Marginalization, Technology Access, and Study Approaches of Undergraduate Distance Learners During the Covid-19 Pandemic in India

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the disruption of classroom activities and adoption of online teaching-learning in almost all parts of the globe, including India. The sudden switch from classroom blackboards to laptop screens may have influenced students’ study approaches, especially with challenges related to technology access and readiness for online learning among Indian students. Since different social and economic factors bring about differences in students’ learning, an online survey was conducted with 296 randomly selected undergraduate distance learning (DL) students at Indira Gandhi National Open University to examine how technology access during the pandemic influenced the study approaches of Indian DL students from various marginalized and non-marginalized groups. The research results showed that marginalized students had lower access to technology than did their non-marginalized counterparts, although no gender differences were found in access to technology in both the groups. Lower access to technology was associated with a surface approach to study among the DL students in general and the marginalized students in particular. Females in the marginalized group were found to be at risk in terms of both access to technology and study approaches. The findings were intended to enrich our understanding of the role of technology vis-à-vis distance learners’ study approaches during the pandemic and formulate appropriate teaching-learning strategies for the future.

Keywords:

• marginalization,
• technology access,
• online learning,
• approaches to study,
• distance students,
• open and distance learning