Challenges to online studies during COVID-19: The perspective of Seventh-day Adventist College of Education students in Ghana

AbstractThe spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has caused disruptions in the academic calendars of educational institutions. Globally, countries temporarily closed their schools as a measure to curb the spread of the virus. Students resorted to online lectures to continue their education. This article examined the challenges faced by college of education students during their online studies. Using a proportionate stratified random sampling procedure, students from the Seventh-day Adventist College of Education, Agona-Ashanti, were sampled for the study. A questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS (version 25). The results show that slow internet speed, high cost of data, poor mobile network coverage and insufficient data were the major internet connectivity challenges students faced during the online studies. The Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests showed that gender and programme of study significantly influenced students’ participation in the online lectures (p˂.05) but the location (rural, urban and peri-urban) of the communities of students and level of education did not significantly impact students’ participation in the online lectures (p˃.05). A majority of the students perceived that COVID-19 negatively affected their studies. The government and telecommunication companies should work together to improve communication and internet services in the country to facilitate online studies.