Students' Academic Performance and Perceptions towards Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic at a Large Public University in Northern Cyprus

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education systems in educational environments, especially in universities. In some educational institutions, including Eastern Mediterranean University, the decision was made to replace face-to-face learning with online learning to ensure the health of students and instructors. It is necessary to find out how a transition would impact the education quality and what the feedback will be among students. This study examines the level of satisfaction with the current online learning platforms, students' preference between face-to-face and online learning, and the students' continuous intention to use online learning. Students' academic performance during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic era and the two years before the COVID-19 pandemic era are compared together in this research to examine the change in their academic performance outcomes. To collect data, a cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 1087 participants fully responded to the online survey. The findings of this study provide strong support for online learning against face-to-face learning. The evaluation of students' academic performance showed a very slight drop, which showed that the level of satisfaction of students from online learning might not be linked to their academic achievements. The results of this study can help educational environments to improve the situation of online education, and policymakers will have a good view of students' acceptance and satisfaction with online learning.