Psychosocial Aspects of the Learning Environment in Information Technology Rich Classrooms

Abstract

The students ought to be capable together with their teachers to work in a sheltered, effective and pleasant way and in addition to well-disposed use of computing sources in IT classrooms. The engineering students have to spend their most of the time occupying the computer networked classrooms. Although, the IT-rich classrooms provide technological supports but it also points out that human factors like psychosocial factors are responsible for a student’s fulfillment with the conditions and overall environment. This study investigated the relationships between psychosocial characteristics such as Student Cohesion, Involvement, Autonomy, Task Orientation, Cooperation and satisfaction of the engineering students in digital learning environment who are studying in different private universities in Bangladesh. Another depiction was to find those factors who make the most significant association with satisfaction of engineering students. The target group is a total of 1000 students from undergraduate level, Department of Software Engineering, Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Department of Electrical Engineering from Daffodil International University (DIU), American International University of Bangladesh (AIUB) and BRAC University. What is happening in the class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was adopted for surveying the students about the psychosocial factors and their satisfaction level in IT-rich classrooms. The factors then analyzed and regressed against satisfaction. The findings revealed that psychosocial factors have weak but significant and positive association with student satisfaction. It also proves that, the changes in psychosocial factors have a huge effect on positive and also negative satisfaction significance level. The learning environment of engineering universities impacts the students’ satisfaction according to psychosocial aspects which includes course curriculum, teaching methods, relationship with other students, selfefficiency and tasks clarification. Finally, the theoretical and experimental outcomes of this study make a clear vision that in Bangladesh, the leading private universities offering undergraduate engineering studies providing their students classrooms with proper digital and empirical support which results in positive students’ satisfaction although there are lot more areas has left to be explored to make the IT-rich classrooms environment more sufficient.