Parents' Perception of Digital Media Usage as Home-Based Learning Platform towards Students' Learning Comprehension During Covid-19 Pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many sectors have experienced redundancy including the education sector. The lockdown phase that was forced by the government influenced the school institution and university to be closed to minimize the physical contact between students and teachers due to transmission of diseases. The children across the country are given alternate resources, some online, to study outside of the classroom. They are unable to attend the real classroom as before which led to a digital media platform as a tool in continuing the learning process. It makes the traditional teaching and learning methods no longer options of learning methods. This study aimed to examine parents’ perception of media usage as a home-based learning platform, their involvements with primary school students and satisfaction level with the effectiveness of digital media usage as a home-based learning platform towards students’ learning comprehension. This study used a quantitative method and a purposive sampling technique. There were 1161 respondents who have been selected among Kuala Selangor’s citizens via an online survey. The findings reported that there are positive responses and significant relationship between digital media usage as a home-based learning platform and learning comprehension levels among parents and their primary school students during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Introduction
It is recorded that the COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and continents. The closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted 94 percent of the world's student population, up to 99 percent in low and lower-middle-income countries. In Malaysia, the Ministry of Education ( M O E ) takes a role to manage and control the schools' operation during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period starting from March 2020. Within the lockdown period, the government announced that the school will open depending on the COVID-19 cases recorded in an area. This approach changes face-to-face classes to online classes at home in which the method was something new among teachers, students, and parents, where many students could not follow online learning due to limited access to communication technology during the lockdown period. Students can achieve the minimum level of mastery in each subject they take and maintain their interest and motivation to continue learning when home-based learning is implemented by the authority body (Bernama, 2020). Thus, the media plays an important role to provide the online classroom and virtual learning at home for all affected students by COVID-19 outbreaks. The Ministry of Education also has provided a platform for those children or students to continue their study and learning to avoid being left behind in understanding and completing the subject syllabus. There are many alternatives and interactive new media that are free to be watched for all students at home such as TV Pendidikan which is on air for nine hours per day, TV Okey with two hours on, Astro Tutor TV for four hours on and three hours on NTV7. The government is also aware that the broadcast time is still insufficient considering the present situation (Malay Mail, 2021). DidikTV originally from MOE was launched by Malaysia's former Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin as a special terrestrial Education TV channel, which can be viewed through channel 107 on MYTV, 147 on ASTRO, and ntv7 on TV UNIFI, from 7 am to midnight daily (Malay Mail, 2021). These initiatives overcame worries from parents for their children who are not able to go to school and had left their academic study period. Furthermore, the teaching style can be digital as a virtual class during the pandemic. A significant study about the usage of new digital media platforms exists as the tools in communicating and connecting people, especially for education purposes is important to take place to ensure the continuous learning process and comprehension of knowledge among students. Malaysia Ministry of Education had proposed many efforts to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks from affecting schools, subsequently protecting teachers and children from the risk of being infected by the virus by closing the schools and academic institutions. These mitigation efforts lead to returning all primary and secondary schools nationwide to the home-based teaching and learning method (PdPR) when the education session resumes after the school holidays. During the Malaysia lockdown in 2021, it affected 2.7 million pupils at 7,780 primary schools and 2.03 million students at secondary schools around the country after the school close (Povera, 2021). The implementation of online learning at home challenged parents in preparing their kids to study online such as the high internet bills, limited devices used, and children's behavior who always lost their learning focus compared to when playing games or watching cartoons. Almost 60 percent of students in Malaysia did not have proper internet facilities and devices because some families cannot afford them because of lower income (Awani, 2021). Despite that, home-based learning is considered a new media application to provide an opportunity for parents to use it and have distinct consequences for the level of comprehension of students rather than studying face-to-face in a real class. Thus, this study will focus on the relationships between digital media usage and learning comprehension of Kuala Selangor primary school students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it is important to take place to provide the proper consideration or analytic data to the government or other researchers in making the teaching and learning system in Malaysia more reliable and successful.

Research Objectives
RO1: To examine parents' perception of media usage as a home-based learning platform towards students' learning comprehension. RO2: To determine parents' involvement with primary school students when using media digital as a home-based learning platform towards students' learning comprehension.

Literature Review Children Online Education Content Approach
Online education is a growing trend, and various institutions are able to offer more online courses to many students with much strong evidence to show that online learning is at least as effective as traditional format (Nguyen, 2015). E-learning can help in providing inclusive education even at the time of crisis to make sure that no student is getting left behind in education due to their location, social class, ethnicity, and so on. It can support and facilitate learning-teaching activities, but there is a probability to weigh the pros and cons of technology and harness its potential (Dhawan, 2020). A study from Fidalgo et. al (2020) regarding distance education in Portugal, UAE, and Ukraine has shown that time management, motivation, and English language skills were students' major concerns. Although students were interested in taking distance courses, the internet has made information access and distribution of educational content available and helped to move distance education to the digital era.

Virtual Teaching & Learning Process
All types of media give enhanced improvements in teaching and learning. The teaching and learning process through new interactive media is very effective and produces better results when it is implemented. In addition, the findings show that the role of electronic and print media is also important to the new interactive media development. Another word for this scenario is also called a modern distance teaching and learning system. The existence of the new interactive systems brings teachers to play a new role of mentoring, coaching, and helping students in their studies rather than teaching like traditional roles in the classrooms (Abid & Adnan, 2010) In order to engage in the online course, it requires educators to develop strategies that enhance students' participation and build a sense of community with the students. Collaborative learning, developing relationships, asking for feedback and self-directed proactive learning are some of the strategies. Meeting with students through creative and innovative teaching or learning will allow them to have an active presence and teachers may guide students through the learning process, as well as enhance their comprehension of the content. By that, committing to this ideal in an online course requires organization, structure, clearly defined boundaries, and provide transparent criteria for students to achieve success (Sharoff, 2019). The development of technology and related social processes leads to the question of how to understand, theorize, and learn technology, mediation, and communication. In 1994, personal computers were large terminals, desks, and with them personal terminals. The Internet can only be purchased in the community. In addition, text-based Usenet and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) are commonly used platforms including Email or electronic mail. Online social networking sites are still a long way off, and new short messaging services (SMS) are starting as a form of digitally mediated interpersonal communication. Another technology or platform that plays a role in the structure of contemporary society is the mobile phone. On a much larger scale than computers or laptops, smartphones are perhaps the most individual digital mediation tool in the contemporary techno landscape. On an individual level, these smartphones offer a wide variety of "capabilities". Smartphones are devices that give us access to information anywhere and anytime. Information and data may be driven, altered, and pulled from a connected smartphone without our consent (Ling, 2020).

Perception of Digital Media Usage as Online Learning Tools
According to a study from Hamaidi et. al. (2021), parents' perceptions proposed that it was a knowledge system for parents of primary and secondary school students resulting from mental activity that includes their values, ideas, opinions, and attitudes toward their children's experiences in a distance learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. These perceptions are measured by the degree of parents' perceptions of variables of child's grade level, teacher's gender, and school type in this study. The study consisted of all parents from primary and secondary school students in all governorates of Jordan during the second semester of the 2019-2020 academic year which consisted of 470 parents of primary or secondary students. Since parents are at the forefront of responsibility for their children's learning, and because they are the true observers of children in the distance learning environment, it is necessary to evaluate the parents' viewpoints of their children's experience using the distance learning system during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, the findings conclude that parents were moderately satisfied with the distance learning process.
The implementation of E-Learning also depends on community involvement, especially by parents. In simple words, students' performance in using E-Learning can be improved through attention from their parents (Kong, 2018). Parents' perception of E-Learning usage is important to be noticed and can determine the parents' perception of E-Learning in six dimensions, namely student computer competence, teacher computer competence, quality of teaching and learning, curriculum, school environment, and students' personal development (Abdallah, 2018). The study reveals results emphasizing parents' perception in general of E-Learning during the COVID-19 pandemic with the population of this study includes 500 respondents. The findings found that E-Learning has no strength to improve the students' personal development and their general skill and cannot motivate them to support their children to continue using it. The finding also discovered certain barriers in implementing e-Learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the ability to use technology, digital devices ownership, poor Internet connection, the issue with electricity, and the absence of an instructor. The resistance from parents occurs due to certain barriers including poor ICT infrastructure and lack of technology skills (Andre & Zulkarnain, 2020). Most parents considered online learning as a temporary solution rather than a substitute for school. Parents reflected that in online learning, children's holistic development is not possible as children do not have the opportunities to have learning experiences as they would get in their traditional school settings. Besides that, online learning does not allow children to learn social norms and values and other social skills like playing and sharing with peers (Islam, 2020). Furthermore, another qualitative study by Husain et. al (2020), identified that 62 percent of parents were familiar with electronic equipment and, in fact, with ICT. They thought it was easy to operate technology devices. Other than that, based on the respondents' arguments on other items, it was identified that 99% of parents agree that conventional learning was effective compared to electronic learning. Some reasons were put forward by the parents; for instance; students' learning style was considered, and it was difficult to follow the virtual class. In addition, the face-to-face classroom promotes social life for students, on the other hand, reduces antisocial characteristics for children, encourages students to be creative, encourages students to be honest about their homework, and boosts students to study hard, and pushes students to learn quickly.

H1:
There is a positive and significant relationship between parents' perception of digital media usage as a home-based learning platform and students' learning comprehension.

Parental Involvement in Home-Based Learning
The involvement of parents in preparing children's education at home due to the social distancing and stay-at-home orders reported only about half (55%) of parents felt prepared to educate their children at home. One in four parents felt they did not have the resources they needed and 50% of parents felt overwhelmed by their responsibilities to educate their children at home (Lee, 2020). According to Daniela (2021), 839 parents were asked to fill in separate questionnaires for each of the children attending the general education institution (forms 1-12), often pointed out that the tasks assigned by teachers were so difficult that their children would not have been able to complete them without parental support, and the need for this support increased in primary school from the 5th grade. Then, parents chose the answer that more support was necessary than they were able to provide. This confirms the desire of parents to support students to strengthen their flourishing. There is an interesting trend when comparing the support needed by students by gender, as boys' parents indicated more frequently that continuous support was needed to enable their child to complete his tasks. The answers obtained concerning the information parents received from the school about how the remote learning process would be organized, how they could support their children during home-schooling being minimal, how the children's learning achievements during this period depend on the possibility for families to provide their children with the required technologies. A past study by Lee (2020), contributed some findings from primary and kindergarten students which may imply higher parental expectations for distance learning to address their children's learning needs while staying at home. Most primary school parents found that their children had too many different tasks to complete, the work took too much time, and the content was too difficult, resulting in a heavy burden on parents. These differences may reflect the different goals of online learning tasks offered by kindergartens and primary schools. Apart from that, primary schools emphasize formal education, and students are required to complete a high number of learning tasks even when they are learning from home. Meanwhile, kindergarten students is mostly non-compulsory, and parents may decide to complete the tasks at their discretion. As a result, primary school parents may be more likely to be dissatisfied with the heavy workload of learning tasks when appropriate support is not provided by the school. Both kindergarten and primary school parents that used online learning have been prepared with a small group of teaching and pre-recorded materials developed by the teachers in sustaining young children's attention. This study is similar to previous research conducted by Manches (2017) in which better materials are used and followed by small group teaching that is synchronized for interactive teaching in order to reinforce the learning concepts. Parental involvement has different definitions which can be seen as a form of quantitative help such as doing homework with children or qualitative help like organizing the tasks, discussing, and supporting the answers of the subjects learning (Ribeiro, et. al., 2021). Parental involvement is focused on home involvement which concentrated on the parents' behavior towards activities related to school learning at home, such as helping their children with homework, discussing school matters with their children, parental monitoring school tasks, and rule-setting, as well as involvement with the school activities (Wilder, 2014). In another study conducted by Eccles and Harold (1996), children's age is one variable that influences parental involvement, as it tends to decrease from primary to middle school and even more during secondary school, mostly related to parents' perceptions that their involvement is less necessary. The gender of the parent that answered the questionnaire also loses significance when the level of education increases, as also reported in another study (Kim & Hill, 2015). Besides, mothers showed higher levels of parental involvement than fathers, but then that factor is no longer significant. When facing the specific situation of schools' closure during the pandemic, the diversity of educational measures defined by different schools, and the related consequences on parents' behaviors. With that, parents' role in supervising their children's learning was reinforced, mostly through accompanying their children's studies and developing self-regulation strategies regarding online learning (Kong, 2020). Along with the online learning practice, some barriers have been identified from parents' perspectives such as personal barriers, technical barriers, logistical barriers, and financial barriers. There are different explanations for the barriers, for instance, the parent had low technical expertise to support their children in accessing online learning tools used in this environment, the lack of adequate internet access or technology to follow learning activities properly and unable to meet pupils' individual needs learning rhythm. Parents also found that it was not an effective substitute for the face-to-face learning process (Abuhammad, 2020). Research by Spinelli (2020) also showed that parents who were in stressed conditions were less involved in their children's learning activities during the pandemic and the majority of them felt the need to be present with their children during online learning activities at least once per day. It was the same happening where the parental involvement in children's learning may also have increased during lockdown home learning (Bubb, 2020).

H2:
There is a positive and significant relationship between parents' involvement with primary school students when using media digital as a home-based learning platform and students' learning comprehension.

Learning Comprehension of Online Learning
Various studies have been conducted to prove whether face-to-face or traditional learning methods are more productive or whether online or hybrid learning is better. Thus, the results indicated that students show better performance in traditional online learning (Lockman, 2020). A study by Gopal et. al (2021), showed that the energy of the instructor is the most important factor influencing student satisfaction during the online learning. After the course, appropriate feedback should be taken by the instructor for future coursework. Course content needs to be created effectively so that students can easily understand it. Students who study the content without problems will produce satisfaction, and students will be able to show better performance in the results. In some cases, course content is difficult to deliver in online instruction such as practical sections or practical demonstrations in the laboratory. Thus, the instructors must be more creative by using various approaches in presenting the course content that should have a positive impact on overall students' satisfaction with online learning.
A study by Ba˛czek, et. al (2021) reported that 804 Poland medical students were involved as the sample in e-learning. The study found that e-learning increased students' knowledge to the same extent as traditional learning. E-learning is less effective in terms of increasing their clinical and social skills. Besides, teaching clinical skills through e-learning is most effective when combined with traditional classes. Instead of using text-based materials, video instruction seems to be superior in teaching practical skills. Moreover, e-learning should not only be based on the delivery of content, but students should be able to work with the materials and receive feedback. Ba˛czek, et. al (2021) stressed that successfully implementing online learning into the curriculum requires a well-thought-out strategy and a more active approach.
The suggested variables are based on examining previous research in which the variables operationalized into their constituent elements include the variables regarding digital media usage, home-based learning, and learning comprehension level as illustrated in Figure 1

Research Instrument
The instrument is made based on several previous studies with some modifications according to the researchers' objectives of this study and it is related based on a literature review. The instrument of this study is divided into five different sections, A, B, C, and D to improve the design of the questionnaire and obtain the supportive data for this research. Table 1 shows the allocation of instruments, items, reliability test, standardized item loadings, average variance extracted (AVE), composite reliability (CR), and Cronbach alpha (CA). The items used four Likert scales. Before the questionnaires were distributed to the respondents, researchers seek for help from the experts to confirm that the items of an assessment or instrument are appropriate to the targeted study and objectives. The pre-test had been conducted among 30 Degree students. The results of the reliability analysis were presented in Table 1 to show that the reliability test is met after some adjustments or reworded have been made to avoid misunderstanding when the respondents attempted the questionnaire. The factor loading for each item should be .6 or higher and must be positive. It is essential to conduct Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each construct to measure the validity. Most of the factor loadings were larger than 0.6. The AVEs for all constructs exceed .5 and CRs exceed .6.

Results
There are 1161 respondents, and the majority of the sample size are males (78.8%) and 21.2% are female. In terms of age, it can be identified that most of the respondents (54%) in the 31-40 years old group, followed by the respondents between 41-50 years old with 37.6%. Respondents in the group of 21-30 years old stated 3.4% and 4% of the respondents in the group 51 years old and above. The respondents who are below 20 years old are just 1% of the minority group age in this research. Among the respondents, 77.7% of them represented Malay, 14.8% were Chinese, 6.9% were Indian, and 0.6% were other races. It also illustrates the hometown area of the respondents in Kuala Selangor district. Majority of them are from Tanjong Karang (28.8%) and rest of them represented area from Saujana Utama (14.2%), 11.6% from Puncak Alam, 16.9% from Sungai Burong, 7.8% from Jeram, 5.1% from Bestari Jaya and lowest distribution are from Ijok area with 4.5%.
The respondents are also compared in terms of the highest education level. The results indicated that the certificate of SPM level is the highest group with 42.4% and the degree holder level is a second highest group with 24.6%. Third and fourth were those who have a Diploma and master's level with 22.9% and 5.9% respectively. A minority of the respondents contribute are from Ph.D. level with 4%. The sample size also noticed that most of the respondents worked in the private sector with 31.9% and the second group was in the government sector with 28.2%. This is followed by unemployed individuals for 20.8% and 18.3% are self-employed. Meanwhile, pensioner and student groups shared the same distribution of 0.4% The respondents were also asked about their monthly income. As shown in Table 2, the results show that 23.8% of the respondents mainly received around RM1001 to RM2000 in a month. The second group who received monthly income above RM5000 is 19.7% and the third group of RM2001 to RM3000 represent 18.3%. Besides, fourth and fifth were those who received monthly income of below RM1000 and range of RM3001 to RM4000 with 15.4% and 12.3% respectively. The lowest percentage went to the group of respondents who received RM4001 to RM5000 in a month with 10.4%. In addition, the last question in this section asked in terms of children's education level. The results pointed out that the majority or 55.1% of the children were from four to six years old education level, meanwhile the rest are from one to three years old with 44.9%. As seen in Table 3, the study is answering the first objective that is RO1: parents' perception of digital media usage on home-based learning platform towards students' learning comprehension. In this section, the stated questions are translated into items that make it easier for respondents to give answers. The Likert scale used is strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. The data obtained will be calculated and analysed descriptively, accurately and in depth. For a much easier understanding of Table 3, the description and reference of the items will be used to explain the analysis and findings obtained by the 1161 respondents involved. Table 3 shows that item B1 about the respondents agreed that homebased learning can develop students' technological competence has an average mean score as much as (M=3.09) which is the highest mean recorded. This is supported by the study from Andre and Zulkarnain (2020), which explained that most parents claimed that students are able to accept the learning material even if the learning process is conducted by using E-Learning. Then, item B9 about students getting learning resources while using home-based learning has a low mean score (M=2.29). Meanwhile, Item B8 also showed that students are feeling unhappy in using e-learning due to difficulties in getting the learning resources such as the device (laptop, tablet or smartphone) and the internet itself.  Table 4 represents the second objective of this study that is RO2: parents' involvement with school students when using the digital media as Home-Based Learning platform. The analysis was made based on the answers selected by the respondents from the purpose that had the highest response to the lowest. The findings clearly show that on the first item C1 showed the highest mean (M=2.85) where parents were asked about how often to prepare the internet connection and equipment for their child's online learning. The second item C2 represents how parents regularly ensuring the deadlines of the tasks are accomplished with the mean result is (M=2.77). The third item C3 indicates parents' supporting their child's task realization which obtained the mean of (M=2.72). Lastly, item C4 identifies how often parents monitoring child attention in online classes with mean (M=2.61).
A study from Eva et. al. (2021), supported that children's number of assignments was at medium-to-high level although the time they spent on online learning was relatively low. In addition, parents reported that their children's competence to complete the online learning by themselves was moderate. The results also revealed a positive association between child's competence in independent learning and parents' satisfaction with child's online learning at medium effect and suggesting that the higher the child's competence in independent learning, the higher the probability that parents were satisfied with their children's online learning.

Hypotheses Results
Based on Table 5 below, there is a model summary of the research in which the R-Square value was found 0.454 which explains 45% of the total variance for the Students' Learning Comprehension (dependent variable) while the adjusted R-Square was 0.452 (45%). The Adjusted R-Square gives an idea of how well the hypothesized model generalizes and ideally should be the same or very close to R-Square. Thus, the R-Square value is considered a good model and significant because the value of R-Square is always between 0% to 100%. The value of 0% indicates that the model explains none of the variability of the response data around and 100% indicates that the model explains all variability of the response data around its mean. In general, the higher the R-Square the better the model fits the data. According to Ozili (2022), the acceptable value and the minimum for R-square of at least 0.10 are acceptable in social science empirical modeling provided that some or most of the explanatory variables are statistically significant. A multiple regression analysis using the enter method was conducted to examine whether parents' perceptions and involvement have a positive and significant effect on students' learning comprehension.  Table 5 shows the p-values of H1 has less than 0.001 and it indicates that it has a significant relationship. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected, and the alternate hypothesis is accepted. Meanwhile, H2 also showed a positive and significant relationship where the p-value is less than 0.001. Thus, both independent variables have a relative and significant relationship with dependent variables. The independent variables statistically significantly predict the dependent variable. It means that the regression model is a good fit of the data, and the overall regression model was significant.

Discussion and Conclusion
Looking at the study of parents' perspectives on the use of digital media as a home-based learning platform, the results of the study found that parents give a positive perspective on it. Many of these respondents are convinced that digital media provides advantages to its users. It has also been used for online learning corporate meetings, or personal use. This is supported by Berthon et al (2012), which show that online social networking tends to enhance these benefits, as consumers are able to communicate more proactively. What is also interesting is that almost half of the respondents said that their children can develop their technological competence while using digital media as a home-based learning platform and almost half of the respondents agreed that students are able to spend time online learning without parental assistance. This means that the online learning approach in children's education can also educate new knowledge and mastery the use of digital technology which is growing rapidly nowadays. However, this study found that almost half of the respondents disagreed that home-based learning enhances child experience as well as communication skills. Respondents identified that it was less and more difficult to communicate online during the class than in the actual class. Although it is good for the skills and competency of digital media use among students, communication skills are limited due to not being able to face the teachers physically. In addition, the involvement of parents with students while using digital media as a homebased learning tool during lockdown was also given attention by the researchers. Researchers see parents as highly disciplined toward their child's learning. Nearly half of the respondents reported they were fully involved during their child's online learning. The frequency of parents monitoring child attention in online classes and taking notice of the school tasks is very high and gives the meaning of full involvement in children's online learning. At the same time, respondents were asked about their support for the child's realization tasks. Most of the respondents supported the tasks assigned to students well. This means that parents are very concerned and pay attention to this matter, in order to complete the school tasks given by the teachers. Furthermore, most respondents also said they spend all the time to ensure that the schoolwork given to the students is completed on time. In addition, the frequency of preparation of internet connection and equipment for online learning among students is high where majority of the respondents provide internet and tools for home-based learning all the time for the convenience of their children learning online. Parental involvement in home-based learning was also asked several questions. Most parents agreed with the statement given such as home-based learning gives students the opportunity to learn new knowledge, feel comfortable when students are involved in home-based learning, increases parents' proficiency in operating electronic devices, home-based learning helps to schedule student learning, there are limitations to parents when guiding their children to use ICT as a home-based learning platform, and home-based learning can increase the quality of student learning because it integrates all forms of media and believe that online learning can show their child competence in independent learning. Parental involvement gives them a whole new situation. While most parents are powerless in how to keep their children engaged, many try to make friends with technology and care about online learning. Parents who are familiar with online technology and tools are far more effective at creating home learning routines with their children, including school-provided activities and homework, and using more online resources for beneficial activities such as reading at home (Bhamani, 2020).