Attitudes of Slovenian Upper Secondary School Students towards Online Education

Online teaching and learning is seen by many as a way to not only improve the learning outcomes of traditional courses, but also to give participants the opportunity to learn anytime, anywhere. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when educational institutions were forced to offer online courses to students, a critical reflection on the sometimes overly optimistic predictions about the possibilities of such education was possible. Based on the assumption that knowledge and skills acquired in the classroom only form competences in connection with attitudes, we were interested in the attitudes of Slovenian upper secondary school students in connection with online teaching. We were able to collect data from 1081 students from different secondary schools. The main findings were that the majority of students, regardless of their gender: (1) would prefer to fulfil their duties at school rather than learning online; (2) do not find working in online environments challenging; and (3) do not think that this work is more productive or efficient compared to face-to-face teaching.