Webinar as the Future Educational Tool in Higher Education of India: A Survey-Based Study

Abstract

In contemporary times online learning process has become indispensable for higher education in India. The common practice of chalk and talk method is no longer the only recommended method of pedagogy. As a result, blackboards are gradually being replaced by digital smart boards and LCD screens which allow both traditional and technological modes of teaching. Government of India also realises the immense potential that such technologies have. In this direction, ‘Digital India’ is a one step forward initiative of the Government of India to endorse e-resources and reinforce digital infrastructure all over the country. The digitization offers some of the best opportunities to provide the students with better resource and reduces disparity between institutions in terms of resource sharing. Webinar is one of the tools that help us move towards such inclusivity in education by improving accessibility as well as outreach. So, there is a high prospect of webinar in India. In this paper students’ opinion on some aspects of inclusion of webinar in higher education is studied and these opinions are statistically analysed. Perception of the students under study is assembled through questionnaire. Results illustrate that though students are well versed with the use of technology, there is a lack of awareness regarding webinars. Logistic regression exhibits how the factors like age, gender, location, stream of education, access of laptop, access of mobile, access of YouTube, experience of webinar, educational infrastructure affect in the opinion of the students to incorporate webinar in higher education in recent future. We have also identified the order of the students’ preference factors through a ranking process of their interest to include webinar for higher studies. The intermediate test shows that this preference probability is not uniform among the respondents. The Mann Whitney U statistic is used to differentiate the average perception of the students towards the preference of factors in the favour of webinar in higher education between the webinar experienced and the non-experienced groups.