Abstract:

Purpose- With the advent of the novel COVID-19 disease, the world has become facing an extraordinary situation that has changed the course of normal human life upside down and pushed them towards compulsory, recent technology-based alternative solutions, education being not an exception. Higher education institutions in Turkey rushed from the first moments to avoid the disruption of education process, and transformed into the full-fledged online learning system. Current study addressed aims to investigate how satisfied higher education students are with the transformation to Blackboard Learning System in İstanbul, Turkey during COVID-19. The study compares undergraduate and postgraduate students’ perceptions via thirty items divided into six axes, which are included in a single model. Methodology- An online questionnaire survey sent through BLS itself and WhatsApp was filled out by a total of 294 student respondents, wherein afterwards an inferential and descriptive study with quantitative approach has been employed for analyzing their perceptions. Findings- The results are indicative that the Usefulness, Engagement, Communication and Ease of Use, Self-efficacy, and Challenges axes respectively have a statistically significant effect on students’ perceptions concerning satisfaction with the BLS. As the Usefulness and Engagement axes have the highest contribution to students’ satisfaction with the BLS, the Challenges axis has the least contribution. The findings state that satisfaction of postgraduate students, in terms of Self-efficacy, Communication and Ease of Use and Challenges axes, along with a clear supremacy over the Overall axes level is higher than undergraduate students. Moreover, all demographic dimensions except gender, place of living, the kind of device preferred and the willingness in using BLS in the future, influence students’ perceptions. Conclusion- It can be concluded that the transformation into BLS during COVID-19 has been satisfactory for higher education students, especially for postgraduate students. Some traits and drawbacks of BLS have been inferred along with recommendations which may contribute to successful implementation of BLS.

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