ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has all-encompassing effects on daily life. Educational institutions shut down immediately after the breakout of the virus. The lockdown has brought forth an unprecedented transformation in educational sectors across the globe as well in India. The online mode of education is now the obvious phenomenon of “new normal” in this sector. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the perception of undergraduate (UG) students on online education affiliated to Sidho-Kano-Birsha University in Purulia District of West Bengal, India. Technological transformation and unavoidable reasons for applying online education strategies drive us to conduct this study for better implications of this new development in education. It is a survey-based quantitative study of a small sample size (n=100) of students at that university. A self-developed online perception scale has been applied to accomplish the study. It sought to know the perception of that student group on online education. The collected data has been analyzed statistically using mean, standard deviation, t-test, and F-test. The result shows that undergraduate students from Purulia District of West Bengal perceive online education moderately. It further revealed that this perception does not vary significantly among the students’ genders (male or female), locations (rural or urban), and castes (General, OBC, SC, and ST). However, impressions differ greatly depending on the student’s semester (fourth to sixth) and stream of study (arts, science, and commerce).
