the teachers to use an online website when teachers and students face a situation that makes them unable to do direct teaching and learning process. Last year on 11th March, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that everyone has to work from home due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Government authorities as well as some private sectors around the world activate social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus and one of the sectors that is affected is the education sector where the teaching and learning activity has to be done via online. Teaching and learning activities without meeting face-to-face became challenging as this was the first time the world was facing such a situation. According to Franssen (2015); the students welcome and receive the education via online learning platform. Moreover, Huda (2015), stated that distance learning is an educational institution which can be addressed by workers to improve their social competence. Since the learners and teachers already possessed ICT skills, it was not a big challenge for them to take part in the teaching and learning process online because it is the only choice to ensure the continuity of teaching and learning process without meeting face-to-face at schools. The use of online learning shows an effective way of integrating technology in education under one medium by using elearning as a platform (Shangkari & Ismail, 2021). So far, the results of online learning shows positive results for the learners and while for teachers, it saves so much of their time in preparing the e-materials for the learners in order to make the lesson fun and meaningful. Therefore, teachers have to be aware of different teaching strategies whenever they design e-learning materials for the students so that it could get their interests towards the lesson because the more the lesson is fun, the more the students will participate in online learning activities.
Google Classroom has been used to develop teaching and learning processes all over the world since the education system is now focusing on improving pupils' 21st century learning skills. This provides many facilities for teachers to carry out learning activities while for pupils, it helps them to actively participate in the activities no matter where they are. Google Classroom offers paperless teaching and learning opportunities for both educators and learners to keep the environment safe, healthy and clean. Udosen (2019), observed that Google Classroom application has proved a valuable platform for distance learners in the National Teachers' Institute Calabar study centre, based on their experience, perceptions and engagement in classroom activities. Karadag and Keskin (2017), stated that Google Classroom is a useful tool to manage course materials for different subjects in an Elementary School, which is located in Istanbul, Turkey. They finally observed improvement in students' engagement towards the lesson, and self-paced learning where the pupils learn how to utilise the application all by themselves without any guidance which helps in implementing 21st century learning among the learners. Khalil (2018), reported that numerous online courses are available, and faculties are embracing synchronous virtual classrooms that allow them to engage with students in real time. Many businesses have adopted the Virtual Classroom, a synchronous type of e-learning, in an attempt to encourage worker development while reducing travel time and expenses associated with face-to-face instructor-led training. Google Classroom, a learning management system that eases generating, distributing, and grading lessons, is also known as the most recent addition to the virtual classroom. Teachers can share materials on the topic that is being taught in Google Classroom. Teachers may share teaching materials, assign tasks for students, and publish the students' grades so that they can view the results right away. Furthermore, when teachers are out of town or unavailable during class hours, Google Classroom may be used to post tasks without postponing the session. It also saves money by allowing students to use less reading materials, as well as reducing the amount of energy generated over time (Maroof & Emran, 2018). In summary, Google Classroom users will spend less time and energy than they normally do in traditional classrooms.
Based on the past studies done by researchers, the effective way of using the Google Classroom as an online learning platform and its benefits would go a long way in engaging the students to the lesson, increasing the attention rate where they can stay focused for a longer period depending on the strategies used in teaching and learning process and improve their academic achievement positively across all the fields of study. Therefore, it is important for teachers to implement the Google Classroom application in their teaching and learning regardless of the obstacles they face because it is important for everyone to familiarise themselves with Google Classroom. This study, determines the perception of Year 4 pupils on Google Classroom as a tool for teaching and learning especially during this current pandemic.

Research Design
This quantitative research employed a survey research design. While a survey generally collects data from selected participants through their responses to questions (Check & Schutt, 2012), another way of understanding the nature of survey is a way of carrying out a critical observation or investigation towards the study in order to get a clear description of a particular problem that has been identified (Clark & Avrith, 2017). Quantitative research is a type of research which explains some problems by collecting numerical data which provides a way to analyze through the use of numbers (Creswell, 2013). The use of a quantitative approach meant that the data collected had no 'holes,' allowing the conclusions to be applied by discussing the outcomes.

Population and Sample
Based on the population in this research, which is the Year 4 pupils of a national primary school, located in Wangsa Maju, Kuala Lumpur, 30 pupils were chosen as samples. The samples were made up of 60% female respondents and only 40% male respondents, consisting of all Malay students. This school was chosen because it is located in an urban area and the pupils were all well-exposed to ICT. Besides, it was also easier to keep track of the selected participants as one of the researchers is working in that school.
The researchers made sure that the selected participants have experience of using Google Classroom application in their teaching and learning to increase the validity of research. For this survey study, the researchers used simple random sampling as a sampling technique to provide a random sorting process. A sampling technique can facilitate the selection of samples randomly, but on the basis of certain preferences where the researchers focused more deeply on the participants to get more accurate data. The selected participants in this research were intermediate level of proficiency learners. All the selected participants were chosen from different cultural backgrounds.

Research Instrument
The researchers used a 27-item questionnaire, which is made up of 5-point Likert Scale to gather accurate data on attitude, opinion, and perception of a person or group about social phenomena (Espinosa et al., 2017). The 5-point likert-scale used a forced-choice format in which subjects were asked to select from one of the following choices: (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) neutral, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree. There were 5 parts in the questionnaire which included 5 demographic questions and the remaining focused on (1) pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to ease of access, (2) its perceived usefulness, (3) communication and (4) interaction, as well as (5) students' satisfaction. Gender, class, average English score, and how often participants use the Internet for educational purposes were among the demographic questions.
The researchers used content validity since the content of the questionnaire, which are the demographic questions, perceptions on the ease of access, perceived usefulness, communication and interaction as well as students' satisfaction were checked and measured by experts before releasing to the participants to ensure that the items are accurate and understandable. The experts fixed unclear sentences, eliminated inappropriate words and simplified the sentences so that the questions are engaging with the survey. The experts were chosen based on their knowledge of online teaching and their experience in teaching. Following their advice, small changes to the questionnaire were made, including paraphrasing, removing the complicated vocabulary, and inserting the key-points to the items, as well as rephrasing sentences so that the pupils would not find it difficult to understand the items.

Data Collection Procedure
The survey was conducted online as the researchers were not able to meet the participants involved face-to-face to distribute the questionnaire as the current situation does not allow the students and teachers to go to schools. As a first step, the researchers informed the parents of the selected participants to get their permission before involving their children in the study. According to Harish (2017), parental consent is required when the child is incapable of understanding the effects of taking part in a research study. Even though the children are allowed to proceed with their tasks, still approval from their parents or legal guardians are needed as awareness and assurance to the school.
Next, the researchers provided some information regarding the study such as the aim and why they are using their children in this study so that the parents understand the purpose of the study to avoid any confusion related to the study materials in the future. Then, the researchers created an online questionnaire using the SurveyMonkey application and sent the link to the participants through Whatsapp so that the participants can join the link and answer the questionnaire provided for them.
The researchers then talked about the lessons conducted in Google Classroom as the questionnaires were based on their experiences learning through Google Classroom. The participants were given a week to answer the questions to avoid rushing and they were also allowed to ask any questions related to the questionnaire to the researchers if they were unsure about the questionnaire items. Even though the participants were provided necessary guidance on how to answer the questionnaire, the researchers still checked on them time-totime to make sure of their progress. Once the participants have done answering the questionnaires, the researchers collected the data to analyse and tabulate it.

Data Analysis Technique
Upon the collection of the questionnaire, the data was then analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 23) before it was tabulated to find the percentages of each criteria for every item (Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree) to identify the pupils' satisfaction on the use of Google Classroom as a tool in the learning process. Then, the average percentage from highest to lowest for each item were identified and tabulated to be explained in the discussion section.

Results and Findings
A Likert Scale type question on how often the internet is accessed by the pupils was asked in the questionnaire. The respondents will have to agree on one of the options given (Never to Many times a Day) in order to identify the level or frequency of information and communication technology (ICT) usage among the participants. Five answer options were provided to the participants as shown in Figure 2. Slightly above (75%) of the participants use the internet several times a day and almost (25%) of them use the internet many times a day. This indicates that the entire participants are familiar with the use of internet and web-based programs.  question of this study which is, "What are the pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to ease of access?". The items discussed in this section were the 'ease of signing in to the Google Classroom', 'the ease of accessing learning materials', 'the ease of sending and receiving the assignments', 'the ease of navigating in the system' and 'the ease of understanding the system and how it works'. It is easy to understand the system.

90%
10% 0 0 0 Based on Table 1, the percentages for all the five items shows that more than 50% of the participants strongly agreed with the ease of access which shows that they are happy and comfortable learning using Google Classroom application. About 86.6% of participants strongly agreed that it is easy for them to sign in to the Google Classroom application every day to complete their tasks while the rest of them agreed and some of them are not sure about it. With respect to the second item, that is, easy to access learning material from Google Classroom, it was found that 83.3% of the participants strongly agree to this statement while another 10% of them disagree with this. Another 6.7% of the participants are not sure about it, but there is nobody strongly disagreeing with this statement. For the third item, 73.3% participants strongly agreed that it is easy for them to send and receive assignments in Google Classroom whereas 13.3% of them just agree with this and 10% are not sure about the statement. Only a minimal percentage, 3.4% of the participants said that it is not easy for them to send and receive tasks. Next, 66.7% said that it is easy to navigate in the system and only 6.7% agree with this while 10% of them are not sure. Nobody disagreed with the statement but 16.6% of them strongly disagreed. For the fifth item of this section, the results show that, a large percentage of participants, 90% of them strongly agreed that it is easy to understand the system while only 10% of them agreed to this statement.
The presentation to the answers of the second research question which is "What are the pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to perceived usefulness?" are in terms of aspects such as "the quality of learning activity, Google Classroom as a medium for social interaction", "submitting assignments on time", "testing issues and generating new ideas", "comments provided by the teacher" and "the grading system in monitoring the participant's performances".  Table 2 revealed that more than half of the subjects (more than the average) strongly agree with the statements given about perceived usefulness. About 76.7% of the participants strongly said that the quality of the learning activity is excellent while 6.7% of them agree with it. This statement was also disagreed by 16.6% percent of participants. The same 76.7% of the participants strongly agreed that Google Classroom is an excellent medium for social interaction between teachers and students while 13.3% and 10% opted 'agree' and 'not sure' respectively. With respect to the third question which is, Google Classroom helps to submit assignments on time, it was found that 80% of the participants strongly agreed, 13.3% agreed and another 6.7% of them strongly disagreed with it. Moving to the next item, which is, the activities help to test issues, to generate new ideas and apply what they have learned, 76.7% of them strongly agreed while 20% of the participants agreed to this and obviously none selected the options under 'not sure', 'disagree' or 'strongly disagree'. For the fifth item, about 66.7% of the participants strongly agreed that the comments provided by the teacher in Google Classroom are helpful while 20% agreed with it. Meanwhile, 3.3% of the participants were not sure about it and 10% of them disagreed with the statement. Lastly, it was found that 73.3% of the participants said that grading systems in Google Classroom help them in monitoring their performances whereas 20% and 3.3% of them opted 'agree' and 'not sure' respectively.
The discussion to the answers for the third research question which is "What are the pupils' perceptions on Google Classroom related to communication and interaction?" are in terms of aspects such as "comfortability in conversing through this medium", "teachers' help in keeping the participants engaged and participating productive decisions ", "paraphrases," "comfortability in interacting with other participants", "acknowledgement of opinions made by other participants", "teachers' enthusiasm in teaching and explaining via Google Classroom" and lastly, "the teachers' level of friendliness, approachable and easily contacted". The teacher is friendly, approachable and could be easily contacted.
93.3% 6.7% 0 0 0 The data revealed that most of the participants strongly agreed that Google Classroom helped for better communication and interaction. For the first item, 60% of them strongly agreed that they feel comfortable conversing through this medium for this activity while 26.7% of the participants agreed with it. About 3.3% and 10% of the participants opted 'not sure' and 'disagree' respectively. None of the participants selected 'strongly disagree' for this statement. 53.3% of the participants strongly agreed that the teacher helps to keep the participants engaged and participating in productive discussion while 33.3% of them agreed with this statement. Another 6.7% are not sure and strongly disagreed with the statement. About 86.7% strongly agreed that their point of view was acknowledged by other participants during the activities in Google Classroom while 13.3% agreed to this and nobody selected 'not sure', 'disagree' and 'strongly agree' for this statement. Meanwhile, 66.7% stated that the teacher is enthusiastic in teaching and explaining via Google Classroom and another 13.3%, 3.3% and 16.7% opted 'agree', 'not sure' and 'strongly disagree' respectively for this statement. For the last statement, which is, the teacher is friendly, approachable and could be easily contacted, 93.3% strongly agreed whereas another 6.7% agreed to the statement.
The discussion to the answers for the "statements about students' satisfaction" are in terms of aspects such as "meeting participants' personal goals through Google Classroom", "recommendation of this learning method to be applied in future teaching and learning", "making Google Classroom as their first choice in active learning compared to other learning method", "use Google Classroom to boost their learning motivation" and "Google Classroom makes learning easier". Table 4 shows the results obtained for the fifth research question.  Table 4 revealed that the majority of the selected participants (more than 50%) strongly agreed with the statements about students' satisfaction. About 70% of the participants strongly agreed that the subject met their personal goal through the medium introduced. Meanwhile, 10%, 3.3% and 16.7% selected 'agree', 'not sure' and disagree respectively, but obviously, none of them selected 'strongly disagree' for this statement. 76.7% of the participants said that they will strongly recommend Google Classroom for learning to be applied in future teaching and learning. The remaining participants, which are 3.3% and 20% of them, opted 'agree' and 'disagree' to this statement while nobody chose 'not sure' and 'strongly disagree' option. For the third question, the results show that 56.7% chose Google Classroom as their first choice in active learning compared to the other methods. This statement was also agreed by 10% and the rest 23.3% as well as 10% disagreed and strongly disagreed respectively. With respect to the fourth question, 51% of the participants strongly agreed that they like Google Classroom because it boosts their learning motivation while 16.7% indicate 'agree' for this statement. A small number of them, which is 3.3%, were not sure and the rest 19% and 10% disagreed and strongly disagreed respectively. Majority of the participants , 63.3% strongly agreed that they are able to do well in their tasks because Google Classroom made the learning easier while 13.3% selected "agree" and only 6.7% said they were not sure and another 16.7% indicated 'disagree' for this statement. For this last item, nobody opted 'strongly disagree' which shows a positive view on the results.
Thus, the findings indicated positive perceptions towards Google Classroom since this application is fully utilized by the majority of the pupils as a learning platform where they tend to use this application daily as Google Classroom makes the learners understand their learning materials quickly and easily. They also found it more comfortable to learn through Google Classroom since this application is user-friendly. It also enhances the participants' focus on the lesson since the teacher is friendly, approachable and could be easily contacted. These help in delivering and receiving the knowledge effectively.

Conclusion and Recommendation
As a conclusion, Google Classroom is a useful application for teachers and students in learning and an online collaboration. The findings shows that the majority of the participants agreed that Google Classroom application helps them in many ways to engage them with the learning. The positive responses of the participants also shows that they prefer learning through Google Classroom than learning through traditional method as this application can be downloaded for free on our devices and can be accessed from anywhere at any time. This helps to improve the teachers' and students' quality to use technology wisely, especially for learning process, saving time, being environment friendly, overcoming distance of residence, increasing collaboration among students, timeless communication, and as a secure document storage. Google Classroom is a very useful application for teaching and learning because it is highly preferred by most learners and educators all around the world. The results contribute positively to all the research questions which proves to be beneficial to the pupils and it would be more beneficial if appropriate methodology and techniques take place during the teaching and learning process. After implementing this application in our education system due to the pandemic, the students are more enthusiastic participating in the learning process. It can be said that it is effective to use Google Classroom in the daily teaching and learning process to fulfill the curriculum requirement.
Based on the conclusion above, researchers suggest that the students' ICT competence should be increased to learn through different medium which is also important to fulfill the 21st century learning skills. Pupils should be passionate in learning ICT skills which might be helpful for them in future learning. Though Google Classroom allows teachers to use variety of learning activities for the pupils, it is important for the pupils to learn how to utilise it so that they can fully participate in all the activities. When a pupil lacks knowledge and skill about technology, she or he reports a negative or neutral attitude towards the current learning trend. Therefore, pupils should upgrade themselves so that they can follow the current learning trend. Overall, pupils should keep themselves up-to-date so that they can excel in studies and their knowledge in ICT can be improved. This study finds that most of the pupils prefer to use Google Classroom application for their learning since the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic. Google Classroom's tools should be applied into teaching and learning, not solely because Google Classroom is a useful tool, but it also eases the burden of the pupils as well as the teachers since they do not have to worry much about carrying a lot of books and papers.