Student Perceptions of Online, Hybrid, and Face-to-Face Engineering Teaching Environments

The study is situated in the five-year engineering degree offered by the University of Pretoria. This is a follow-up to an article that explored student perceptions of online, hybrid, and face-to-face teaching modes during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the previous study, the student cohort had only been exposed to online and hybrid modes of Teaching and Learning (T&L); however, in this study, the student cohort (of similar education background) has been exposed to all three T&L modes.This study investigates whether students perceive online, hybrid, or face-to-face T&L as optimal for learning. Furthermore, the research explores student perceptions of the different media used to conduct classes in an online environment, and how the mainstream and five-year engineering degree programme lecturers and facilitators use these media. Finally, the research examines whether or not the students perceive the five-year engineering degree as aiding them in their preparation and completion of the mainstream degree modules.A questionnaire was sent to the first-and second-year five-year engineering degree student cohort at the ends of 2021 and 2022 respectively. This questionnaire comprised 20 closed-ended questions that interrogated the research aims. The closed-ended results were analysed quantitatively using a one-way ANOVA test for correlation purposes.The analysis revealed a preference for hybrid and face-to-face modes of T&L across both years. Furthermore, students indicated that there is a need for interaction with lecturers whether online or face-to-face, with students preferring live virtual classes when online and recordings to supplement a contact class when face-to-face.