Exploring post-Covid-19 Lockdown Students’ Satisfaction in Ethiopian Higher Education Context in case of some Selected Universities

This study aimed to explore post Covid-19 lockdown students’ satisfaction from some higher education institutions in Ethiopia. The study used descriptive and explanatory research designs. A total of 480 students were taken from twelve public Universities as a sample and 366 valid questionnaires were collected. Convenience and snowball sampling were used to select the employees from each University. Also, crosssectional survey method was applied to collect data via a Likert scale questionnaire. Correlation and multiple regression modeling were used to predict the relationships. Initially, a pilot test was a sample of 35 students to check data scale reliability. The study found that all the independent variables (crush time, leadership, and students’ initiation, instructors’ commitment) variables had a statistically significant correlation with Students’ satisfaction. Moreover, the study founded that all the studied variables were predictors of students’ satisfaction (R2= 0.672); however, the predictors that had highest influence were instructors’ commitment and crushes time. Significant emphasis and devotion is required particularly on variables such as instructors’ commitment and crush time as they are identified as a significant influencer of students’ satisfaction. Universities shall focus on enhancing instructors’ commitment and they have to allocate adequate time as before COVID -19. Original Research Article Kassahu; JPRI, 33(45B): 293-301, 2021; Article no.JPRI.73828 294


INTRODUCTION
Worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic is resulting in huge distraction to lives and livelihoods as well as on economic and social system. It is the worst global crisis since the world war the II [1] [2]. The entire educational system from elementary to higher education has been buckled during the lockdown period because of novel coronavirus across the world [3]. Extraordinary spreading rates of Covid -19 tense all aspects of the society, including higher education institutions [4]. To hold the erupt of the Covid -19 pandemic many nations declared temporal closure of higher learning educational institutions starting from March 2020 [5]. The lockdown in response to COVID-19 has disturbed conventional teaching and learning practice across the world, majorities of colleges and universities lasting the class within few weeks [1]. Due to the unpredictable length of the COVID-19 pandemic, most higher education institutes have adopted online learning platforms, if it is not possible they have started face-to-face lessons [6].
COVID-19 imposed a significant impact on the motivations and performances of higher education institution students [7]. With the closure of universities due to Covid-19, the main challenge with universities and the instructors was motivating and improving students' satisfaction [8]. As the work of the same author revealed that Coronavirus depression lessen the opportunities for graduate employment. Consequently, for the students it is going to be difficult to sustain the same level of satisfaction, level of what they have been there pre Coronavirus. Following the high spreading rate of Covid -19, low of admission, withdrawal, and dismissals of students [1] are a few of the commonly detected challenges of many universities. Notwithstanding there is a shortage of statistics result the pandemic's impact on students' satisfaction and motivation to learn, it is safe to assume that many students all over the world have had an inadequate learning experience either insufficient time to learn and read [9].
Sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia, is unlikely to escape from the indirect and direct influence of the pandemic global crisis [1]. The pandemic crisis has exposed numerous shortfalls and disparities in our higher education systemfrom creating a supportive environment which is needed to emphasize on learning up to a mismatch between resources and the students' and instructors' needs. Furthermore, in our higher education context, due to the crush class schedule students are becoming too busy and experiencing stress-related shortage of time to read, study, and do assignments. Moreover, as a result of the crush class schedule instructors are forced to finish courses with very short term contact with students. Consequently, understanding the challenges faced by students in higher education institutions is critical to developing strategies to support students in case the Coronavirus is sustained.
 Research question: this study tried to answer are higher education institutions students satisfied by post covid-19 lockdown teaching-learning?  Objective of the study: this study aimed to explore factors affecting students' satisfaction covid-19 lockdown teachinglearning.

LITERATURE REVIEW
COVID-19 has instigated education interruptions and long-lasting universities closures all over the world which influenced 90% of the world's students and led most nations to think about different methods of providing education to ensure learning continuity [10]. The spread of COVID-19 has sent tremors across the globe [1]. University leaders are challenged with decisions to take risk that could be introduced as a result of COVID-19. The speedy reallocation of limited resources and instructors to manage the COVID-19 crisis demands exceptional qualities [11] [12]. Serving as higher education institutions leaders during COVID-19 times has unquestionably been a challenging job for all leaders [13]. Higher education institutions leaders have to offer the instructors and other supportive staff adequate equipment establish new working methods and increase communication and provide direction and simultaneously they have to be concerned about the wellbeing of their workers and the student communities. In relation to this, passing over the suffering to find funding was another challenge required from higher education institutions leaders. In some cases special it is expected from leaders to create taskforces to assess the situations, inform and advise the leaders to take measures [11]. Higher education institutions leaders might best serve students if they better understood the influences of COVID-19 and the risk factors of its emotional impacts [14].
The survey results of Thomas et al. [15] show that a significant percentage of students faced serious encounters in learning. Almost half of the students believed that their academic performance changed for the worse since onsite classes were canceled. Post COVID-19 universities stated education through distance learning strategies, giving home reading and excesses, radio or television teaching of academic contents [16]. Moreover, according to Silvia [11], the students' performance was greatly affected due to the significant increase of activities with the crush time has blurred for students and instructors. The findings of Aleksander [17][18]. and Karin [19] majority of the students targeted reported that recurrently upset, the prevalence of negative emotions such as anxiety, boredom, hopelessness, anger, and shame, and bored in relation with their academic activities from face to face class temporal closure.
During disaster time like COVID-19 pandemic understanding the students' preference and challenges is required form higher education institutions to devices strategies that can help students to maintain their motivation, increase initiation, and reduce anxiety [20]. According to Patricia, [20] 25% of students increased their time by more than four hours per week due to COVID-19. Moreover, the same study finding shows that because of COVID-19 13 % of the students have delayed graduation and 40% of the students lost a job. University students' satisfaction dropped severely post COVID-19 pandemic [21]. As a summary of research done by Becky (2020) more than half (53%) of the respondents replied that they are very dissatisfied or dissatisfied in the teaching-learning process as a result of the pandemic. Higher institution students are progressively recognized as a vulnerable group suffering from depression, high levels of stress compared with the general population as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic [14].
From the instructors commitment perspective, evaluation of the students were also highly challenging to the instructors since it was difficult to understand to determine whether the students articulate the courses properly in crush time or not [11] [22]. Teachers in Ethiopia are struggling with difficulties in the area of covering courses and assessing students performance in a given crush time. Contingent on the nature of the course and the assessment nature implementing assessments and evaluation within a short period of time is difficult [16]. On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic has given valuable practices for the instructors which would like to apply in normal classroom teaching in the future [23].

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Research Design: Both descriptive and explanatory research designs had been used in this study. The researchers are initiated to examine the cause of students' dissatisfaction and attempts to find remedial action students satisfaction so it employed exploratory. On the other hand, it used also descriptive because it tried to describe the overall aspects of students' satisfaction post-covid-19 lockdown. According to Uma [24] if a researcher wants to ascertain and be able to describe the characteristics of the variables of interest in a situation he/she should use a descriptive study whereas if the researcher wants to delineate the cause of one or more variables he/she should use exploratory study.

Population and Sample:
The population of the study was undergraduate students of higher education institutions from selected Ethiopian universities. Twelve public universities were selected as a target population three from each generation conveniently. The selected universities were; Bahir Dar University, Arba minchi University, University of Gondar, Wolaita Sodo University, Debre Markos University, Ambo University, Debre Tabor University, Woldia University, Wachamo University, Debark University, Injibara University, and Mekdela Amba University. A total of 480 survey questionnaires were distributed to the students via Google form and Telegram, 366 questionnaires were returned and used for the next data analysis, representing a response rate of 76%. Moreover, since researchers used online survey convenience and snowball sampling were used to select the employees from each University.
Survey Instruments: an online survey questionnaire was designed to study the influence made by leadership, crush time, students initiation, and staffs commitment on students' satisfaction post-COVID teachinglearning. Questionnaire method was used because other methods like interview and focus group discussion were not viable to respect Covid protocol. Moreover, the respondents were asked to rate each item on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from very satisfied (1) to very satisfied (5) with regard to the four factors that could have an influence on students satisfaction.

Statistical methods for data analysis:
To analyze the data both descriptive and inferential statistics have been used. To test the hypotheses, Pearson correlation analysis was used. Regression was also used to analyze the level of influence made by independent variables (leadership, Crush time, students' initiation, and staffs commitment) on a dependent variable (students' satisfaction). All the data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version (SPSS) 24.
Based on the variables discussed in the literature the following mathematical model was developed

RESULT S AND DISCUSSION
As it is shown in As showed in Table 4, students' satisfaction is positively related to the predictor leadership with leadership Pearson correlation coefficient of r=0.519and Sig. (2-tailed) is 0.000, which is < 0.01. This implies that there is a moderately significant relationship between students' satisfaction and leadership. Research findings of Sahu [26] and Mishra et al [27] supported proper follow-up, monitoring services delivered by the Universities leaders create satisfaction and maintain the well-being of students. Moreover, the predictor instructors' commitment is positively related to students' satisfaction with a Pearson correlation coefficient of r=0. 754 and Sig. (2tailed) is 0.000, which is < 0.01. This indicates that there is a strong and significant relationship between students' satisfaction and instructors' commitment. As per the findings of Pasion et al, [2], the instructors can play a significant role in accelerating the learning process through negotiations with the universities leaders to clarify the universities' reaction to the pandemic. As the work of Mishra et al. [27] revealed that preparation of teaching material, setting questions and final award of marks required extra effort and commitment which some teachers were not ready to do. Therefore, post COVID-19 classes affected staff comfort zone and freedom in turn it affects students' satisfaction.
As it is presented in Table 4 there is a moderate significant association between students' satisfaction and students initiation with a Pearson correlation coefficient of r= 0. 549 and Sig. (2tailed) is 0.000 which is <0.01. In this regard, the finding of Rahardjo and Supratmi, [28] the change of students learning initiation has an impact on students' satisfaction and achievement. The work of Pasion et al, [2] stated that students need to have initiation, clear and realistic outlooks about their learning activities and results in order to have satisfaction. As disclosed in the same table the predictor crush time there is a strong significant association with students' satisfaction with a Pearson correlation coefficient of r= 0. 685 and Sig. (2-tailed) is 0.00 which is <0.01. Sahu [26] and Aleksander et al [17][18] findings have shown that due to COVID-19 the things were quick and not abundant time was available for universities to properly consider different techniques that help to offer courses, maintain quality, and students satisfaction. Table 5 shows the model summary of regression analysis, which includes crush time, leadership, and students' initiation, instructors' commitment as independent variables, and students' satisfaction as the dependent variable. In the Model Summary, R square shows that the value of the multiple correlation coefficients between the dependent and the independent variables (R =. 820) represents a strong correlation. The next column shows the coefficient of determination or correlation coefficient (R 2 ) which is the proportion of variation in the dependent variable that is explained by the four independent variables. Therefore 67.2% of the variation in students' satisfaction can be explained by four independent variables in the model. Thus, it can be concluded that crush time, leadership, and students' initiation, instructors' commitment influence students' satisfaction by 67.2 percent. This means that 32.8% of the influencing factors of students' satisfaction cannot be explained by this study variable, which may require further investigations in other researches.
The ANOVA test depicted in Table 6 summarized the overall significance of the multiple linear regression model, the fitted multiple linear regression model was found to be significant at α = 0.05. Therefore, the overall model is significant.  Pearson Correlation .519 ** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 366 Instructors commitment Pearson Correlation .754 ** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 366 Students initiation Pearson Correlation .549 ** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 366 Crush Time Pearson Correlation .685 ** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 366 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). A situation in which there is a high degree of association between independent variables is said to be a problem of multicollinearity, which results in large standard errors of the coefficients associated with the affected variables. According to Gujarati [29] if the variance-inflating factor (VIF) of a variable exceeds 10, the variable is said to be highly collinear. To this end, as depicted in table 7 the output of the multicollinearity test, which shows that there is no multicollinearity among independent variables as all VIF values, are under 10. As it is indicated in, Table 8, the p-value or significant level is less than 0.05 for all the variables. Hence, it indicates that the four independent variables (crush time, leadership, and students' initiation, instructors' Leadership has association with students satisfaction during post COVID-19 class Accepted 2.
Crush time has association with students satisfaction during post COVID-19 class Accepted 3.
Instructors' commitment has association with students satisfaction during post COVID-19 class Students initiation has association with students satisfaction during post COVID-19 class Accepted As depicted in table 8, all the proposed hypothesis are accepted at the p-value of 0.001 commitment) are significant to predict students' satisfaction (dependent variable). Furthermore, as Beta Coefficient result shows that instructors' commitment (0.455) has the most influence on students' satisfaction followed by leadership (0.292).

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION
The purpose of the study was to examine the Post COVID students' satisfaction in Ethiopian higher education specific-evidence from some selected public universities. Accordingly, based on the analysis and discussion made above, the following conclusions are made and recommendations are forwarded. As the Pearson correlation analysis result relived that all predictors such crushes time, leadership, and students' initiation, instructors' commitment have a significant correlation with students' satisfaction and also they are also positively related to the dependent variable. The result shows that out of the four independent variables instructors' commitment has a strong correlation with students' satisfaction by Pearson correlation is r =0.754 at Sig. (2-tailed) .000 followed by crush time r= 0.685 at Sig. (2-tailed). This also implies that crush time has a high association with students' satisfaction. From this one can conclude that students' satisfaction was significantly affected by instructors' commitment and crush time. The regression analysis result reveals that 67.2% of the variation in students' satisfaction can be explained by four independent variables in the model. In another word, the independent variables such as crush time, leadership, and students' initiation, instructors' commitment influence students' satisfaction by 67.2%. From the hypothesis, testing results, it can be concluded that all four predictors are significant to predict the dependent variable youth entrepreneurship.
From the findings of the study, the following recommendations are forwarded: The COVID-19 pandemic has made higher education institutions in trouble. One of the difficulties was instructors burden, were performing their job with too much workload since they were expected to cover courses within a short period of time. Therefore, since instructors' commitment affects students' satisfaction universities should find other possible options, for instance, recruiting par time staff or extending the semester like as before COVID-19. Furthermore, the findings of the study show that students satisfaction is significantly affected by the time allotted (crush time), thus universities are recommended to allocate adequate time to give enough time for the students for learning, reading, and doing their assignments.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The targeted youth were limited to twelve universities only, therefore future research is needed which will incorporate the rest universities by including more variables. Accordingly, both convenience and snowball sampling techniques were employed. Thus, it has its own limitations.  /13). The objectives of the study were explained to the students and written informed consent was obtained from all of them before distributing the data. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.