The Internet Use for Autonomous Learning During COVID-19 Pandemic and its Hindrances

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has brought the dependence on the online activities as new behaviors in various aspects of society including education. It defines the reliance upon internet access for learning practices and the tendency toward learning autonomy. Yet, the sudden emergence of the pandemic causes problematic circumstances for learners. Not all learners are ready to be autonomous and to have internet infrastructure. Within this context, the current study addresses learners’ attitudes toward learning autonomy and examines what hinder them to be autonomous. As a descriptive research, this study involves 101 respondents living in Bitung city, a fast growing and harbor city in North Sulawesi, Eastern Indonesia. They are asked to fill the kind of Likert questionnaire which constitutes the source of data which are statistically analyzed. The results indicates that learners dominantly show positive attitude toward the idea of being autonomous in this pandemic era. In addition, several factors such as bad signal, distraction, self-discipline and lack of motivation occupy the dominant factors hinder learners to establish learning autonomy.