The Degree of Students’ Satisfaction Towards Distance Teaching and Learning Practice During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Case Study of Kuwait University

The study aimed to demonstrate the level of satisfaction of Kuwait University (KU) students towards the practice of distance teaching and learning during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic from their point of view. In addition to revealing the effect of some independent variables (i.e., gender, type of specialization, and the university level) on the level of their satisfaction with this exceptional experience. It also intended to highlight and identify the obstacles and challenges encountered by KU students throughout the practice of distance education. This descriptive, analytical, and evaluative study adopted the mixed methods research design (a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies). The online questionnaire, informal semi-structured interviews, and focus groups discussions were used to collect data. A stratified random sample of 2,035 university students from KU participated electronically in this research study - using information and communication technology (ICT) tools such as email, social networking/media apps, and video conferencing platforms - during the first semester of 2020/2021 academic year. The results indicated that the degree of satisfaction among the students at KU towards distance teaching and learning practice was generally "medium/average" (M = 2.76, SD = 1.02, RII = 0.55). Where the estimates of the students indicated that the degree of their satisfaction with the practice of distance education is "medium/average" in all of the study’s indicators. The findings of the study also revealed that there are statistically significant differences at the significance level of 0.01 between the responses of KU students with regard to the degree of their satisfaction with the practice of distance education due to the variables of gender (in favor of the male group), the type of specialization (in favor of the category of humanity specializations), and the university level (for the category of graduate students). As for the difficulties, challenges, and problems that students faced during this experiment, they were numerous as indicated by the results, the most prominent of which are the following: (1) technical problems related to the Internet, communication networks, software, and hardware (N = 1,252, % = 61.5), (2) lack of sympathy/concern, consideration, appreciation, and understanding for students’ technical problems, conditions, circumstances, and hold them accountabile for that by punishing/penalizing them (N = 545, % = 26.8), (3) the large amount of and difficult assignments or duties/tasks that the student is entrusted with completing and delivering in a short period (N = 421, % = 20.7), (4) not using the modern teaching and learning methods and strategies that deem appropriate for distance education, which caused difficulty in perception, understanding, and comprehension among students (N = 417, % = 20.5), (5) the short time given to students to take the tests (N = 414, % = 20.3), and (6) increased test difficulty (N = 284, % = 14.0). The study concluded with some recommendations.