Abstract:
Although the students in state higher educational institutes in Sri Lanka are
encouraged to engage in online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, their
motivation to learn online is remained under investigated. Hence, the objective
of this study is to examine the motivation of students who are learning in state
higher educational institutes in Sri Lanka towards online lectures during
COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative data has been collected using convenience
sampling method from 20 students those who study in Sri Lankan state
universities. Also, a semi-structured questionnaire was distributed among 180
students. The data were analyzed descriptively to reach the research objective.
The results of this study revealed that majority of the students have been
demotivated to study online. They were mainly lack in extrinsic motivation
also faced context-based issues such as lack of resources, network and
technical failures. Also, the findings reveled that being novel to the online
learning system, lack of interaction among students and lecturers, lack of self efficacy, lack of performance-oriented content, and extrovert personality
characteristics of students are the reasons for the low motivation towards on
line learning. The findings of this paper contribute novel knowledge to Sri
Lankan context in a needed time of such investigation. Taking students
feedback on teaching and learning time to time would be the most effective
implication to be taken. Further, conducting spot tests, being flexible with
lecture time, pay individual attention to students, using visual explanation and
videography to keep the attention of students eliminating the monotonous also
suggested by the respondents to improve the motivation to online learning.
