The effectiveness of e-learning on academic growth: A Post-COVID-19 study on Moroccan undergraduate students

The repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic have had a tremendous influence on education, pushing students to migrate to distance or online learning, which has prompted problems with how students perceive this new mode of learning. Hence, this paper aims to investigate students’ perceptions of online learning by assessing student engagement, learning outcomes, and student satisfaction in the context of Moroccan higher education. The study addresses the extent to which those three variables affect students’ perceptions of online education. Adopting the mixed methods approach, this study recruited 100 EFL undergraduate students from the University of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah to investigate their perceptions towards online education through self-reported questionnaire responses and in-depth interview explanations. The findings showed that online learning is viewed negatively among Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University students, since quantitative scores of engagements, learning outcomes, and satisfaction were low for the study’s participants. At the same time, the qualitative data revealed the causes of students’ general dissatisfaction with online learning, which stemmed from the poor quality of communication, feedback, and technical help they received.