Exploring students’ experience with and perceptions towards eLearning in an online public health module

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities in Singapore had to shift from traditional face-toface learning to eLearning. We explored students’ experiences with and perceptions towards eLearning in the context of a public health module about physical activity. The module had a mixture of asynchronous lectures and live Zoom tutorials. We conducted nine in-depth interviews with students from the module. Students felt that the onus was primarily on the instructors to lead lessons and engage students. As such, they often took a backseat during online classes and rarely participated in class discussions. The eLearning environment enhanced their ability to be passive as they could be largely anonymous. The eLearning environment also made it easy to lose focus and mentally disconnect during lessons. Finally, students spoke about the lack of connection to classmates which impacted their learning efforts. To alleviate this and promote social engagement and connection, check-in polls, movement breaks, and breakout room discussions can be implemented.