







































AsiaCALL Online Journal Received: 13/03/2021 

ISSN 1936-9859; https://asiacall.info/acoj Revision: 16/04/2021 

Vol. 12, No. 4, 2021  Accepted: 26/04/2021 

pp. 9-17  Online: 17/05/2021 

Difficulties and some suggested solutions in studying online of the students 

in Van Lang University during the Covid-19 pandemic 

Nguyen Thu Nguyet Minh1, Tra Van Dong1*, Nguyen Phuong Hac2 

1 Van Lang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam  
2 Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam 
*Correspondent author’s email: dong.tv@vlu.edu.vn 

ABSTRACT 

The essay helps readers better visualize the difficulties and propose online learning solutions for 

students at Van Lang University . Our team created a Google form and surveyed more than 100 

people. After the results, our team conducted the complex analysis as well as proposed solutions. 

There are objective and subjective causes that come from students and schools. However, the essay 

will mainly focus on the difficulties from the student's perspective. The possible challenges 

teachers and students face in an online learning environment must be considered to ensure the 

student's success. Therefore, there are two roles in e-learning that must be considered when 

discussing ways to improve these challenges. The first is the role of the teacher, and the second, 

the role of the students (Le & Truong, 2021). 

Keywords: difficulties of online learning, difficulties from the perspective of students. 

INTRODUCTION 

COVID-19 has led to school closures around the world. Globally, more than 1.2 billion students 

are out of the classroom. As a result, education is conducted remotely and on digital platforms. 

Krajka (2021) claim that the Corona Virus created a chance for schools to employ the distance 

teaching and learning. To meet significant needs, many online learning platforms provide free 

access to their services, including platforms such as Google Meets, Microsoft Teams...  

In Vietnam, to combat the spread of coronavirus and maintain healthy social distancing, schools 

across the country have temporarily closed and changed significantly, with the special 

development of e-learning, which quickly shifts from in-person learning to distance learning;  

However, most Vietnamese students have difficulty learning online due to limitations in 

interaction, equipment, communication with teachers, and the stress of learning online for too long. 

Moreover, they find it difficult to interact with others in one lesson and are unable to answer 

flexible questions; 

From the experience of our team, students of Van Lang University, most students have difficulty 

studying online at the university, and this will be tested with the support of individual examples. 

There have been a few studies about e-learning and its drawbacks: (Nguyen & Duong, 2021) 

mailto:dong.tv@vlu.edu.vn


ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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Vietnam is rapidly developing in terms of the internet with increasingly high speed and low cost. 

This leads to Vietnam is the 6th largest internet user in Asia and 12th globally with 64 million 

people in 2018. Socially, Vietnam is also in a "golden population period". The number of people 

under 30 years old in 2014 was 45,462 million, accounting for 50.2% of the population General 

Statistics Office year 2016 people with easy access to information and communication technology. 

Therefore, Vietnam is considered a country with great potential for developing E-learning. 

According to market research organization Ambient Insight, Vietnam is in the top 10 countries in 

the forecasted E-learning development rate for 2014-2016. Vietnam's E-learning market is 

estimated at no less than $2 billion and has a growth rate of 40%. However, most focus on exam 

preparation, foreign language training, and soft skills.  

Although Universities in Vietnam have been interested in E-learning quite early, until recently, the 

overall situation has not prospered and still has some problems. Those challenges include 

institutional, cultural, technological, educational, and ethical aspects: 

• Vietnam has had macro policies from the Party and the State on promoting the application 

of information technology in higher education. However, the implementation of policies in 

practice is not good, especially in the field of distance education. 

• Inadequate legal framework. There are only regulations on general E-learning conditions 

(Circular 12/2016 / TT-BGDĐT) and the concept of E-learning in the Regulation on 

distance learning (Circular 10/2017 / TT-BGDĐT). The application of E-learning for 

formal training and postgraduate training does not have a clear legal basis to apply. 

• Universities do not have funding for development investment in the context of non-state 

funding. Projects are usually carried out with foreign funding (Hanoi University of Science 

and Technology Project and Hanoi Open University Institute from Korean support). Due 

to the lack of linkages between universities, the spillover effect of these meager investments 

remains low. The capacity of lecturers and educational management staff has not met the 

requirements of E-learning development, both in terms of technology and content. 

In short, the development of E-learning, especially in higher education in Vietnam, is limited 

compared to its potential.  

There are a lot of experiences in those researches of the authors about online learning and the 

disadvantages of online learning during the pandemic. However, there is no information available 

on problems in distant learning of students at Van Lang University. Thus, this study about learning 

online at Van Lang University is really important. Once the causes are found out, solutions to the 

problem can be worked out (Pham & Vo, 2021) 

The purpose of the research 

The purpose of the study was to help the students in Van Lang University find appropriate solutions 

for personal difficulties of learning online during the pandemic and help the teacher with better 



ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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ideas in planning the lessons through students' experiences. Besides, this study also helps Van Lang 

University find out the best method for teaching online in the pandemic period. 

The research is carried out in an attempt to find out answers to the following research questions: 

• What is the reality of learning online of students in Van Lang University during the Covid-

19? 

• What are the difficulties in learning online of the students at the school? 

• What is the suggested solution for those difficulties? 

The significance of the research 

The result of this study may suggest a hypothesis for further research into common disadvantages 

that students face when learning online, through which they can promote a number of solutions to 

overcome. In addition, the result of the study could be useful for teachers who are responsible for 

making plans to help improve the online lesson, to transmit knowledge effectively to students. By 

conducting a test of 100 students ranging from first-year to senior year, our group can point out 

some drawbacks of the online study at Van Lang University and find a way to improve the quality 

of online learning and interactions between teachers and students as well. Our school does not 

conduct distance learning programs like others, so when an epidemic breaks out, the preparation 

of the school and students in online learning is more or less affected. Therefore, our research topics 

focus on the common issues of online learning such as networking, the devices that students use 

to learn, the interaction between teachers and students, and effectiveness after a lesson.  

THE METHOD 

In this section, you can get what the actual process that we have taken to reach our purpose was. 

Mainly, the population, the sampling technique, some restrictions, the procedures, materials, and 

important methods are also mentioned in the research. Moreover, this section also contains 

necessary details for other researchers to help them conduct similar studies and make it easier for 

readers to grasp the research. 

Online learning is becoming popular during the time of the epidemic outbreak. However, do the 

students of the Van Lang University find it difficult to overcome? We research difficulties and 

offer appropriate solutions for both students and schools (Le & Truong, 2021) 

Sampling techniques  

Most students at Van Lang University have their own laptops and are interested in learning online 

during a coronavirus outbreak. Therefore, we believe they can easily cooperate to complete the 

survey. The study is conducted on 100 students currently studying at the main campus of Van Lang 

University. We choose Van Lang University students because we are also studying and working 

at the school at the present time. So we understood the difficulty of an outbreak, and the school 

turned to online learning. The scope is open to all students from all majors at school as the disease 

affects the whole school, and above all, we need to come up with solutions not only for students 



ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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but also for the school. We sent students survey links and answer sheets to answer 13 multiple 

choice questions about how difficult it is to learn online and received many comments about this 

inconvenience and many more questions about this inconvenience. The solutions of the students 

were presented in the survey. For survey purposes, we have selected students from a variety of 

majors, including full-time and part-time education. The group then divided into three small groups 

and discussed providing 13 stories about the school's students. The key is Online learning practice 

(5 questions), difficulty (4 questions), and some solutions (4 questions). The story has four options, 

three referees are interested in the main, and the last sentence is "Other" is "Other" that contains 

student opinion and might give me a good idea for their contest. I. The next step, we created stories 

on Google after linking with students in all the articles through the school's social networks. We 

have collected and analyzed 100 statements. We have two votes (situation, problem, solution) and 

finally conclude in the discussion set (Le & Truong, 2021) 

Restrictions 

Online learning is a fairly wide range and studied by many experts. In addition, online learning 

depends on the purpose of each individual. Since we are students at Van Lang University, this 

project taken at our school would be more suitable and convenient for researchers and those 

surveyed. Moreover, due to time constraints, we could not learn in-depth about technology, lesson 

details, or teachers' difficulties. 

RESULTS & DISCUSSION 

We analyze three items: Current situation, Difficulties, and Suggested solutions from the survey 

results obtained. The Current situation will include a figure analyzing student trends when studying 

online during the epidemic season. The Difficulties section will include two figures that analyze 

students' problems while studying online, and the Suggested solution section will include two 

figures that show how to solve the problems of online learning for both students and teachers of 

Van Lang University. 

The two figures above analyze how Van Lang University students' interest in online learning and 

how online learning affects their academic performance. 60% of respondents feel that they are 

quite interested in online learning (Fig. 1). This is more than the number of people who do not pay 

too much attention and are very interested in learning online.  

 



ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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Figure 1 shows the interest of students in online learning. 

This leads to the situation when being asked: How does online learning affect the quality of your 

learning? The majority of responses are Normal (65%). This means that the quality of online 

learning, as well as schooling, is not much different. It is worth noting that 20% of the respondents 

think that online learning adversely affects their learning performance (Fig. 2). This can be 

explained by the fact that most students have never studied online with their friends and teachers 

before. So even if they have sufficient preparation or lectures, they are still not ready 

psychologically and feel uncomfortable communicating with teachers and classmates. On the other 

hand, the quality of networking and learning equipment of students who do not meet the lecture 

requirements (learning with phones and tablets instead of laptops) is another reason affecting 

students' academic results. 

 

Figure 2 shows how online learning affects the learning quality of students. 

As can be seen in Figure 3, up to 70 students find it inconvenient to study online using smartphones. 

Meanwhile, only four people find it difficult to learn online using tablets. This is easy to see 

because tablets have many advantages over smartphones. For example, it has a larger screen, more 

stable configuration. This makes learning with this device even more convenient than with 

smartphones. Still, 20 students surveyed said it was still difficult to use a laptop, even though it 

was optimal for online learning. Laptops cannot switch to 4G networks like tablets or smartphones, 

the students said. In addition, the remaining comments do not think that there is inconvenience 

60%15%

22%

3%

Quite interest

Not too much

Very interest

Others

13%

65%

20%

2%

Better
Normal
Worse
Others



ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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when using the above devices. Some students use all three devices for effective online learning, 

with results displayed graphically 

 

 

Figure 3 shows the limitations of online learning devices for students. 

Through survey data, up to 45% are students. They get tired of having to focus on the device for a 

long time. In addition, some people reported feeling headaches, dizziness, and eye strain when 

studying for a long time. This concentration prevents some students from acquiring new knowledge 

effectively (20%). Or it may be that the internet connection is not stable while studying with the 

students. This opinion accounts for 30% of the students surveyed. These results were 

correspondent to Bui et al. (2021) who found that the students often faced with technical problems 

as they took online classes, such as poor Internet connection, poor computer skills, and outside-

noise during their studies. This explains the problem of asynchronous network infrastructure, 

leading to an unstable network, making it difficult for students in remote areas to access lectures 

as well as connect with lecturers. The research results are shown through the statistical diagram 

 

Figure 4 shows how students feel after an online lesson. 

70

4

20

6

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Smartphones Tablets Laptops Others

Smartphones

Tablets

Laptops

Others

Do not retain much 

knowledge, 20%

Tired of working too 

long on the screen, 45%

Cannot interact easily 

with the teacher, 30%

Others, 5%



ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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As illustrated in Figure 5, it is easy to see that nearly 60 students are proposing to shorten their 

course average online time. As analyzed above, 45% of students feel tired when online classes take 

too long (more than 2 hours per subject). However, 45 students were asked to keep their study time 

when asked. 

 

Figure 5 shows students' suggestions for the average time of the online study.  

This is consistent with the survey where 65% of respondents said the quality of learning online has 

not decreased (figure 2). In addition, due to the unstable network connection, interrupted 

interaction between students and faculty as well as comparison (Figure 4) leads some students to 

suggest extending the time to study online to keep up. teachers account for 30%.  

Chart (Figure 6) Research shows that it is very important to categorize subjects to apply online 

learning method through our survey. Up to 35% of respondents think that some subjects should be 

included in online learning form. However, because some subjects are inclined in theory and 

practice, there are 37% of respondents saying that learning should be alternated between online 

and classroom learning. In addition, there are still many opinions that should only study online 

when there is a social gap (27%). This explains why 15% of students answered that they do not 

pay too much attention to Online learning as (Figure 1) listed above. 

5

58

34

3

SHOULD LAST 

LONGER

SHOULD 

SHORTEN

REMAIN THE 

SAME TIME AS A 

LESSON 
INSCHOOL

OTHERS

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70



ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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Figure 6 shows students' suggestions for online learning after the quarantine. 

The main purpose of this project is to find out solutions for the difficulties of students in Van Lang 

University in learning online during the pandemic. So after surveying more than 100 students, we 

found some difficulties and analyzed them in the Results section. So this will be a summary of the 

ideas of the topic, which is mainly about the difficulties of online learning for students at the school, 

and the solutions that many students accept, as well as the reasons why to the difficulties and 

limitations of the topic. Finally, there will be theoretical and practical applications of our group's 

topic. 

As mentioned above, the topic of our group was discussed among the members and divided into 

three sections, but the original purpose of the topic was to study the difficulties and find solutions. 

For example, students were unable to keep up with lectures due to unstable internet connection, or 

tired from sitting on computers for too long, to untangle students in online learning at the school 

and help lecturers and the school organize subjects more conveniently and effectively. 

CONCLUSION 

After discussion, our team synthesized four questions corresponding to 5 difficulties of online 

learning for Van Lang University students in the context that the school had to switch to online 

learning due to the epidemic. Questions related to the internet connection where students learn 

online, the devices that students use to learn, the difficulties in online group learning between 

lecturers and students as well as the interaction between members in the classroom, and finally, 

the psychology of the students after going through a regular online lesson. 

In addition to the four difficulties that were discussed and selected by our team, suggestions for 

solutions to overcome those difficulties were also included in the survey and achieved positive 

results from the students. Suggested solutions related to the average online learning time, the 

selection of appropriate equipment to meet online learning needs, recommendations for upgrading 

the Internet connection where students study. And finally, the most important, it is suggested 

whether or not to continue the online learning form after the social isolation order. 

Some subjects should 

be put intoonline …

Should alternate 

between 

studyingonline and 

learning in class of 

the samesubject, 37

Should only continue 

studying onlinewhen 

there is a social 

isolation order, 26

Others, 2



ACOJ- ISSN 1936-9859 AsiaCALL Online Journal  Vol. 12; No. 4; 2021 

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As mentioned in Restriction, our research topic is still limited due to limited time and simple 

research tools (Google form). In addition, the team did not go into in-depth analysis of the 

technologies applied in online learning, as well as narrow the scope of the survey only to Van Lang 

University, and students studying at the school, aiming at propose reasonable and timely solutions 

to overcome difficulties during the isolation period. 

Recommendations further research 

Our research paper was conducted within a month and brought about certain results. However, 

there are many other related issues that the group has not had time to expand. Hopefully, this 

research paper will serve as a foundation for further research groups to study more about online 

learning at universities nationwide. 

In addition, our team hopes that this research topic will be useful for Van Lang University in 

effectively implementing online learning for some future subjects. 

REFERENCES 

Bui, T. X. T., Ha, Y. N., Nguyen, T. B. U., Nguyen, V. U. T., & Ngo, T. C. T. (2021). A Study 

on Collaborative Online Learning among EFL Students in Van Lang University (VLU). 

AsiaCALL Online Journal, 12(3), 9-21. Retrieved from 

https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32   

Krajka, J. (2021). Transforming Language Education to the Online Mode During Covid-19 

Times –On Approaches Used in Pandemic Language Teaching, AsiaCALL2021 & 

VLTESOL. AsiaCALL Online Journal, 12(1), 88. Retrieved from 

https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15 

Le, H. T., & Truong, C. T. T. (2021). Tertiary Students’ Perspectives on Online Learning during 

Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in The Context of Covid-19: A Case Study, 

Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Asia Association of Computer-

Assisted Language Learning (AsiaCALL 2021), ISBN: 978-94-6239-343-1, ISSN: 2352-

5398, pp. 203-210. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.025 

Nguyen, H. U. N., & Duong, L. N. T. (2021).  The Challenges of E-learning Through Microsoft 

Teams for EFL Students at Van Lang University in COVID-19, AsiaCALL2021 & 

VLTESOL. AsiaCALL Online Journal, 12(1), 51. Retrieved from 

https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15 

Pham, V. P. H., & Vo, T. N. D. (2021). CALL in Asia during Covid-19 and Models of E-

learning, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Asia Association of 

Computer-Assisted Language Learning (AsiaCALL 2021),  ISBN: 978-94-6239-343-1, 

ISSN: 2352-5398, pp. 1-10.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001  

 

https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/32
https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15
https://dx.doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.025
https://asiacall.info/acoj/index.php/journal/article/view/46/15
https://dx.doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210226.001

