A first grader at an elementary school in the central Seoul ward of Yongsan greets his teacher in an online class with the help of his mother on April 20, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, June 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Upper elementary students turned out to have the highest satisfaction with online schooling, while high school students feel the most uncomfortable, a recent survey showed.
To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Korean schools offered classes online for the first time in their history.
Educational content firm SchoolJam conducted a survey from May 20 to June 2 with the participation of 477 teenagers to find out how they felt about taking online classes.
On a scale of 10 points, the level of satisfaction for online school averaged 6.2 points.
Upper elementary students showed the highest satisfaction at 6.5 points, followed by lower elementary students and middle school students at 6.1 points, and high school students at 5.8 points.
The primary reason behind positive answers was the safety from the coronavirus (42.9 percent). Other reasons included “skipping school” (18.2 percent), “oversleeping” (15.1 percent), and “casual dress” (9.9 percent).
Among those who showed lower satisfaction with online school openings, 42.3 percent pointed to “the difficulty in concentrating on online classes” (42.3 percent), “estrangement from friends” (39 percent), “estrangement from teachers” (5.9 percent), “nitpicking parents” (5.2 percent), and “school meals” (4.4 percent).
The improvement in the quality of online classes was picked as the most pressing shortcoming of online school that needs to be complemented.
As for the September new semester system, an issue which emerged in the midst of the delay in regular school openings and the introduction of online school openings, 66.5 percent of the participants answered in favor of the system.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
