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 10 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 11 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 12 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 13 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 14 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 15 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 16 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 17 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). 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