Jumeira university students satisfaction with online learning during COVID19 pandemic via the psychological contracts lens

 Introduction: Covid-19 pandemic forced higher education leaders in the United Arab Emirates to ask all universities to start and sustain the experience in online learning. Online learning has concerns among students, their parents and teachers. Students’ perception of the experience is important to (dis)prove their engagement and satisfaction. Collaboration and access to information are crucial components because students usually prefer active learning environment. Aim of the work: To investigate students’ satisfaction with the online learning process in Jumeira University (JU), Dubai, UAE. Then to explore the association between satisfaction and the theory of psychological contracts. Methods A 16 item questionnaire previously used by the “Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness University of Central Florida” in a published paper was translated, validated and adapted then online introduced in bilingual form with its 5 items Likert scale. Its total score ranged from 16 to 80. It was self admistered a week after starting the experience of online learning with a response rate was around 50%. Results The study revealed- for each of the 16 items and overall score- a higher percentage of students who were “strongly satisfied” and “satisfied”. The mean (SD) of the overall score was 53.25 (14.39) and 62.6% had an overall score of being satisfied or strongly satisfied. However, 27.9% of the students were ambivalent with their online learning experiences.