Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Learning – Challenges and Future Prospects

Abstract

COVID-19 has a serious impact on various stakeholders of the teaching and learning community including instructors, managers, and students. This imposed educational institutions to down all types of educational activities switching to digital learning paradigm enforcing social distancing. Therefore, this study intends to gauge the efficacy and impact of digital learning in higher education settings. A quantitative mode of research has been conducted to collect the data from respondents. A survey questionnaire has been administered online amongst the students of various Universities of Pakistan. Percentage distribution was deployed in order to analyze the collected data which has been presented in tabular form. It has been observed that digital learning has emerged as an alternate mode of teaching and learning and it becoming mainstream of education. However, it has also been perceived that most of the learners have been found reluctant in utilizing different gadgets for digital learning due to a lack of adequate knowledge of this paradigm. The outcomes of the study can serve as a road map for the higher education commission while designing course outlines keeping such pandemics in view in the future.