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The IUP Journal of Knowledge Management

Technology-Intermediated Learning Engagement in Uzbek Universities: Who Did Better During Covid Times - Private or Public Universities?

Article Details

Pub. Date	: Oct, 2022
Product Name	: The IUP Journal of Knowledge Management
Product Type	: Article
Product Code	: IJKM031022
Author Name	: Malla Praveen Bhasa
Availability	: YES
Subject/Domain	: Management
Download Format	: PDF Format
No. of Pages	: 20

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Abstract

This paper investigates students' satisfaction with their online learning engagement. A survey among 303 bachelor's and master's students from a total of seven public and private universities in Uzbekistan was conducted to this effect on four constructs, viz., institutional and faculty readiness to migrate to online learning, university staff and faculty's technology competence, faculty's student engagement competence in an online environment, and institution's facilitation capabilities. The results show that while the private universities score very high on student satisfaction on all the four constructs, the same cannot be said of public universities. The results are of importance for the Uzbek government that has imitated the lockdown policies of other nations, but without the basic technology infrastructure or faculty readiness to migrate to online education. The results call for an urgent intervention by the government to bring in mass-scale changes in the education system of the country by investing in both education technology infrastructure and training faculty members to adapt to the new normal of online education. Only then can satisfaction levels of students studying in public universities reach respectable standards.

Introduction

Online education has gained a lot of traction in the global education ecosystem in recent times. Covid-19 has not only facilitated the widespread acceptance of the importance of online education but also accelerated the adoption of various technology-intermediated learning platforms to engage students productively. Be it mass-scale adoption of various learning management systems-both free and license-based-like Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas or Edmodo, or quick adoption of online video-based communication platforms like MS-Teams or ZOOM or Webex, or private adoption of team communication platforms like