Online Networking Platforms and Interactive Learning Among University Students in Oman

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic situation has transformed the learning process globally by providing access to the resources across worldwide. Many institutions and organizations are keen in providing education through virtual environment due to its flexibility. This collaborative learning reduces the tuition fees, physical textbooks, travel expenses and avails free affordable courses. It connects several educators and industrial professionals across worldwide and customized the courses in favor of the students and professionals. Though it outperforms the tradi-tional learning system yet it still has problems such as lack of supervision, monitoring student’s progress, technical issues (slow internet connectivity & software problems) and increased screen time results in health issues. These problems can be overcome by providing a proper infrastructure and training to the students. To empower this collaborative learning structure, the feedback from the students of University of Technology and Applied Science (UTAS)-NIZWA, Oman is collected using questionnaires. This study utilizes proposed Bayesian Optimized Structural Equation Modeling (BO-SEM) for analyzing the complex relationship between variables and latent factors. The proposed Bayesian Optimized Multiple Linear Regression (BO-MLR) predicts academic performance based on strength of each independent variable. Finally the UTAS-NIZWA, OMAN student’s perception is verified and validates using the respective statistical metrics.