THE IMPACT OF ONLINE EDUCATION ON THE STUDENT'S SUCCESS IN THE COURSE "TEACHING GEOMETRY IN PRIMARY EDUCATION"

During the COVID-19 pandemic (since March 2020) the Faculty of Education at Comenius University in Bratislava immediately switched to distance learning. A part of the university online education was e-testing using the Moodle system. Lecturers had to change their standard approaches, including the introduction of online testing to their teaching. We were interested in the effect of online learning and e-testing on the level of students' knowledge gained in the course "Teaching geometry in primary education". The goal of the study was to investigate the impact of e-learning on knowledge of students of preprimary and primary education. We analyzed the students' results between 2018 and 2021 to compare the traditional teaching and testing in the paper-pencil-compass and ruler form (standard group of students) with the online form of teaching and testing (COVID group of students). Statistical methods of quantitative research were used to analyze the data separately for full-time and part-time students. The statistical analysis showed that there are no differences between the distributions of the percentage scores of standard and COVID group of full-time students. The same result was obtained for the distributions of percentage scores for standard and COVID group of part-time students. Hence, the online form of teaching and testing was equivalent to the in-person form. In addition to the percentage score of students, it is also necessary to investigate other determinants of online education and their impact on the preparation of future primary education teachers.