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Abstract:
This paper will describe the lifestyle and the studying behavior of a special kind of
studentsthose enrolled at purely online universities and institutes. These students
have never met their teachers, and they study their courses purely online on their own.
They choose the time and the place to study and take their next lesson. We assumed
that this kind of new experience would result in a new lifestyle and habits for the
learner. We found that the differences are primarily related to the social aspect of the
student's life and studying times. Other differences include the eating and sleeping
times for some of the students.
Introduction:
The Internet has become an integral part in our lives [2], and since learning is one of
the most important aspects in an individual's life [1], the emergence of e-learning was
inevitable.
As the time went and the technology has become outstanding every aspect of a person
life has changed that included the process of learning. Over the years the people
responsible for education have tried their best to make the learning as best as they can
use modern technologies. This made the first brick for the wall of e-learning. Now,
the technology has made it possible to make the learning purely online.
Purely online teaching in our context means that students take their instruction from
the instructor remotely via the Web or other electronic methods without having face-
to-face contact. This technology-enabled delivery of educational content contrasts
with traditional pedagogical methods in educational institutions whereby students are
.[obligated to take their instruction in face-to-face contact with the instructor [3
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Given that this new educational environment has created a new type of student, we
sought to describe the difference between the lifestyle of traditional, classroom-based
.students and the lifestyle of purely online learners based on several attributes
Literature Review
We started our project by searching the Web for studies that discussed online and
.face-to-face teaching and the difference between them
As a result of our review of the literature By going through these papers, we realized
the scope of our project and understood its aspects. We realized that a pure e-learning
experience is very different from the traditional ways of teaching and hypothesized
that this difference would be reflected in the student lifestyle. Lifestyle can be
.partially defined by the students’ sleeping, eating, studying, and socializing behaviors
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Methods
After collecting the surveys, the resulted statistics will determine which method is
better than the other in some aspects. They are represented in: the social life of the
student, the studying habits of the student, the changes in eating and sleeping habits of
the student, and the effect of the new studying lifestyle on acquiring important tasks.
.[We will discuss all of these categories based on the survey’s statistics [4
A pure e-learning experience is special thing that is very much different from the
traditional ways of teaching so we assumed that this much difference has to have
some kind of effect on the student lifestyle. This is what we will focus on with this
paper.
Lifestyle can be related to the sleeping, eating, and the time spent with the family and
friends and many other aspects.
Studying habits will be affected as well since the presentation of the material and the
way it's taught is completely different between e-learning and traditional learning.
Results
After collecting the surveys, we compiled the data as shown below in Tables 1−10 and
created Figures 1−10 to visually compare the datasets. These statistics will help us
determine the effects of learning environment on student lifestyle. the data we needed
for this study was not an easy thing to find since there are not that much students who
use this kind of learning but our doctor managed to find us a group of purely online
universities and institutes then he told us to do our questions for the survey so we can
send them to the students and wait for the results.
So that what we did and after the results came we decided to start working on them
and take the good of them and work from there.
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The data we collected were based on the opinion of a random group of pure online
students by asking them specific questions in survey format.
The sample we decided to make the study on them was 676 pure online students from
both sexes and the age range was 18 and older.
The students of the sample come from different countries and different cultures but
they have a unified learning type.
Maybe it's worth mentioning that most of our sampled students are from Arabic or
Muslim countries.
4
Table 2: Typical Study Location
The reason I use online learning is because I don't like to be restricted by a specific
time or place to study
Totally Agrees 239
Agrees 256
Don't Know 25
Disagrees 92
Totally Disagrees 47
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Figure 3: Use of Online Learning to Avoid Restrictions
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Table 5: Average Time Spent on Computer
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Figure 6: Average Time Spent with Family
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Table 8: Effect of Online Learning on Eating Habits
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Figure 9: Effect of Online Learning on Sleeping Habits
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Discussion
We analyzed the results to determine which answer to each question was most
approved by our sample.
In Figure 1, it is interesting to note that there are a significant number of students who
use their morning to study since they do not have to be in a classroom at a learning
institution. From Figure 2, we can see that most of the students take their lessons and
study at home, which means that most of them do not leave their homes in the
morning. This will cause a change in their lifestyle as they can sleep more in the
morning, and hence they stay up late.
From Figure 3, we can notice that more than two thirds of the sample agreed that the
reason they chose online learning is that it provides flexibility in the time and place of
learning and studying. However, most of the sample said that even though they are
free to choose their time and space of studying, they still have problems in socializing
with others outside the Internet. This can be derived from Figure 4.
Even though the learning of this sample is entirely computer-based, they do not spend
an inordinate amount of time on the computer. As we can see from Figure 5, the time
these students spend on the computer is very normal.
From Figure 6, we can see that while the students said that online learning affects
their social life, most of the sample can find time to be with their families since 95%
of the sample spend more than 1 hour during the day with their families.
Figure 7 shows that the time spent on homework does not differ noticeably between
these students and their counterparts from the traditional branch of learning.
From Figures 8 and 9, we can see that a small group of students noticed some changes
in their eating habits, but 47% noticed a change in their sleeping habits.
Figure 10 tells us that most of the students agree that online learning is a solution to
the problem of traffic jams. This will come as a result of their lifestyle since most of
the students in this sample prefer not to leave their houses in the morning.
Conclusion:
After analyzing the data, we tried to discern a pattern that could help us develop a
picture of the lifestyle and habits of these students.
Based on our sample, we noticed that the lifestyle of the traditional students and that
of the online students did not vary as much as we thought it would. However, some
students experienced more dramatic changes like dedicating the time to study, which
can be a hard job for the students. Another aspect that suffers in the life of an online
student is his or her social life. Students who are exclusively online learners do not
have the social skills that grant them the strength to face the world outside the little
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screen. Regarding the students’ eating and sleeping habits, there are only minor
changes.
The results we got are based only on the data extracted from the survey, so the
accuracy of our findings is limited by the survey design.
Acknowledgements
We first need to thank Doctor Abdullah, who guided us through the research process.
We also thank all the students who gave us some of their precious time to fill out the
survey. Special thanks go to the students of Al-Madinah International University.
Finally we would like to thank everyone whom helped us in the process of making
this study sometimes without even knowing they did.
References
[5] Su, X., & Chen, Y. (year). “Social and Technical Interaction Improvement in
Creating Online E-learning Community." [actual journal publication info goes here].
[6] Hamburg, I., Lindecke, C., & Ten, H. (year). "Social Aspects of E-learning and
Blending Learning Methods.” [actual journal publication info goes here].
[7] Lim, D. H., Morris, M. L., & Yoon, S.-W. (year). "Combined Effect of
Instructional and Learner Variables on Course Outcomes within an Online Learning
Environment." [Actual journal publication info goes here].
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