Research Profiles

The COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine period determined that school students in Qatar had adopted the online class modality, which required them to adapt themselves to new technologies and environmental conditions that are different from classrooms at their schools. The objectives of this study are to analyze the effect of environmental factors on academic performance; discover the effect of technical factors while taking online classes on students’ academic performance; to suggest a conceptual model and test the relationship among the constructs; to examine the impact of online learning factors on student engagement.  Students who are the part of this project will gain knowledge about the systematic process on how to carry out a project through primary data collection and develop their skills in writing technical reports.

"PURPOSE:
The COVID-19 pandemic is a common worldwide encounter, unpreventable on each landmass and influencing all citizens of society. The progressions forced by COVID-19, for example, physical distancing, self-separation, school terminations, and at times, the end of local area-based administrations, all can debilitate the frameworks of systems of support for children to develop and prosper academically. Therefore, the major objective of this study is to uncover the impact of online learning on the academic performance of high school students in Qatar during the covid pandemic. To fulfil this, the researcher reviewed numerous studies about the impact of online learning on high school student's academic performance and established the conceptual framework of how environmental and technical factors affect academic performance and student engagement levels.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH:
For this quantitative research, a 27-item questionnaire was utilized to gather data on Environmental factors (Lighting, Noise & Temperature), Technical factors (Connection stability, Data limits), Student Engagement, and Academic performance from the secondary school students of Qatar. IBM SPSS statistics 23 was utilized to assess the impact.

FINDINGS:
This study's results contribute to the expanding body of research concerning the link between environmental factors, technical factors, student engagement, and academic performance. As a consequence, it is revealed that lighting facility and Internet connection stability have a statistically significant relationship with student academic performance and engagement level. During his/her online classes, when a student doesn’t have adequate lighting facilities it highly impacts their academic performance and engagement level. Light resets the body's circadian beat, so presenting adolescents to light can expand their sharpness and work on academic results. In the same manner, if the students face any difficulties in their internet connection stability during online classes, that also creates a high impact on their performance and engagement level. Numerous students feel like they are falling behind in their online classes because of slacking internet connection. They wind up in challenging and distressing conditions with unpleasant contemplations that their grades will suffer profoundly and sway their academic outcomes.


CONCLUSION:
As a consequence, the results of this paper not only widen the sorts of data that may be utilized, but they also have the potential to provide the empirical credibility required to increase the secondary school student’s academic performance and engagement level during online classes in the academic world. The researchers feel that this study may be used as a model for how secondary schools might use controlled field studies to do research that will help them better to enhance their students during online classes."