Soc101: Introduction to Sociology

Group Project on: Online Classes and Impact on Family due to Covid Pandemic.
Submitted To
Section: 19
Tata Zafar (TZF)

Senior Lecturer

Department of Political Science and

Sociology

Submitted by:

Name ID No Serial
Syed Muhammad Ali 1731912630 05
Jarin Tasnim Neha 1811836630 06
Mohibul Hasan Tarek 1813218042 07
Jarin Humayra Khan 1921199030 09
Sneha
Sanjida Parvin 2013775630 29
Tumpa

Semester: Fall 2020

Date: 18-01-2021
Abstract
The extensive prevalence of Covid -19 pandemic has affected both Academia and parents alike.
Whole educational system has been collapsed during the lockdown period not only in
Bangladesh but across the globe. The sudden closure of everything around us which includes
missing social interaction and with the start of online classes there was some sort of depression
that persisted among the students due to different sort of factors. The focus of our research is the
online classes and the impact on family due to covid -19 pandemic. We conducted this research
study through a small online survey. Our survey results revealed that the majority agree with the
questions of the study. Students and faculties both facing many problems while taking online
classes such as internet issue, lack of motivation, understanding the materials, feeling of
isolation, decrease in communication level, also the mental and physical health impacted. So
many people have lost their job and families are going through a financial crisis. In this
pandemic situation family bonding effects both positively and negatively. We found different
opinions from different people in the questionnaire. This research studied the impact from
different people’s perspective as the sample was selected from different age group. Through this
we can understand everyone’s point of view in a broader way which will help understanding the
issues and will provide effective solutions.
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4

Background of the Research............................................................................................................5

Objectives........................................................................................................................................6

Research Methodology....................................................................................................................8

Findings and Results of the Research............................................................................................14

Discussion......................................................................................................................................30

Recommendation...........................................................................................................................31

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................32

Reference.......................................................................................................................................33
Introduction

The Covid pandemic has grasp the world with its severity and impacted the whole world in terms
of study and bonding between the family. This pandemic has taught the world a new ways of
learning platform which has like all other things has both pros and cons. The students all around
the world has gone online for continuing their studies during this pandemic (Schroeder,2020).
Although this platform has connected students and teachers from all around the globe, it still
contains some major drawbacks which has played a negative role throughout the society. The
faculties and the students both facing some huge problems related to the connection with the
internet and in some cases the classes have been cancelled (Wirth,2020). The students also being
in the quarantine for so long had also an effect on their mental health which in some cases lead to
some serious health issues like cancer or other kind of deadly diseases (Schroeder,2020). There
are also some reports of strains on eyes which occurred due to the poorly adjusted screen of the
computer (Schroeder,2020). Although there are advantages to these online platforms that is
“connecting people no matter the distance” but the cons surpass the pros for which it has a
serious impact on both the mental and the physical health of the students as well as the faculties
(Wirth,2020).

The family way of living has also been effected greatly due to the Covid pandemic. In some
cases, this lead to the changes in their everyday lives amid of this financial breakdown (Effects
of Covid-19,2020). Raising children in anxiety has become an issue for the parents as they
themselves is going through a financial crisis with job losses and economic debacle
(Castaneda,2020). We assume that the corona pandemic or the Covid-19 pandemic as many
other knows has affected the students both in their family bonding and in their educational life.
The only difference is the affect has been a positive gesture in terms of family bonding and a
negative gesture in terms of educational life.

Now a day these problems related to the Covid pandemic has become a social issue where many
researchers are continuously reporting article on a monthly and in some cases on a weekly basis.
Taking every of this issue stated above into consideration we thus choose this topic as our project
for this course.
Background of the Research
The start of the Covid-19 pandemic since the year 2019 has affected the overall population of the
world starting from United States to Australia. None has escaped the grasp of this deadly virus. It
first started in November of 2019 at China and due to ferocious infection rate and its contagious
capability it spread quickly all over the world. The first three cases of Covi-19 in Bangladesh
were reported at 8 March, 2020 (The impact of Covid-19 on the poorest - Research Paper 1:
Bangladesh - Bangladesh, 2020). The university started to close down due to the lockdown
announced by the government of Bangladesh and subsequently by 22nd March, the whole
economy went into a lockdown (The impact of Covid-19 on the poorest - Research Paper 1:
Bangladesh - Bangladesh, 2020). By the month of June that year, Bangladesh reported around
100,000 cases of Covid-19 and the whole economy was still into a lockdown. On March 15, the
government banned all flights that were coming from Europe (Anwar et al, 2020). Even the law
enforcing agency were strictly maintaining the lockdown by not letting people staying on the
street for too long. There were even cases of brutal beating by the police for maintaining the
lockdown on the streets of Dhaka (Anwar et al, 2020). The lockdown kept on extending and the
university in our country especially the private university took an initiative of taking the classes
online. An estimate of around 1.2 billion children in 186 countries have been affected by school
closure due to the pandemic (Li & Lalani, 2020). Now with the start of online classes there were
many advantages to that but not without some certain disadvantages.

Online learning has a huge advantage. The taking of classes during this online pandemic where
physical interaction is almost prohibited due to the fact that the virus is highly contagious has
actually kept the semester and the university went on. According to Gautam “Online learning
offers teachers an efficient way to deliver lessons to students. Online learning has a number of
tools such as videos, PDFs, podcasts, and teachers can use all these tools as part of their lesson
plans”. On top of that with online classes comes the efficient uses of time and place, affordability
etc. Different studies reveal that online courses have been found to be conducive to students who
favor self-regulated learning (You & Kang, 2014). However, these advantages of online classes
don’t go without disadvantages and to some extent these advantages are huge which are affecting
both the students and the teachers who are related to this field of study. For instance, most of the
parents are concerned regarding the hazardous affect that will have on their children due to
looking at the screen for too long (Gautam,2020). The students as well feel a sense of isolation
due to not being able to interact with his fellow batchmate and faculties (Gautam,2020). The
technology remains a vital problem in the context of Bangladesh as the internet connection for
connecting the online classes remain a question in some part of Bangladesh (Alam,2020). Taking
all these things into consideration we thus decided to choose an important topic such as this for
our project for our course titled “Introduction to Sociology”.

Objectives
The covid-19 has resulted in all educational institutions shut all across the world. As a result
education has changed dramatically and students have started learning on digital platforms.
Although this pandemic has brought families closer together.

The purpose of our research is-

To find out the positive and negative sides of online classes and impact on family. To understand
the perception of peoples on online teaching during COVID-19 pandemic. To examine the
challenges faced by the students and also family members during this pandemic situation.
Research Methodology
[Link] or research question:

We assumed that, Corona pandemic makes people’s life difficult. For this Corona pandemic,
people face financial hard up, Students are facing huge problem related to internet connection,
being in the quarantine for so long had also an effect on student’s health. But, people do not face
this kind of situations in Covid- free time. So, the variables are

1. Corona Pandemic situation

2. Facing financial hard up

3. Facing network problem

4. Facing health issues.

• Research Strategy: Mixed Research Strategy

• Research Method: Semi-Structured Questionnaire (Mixed of both closed ended and open

• Sampling Strategy: Simple Random Sampling

Questionnaire

1.  Age
a. 16-20
b. 21-25
c. 26-30
d. 30 and above
2. Gender
a. Male
b. Female

3. Do you think this pandemic situation affects a student’s mental health?

4. If yes, are people suffering from serious health hazards?

5. Do you think people face a financial crisis during this Corona Pandemic?
a. Yes
b. No

6. If yes, what is the effect? (You can choose more than one)
a. Facing difficulties to pay a huge amount health care cost
b. Facing difficulties to pay loan.
c. Facing difficulties to pay house rent
d. Others……..
7. How do you expect the people are being affected without job in Corona pandemic?
a. Positively,

b. Negatively,

c. Has no effect.

8. To what extent do you expect this pandemic to positively impact students and teachers as
well? (you can choose more than one)
a. Connecting people, no matter the distance.
b. Save transportation cost.
c. Get enough time to pass with family.
d. Others……..

9. How Do you think this pandemic situation affects family bonding?

10. What do you think the new learning platform has pros and cons?
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Strongly disagree
d. Disagree
 11. What do you think raising children has become an issue for parents now?
a. Strongly agree
b. Agree
c. Strongly disagree
d. Disagree

12. What do you think are students satisfied to use new technology platform?
a. Yes
b. No

2. Research strategy:

We are following to complete this research semi structured questionnaire for mixed survey. For
this research we followed mixed strategy where unstructured questionnaire, semi structured
questionnaire both types of questions are mixed. Following this mixed strategy, we will be able
to know about the health condition of the people in quarantine. Moreover, we will be able to
know what problems they have faced at this time. And we can know how their family bonding
was at this time. We also know that how it felt to do everything online from home.

[Link] method:

In this stage, we found information through structured questionnaire and also unstructured
questionnaire. Many people have different perspective. Whatever we analysed was based on both
structured and unstructured survey questionnaire. We gathered different perception about Online
Classes and impact on Family due to Covid Pandemic through structured questionnaire. We also
gathered data by providing unstructured questionnaire. Respondents gave their judgement and
decisions.

[Link] strategy:

Our targeted sample contained young, middle age and adult people also. we did simple random
sampling because it is one of the common type of sampling method. It assured that the sample
chosen is representative of the population. We picked Corona Pandemic situation, financial hard
up, network issues, health issues as variable to apply simple random sampling.

Characteristics of the targeted sample

Students and different age group of professionals are our targeted sample. Only the perception os
students are not enough for the sample. So, we collected information from adults too.

Justification for choosing this sample

We collected information from the primary data. For primary data, we collected information
through survey questionnaire.
Findings and Results of the Research

I designed a survey questionnaire to collect data about online classes and impact on family due to
Corona pandemic. This survey includes different types of aspects about my topic from which I
get clear understandings.

Demographic Information

Figure: Age
We collected data from different age group of people to get a clear understanding of our topic.
But, most of the respondents were the age group of 21 to 25. We collected 78.9% responses from
the age group of 21 to 25.

Figure: Gender

We collected responses both from male and female. We got total 38 responses from people. We
collected 52.6% responses from male. 52.6% means among the 38 respondents 20 respondents
were male and we collected 47.4% responses from female. 47.4% means among 38 respondents
18 respondents were female.
[Link] you think this pandemic situation affects a student’s mental health?

Our first question was about whether this pandemic situation affects a student’s mental health of
not.

Figure: Do you think this pandemic situation affects a student’s mental health?

All of our respondents chose the first option which is ‘yes’. All of them were agreed with that
this pandemic situation affects student’s mental health. We also assumed that, this pandemic
situation affected student’s mental health. That means, my research findings match with my
hypothesis.
[Link] yes, are people suffering from serious health hazards.

Our second question was about if this pandemic situation affected a student’s mental health, it
would cause a serious health hazard or not.

Figure: If yes, are people suffering from serious health hazards?

Among our respondents, the largest percentage opted the first option which is ‘yes’. 94.7% chose
this option which means they thought people were suffering from serious health hazards. 94.7%
means among 38 respondents 36 people though people were suffering from serious health
hazards. Only two people though that people were not suffering from health hazards. I assumed
that most of the people were suffering from serious health hazards. That means, my research
findings match with my hypothesis.

[Link] you think people face a financial crisis during this Corona Pandemic?

Our third question was about whether people face financial crisis or not.

Figure: Do you think people face a financial crisis during this Corona Pandemic?

All the respondents opted the first option which means ‘yes’. That means, all the respondents
thought that people face a financial crisis during this Corona pandemic. We also assumed that
people face financial crisis which fully match with my hypothesis.
[Link] yes, what is the effect?

Our fourth question was about people were facing financial crisis during this Corona Pandemic
and the effects on people.

Figure: If yes, what is the effect?

Among all the respondents, the largest percentage opted the third option which was facing
difficulties to run their daily expenses as many people lost their job couldn’t provide educational
expense for their children as a result the children couldn’t continue studies 73.7% though that
which means among 38 respondents 28 people had similar views. The second highest rate was
65.8%. That means, 25 people though that people were facing difficulties to pay house rent. I
also assumed that people were facing difficulties to run their daily expenses. So, my research
findings fully match with my hypothesis.

[Link] do you expect the people are being affected without job in Corona pandemic?

Our fourth question was about positive or negative expectations of people affects without job in
Corona pandemic

Figure: How do you expect the people are being affected without job in Corona pandemic?

94.75 respondents opted the second option which means people were being negatively affected
without job in Corona pandemic.94.7 % means among 38 respondents 36 respondents had
similar views. I also assumed that people were negatively affected. So, my research findings
fully match with my hypothesis.
6. To what extent do you expect this pandemic to positively impact students and teachers as
well?

Our sixth question was about positive impacts of Corona pandemic on students and teachers as
well.

The highest rate was 68.4% which means among 38 respondents 26 people though that people
got enough time to pass with family. The second highest rate is 57.9% which means among 38
respondents 22 people though that people learned to use technologies properly. I assumed that
the positive impact was people got enough time to pass with family. So, my research findings
fully match with my hypothesis.

7. How do you think this pandemic situation affects family bonding?

Our seventh question was about impacts of Corona pandemic on family.

The highest rate was 73.7 which means among 38 respondents 28 people though that this
pandemic situation positively affected family bonding. The second highest rate was 15.8% which
means this pandemic situation negatively affected family bonding. I assumed that this pandemic
situation positively affected family bonding. So, my research findings fully match with my
hypothesis.

8. What do you think the new learning platform has pros and cons?

The eighth question was about the pros and cons about new learning platform.
Figure: What do you think the new learning platform has pros and cons?

Among all the respondents, 47.4% were strongly agreed with that the new learning platform had
pros and cons and 47.4% were agreed with that. That means, 36 people showed positive views. I
also assumed that the new learning platform had pros and cons. So, my research findings fully
match with my hypothesis.

9. What do you think raising children has become an issue for parents now?

The ninth question was about raising children is an issue for parents.
The highest rate was 55.3% which means among 38 people 21 people strongly agreed with that
raising children is an issue for parents. 10.5% which means 4 people disagreed with this. I
assumed that raising children is an issue for parents. So, my research findings fully match with
my hypothesis.

10. What do you think are students satisfied to use the new technology platform?

The last question was about the satisfaction of students to use the new technology platform.
Figure: What do you think are students satisfied to use the new technology platform?

Among all the respondents, the highest percentage opted the first option which is ‘yes’. The
highest percentage rate is 55.3 % which means 21 students were satisfied to use the new
technology platform. 44.7% which means 17 people were not satisfied to use the new technology
platform. I assumed that students were not with the new technology platform. So my research
findings partially match with my hypothesis.
Discussion
The whole world came to stand still due to the Covid-19 pandemic and companies after
companies are going bankrupt for this crisis. Economy of the developed and the developing
countries alike are being affected due to this and many countries are now running at budget
deficit. One of the sectors that has kept their operation running even during this pandemic is the
education sector by providing online classes to the students. The university classes and all other
classes of school and colleges are being conducted online. Due to all these as a part of our group
project we selected the topic which is one of the most researched topics now a day that is titled
“Online classes and impact on Family due to Covid Pandemic”. Through this we want to identify
the key problems that the students are facing recently due to the online classes and how the
lockdown has affected the people living in a family by not being able to meet their friends and
other associates. For our research we develop 10 questions as a part of our questionnaire which
included questions related to the affect of Covid pandemic on family and the impact on students
due to the online classes. Our hypothesis was that it affected the students greatly in a negative
way both on family stages and on educational cases.

From our research we found that our hypothesis was proven true. The Covid-19 pandemic
affected the students both in their educational and family life with a negative outcome. Out of the
38 respondents around 18 were female and the rest 20 were male. All of them responded positive
to the question where it was asked that whether the pandemic affected the mental health of an
individual. On top of that to strongly prove our hypothesis we would like to add some few more
questions where the respondents responded in a way that lead to the fact that our hypothesis was
correct. For example, there were questions related to health hazard where the respondents
responded positively to the fact that they faced mild or in some cases serious health hazard due
to the online classes. Again, there was a question related to the financial crisis where all of the
respondents responded positively to the question that asked whether they faced a financial
breakdown during this pandemic or not. However, there were some questions related to the
family issues where we found some contradictory answers. For instance, there was a question
related to the family bonding where the respondents has responded positively to the fact that the
corona pandemic has affected the family bonding in a positive manner that is it increased the
family bonding more during this time of pandemic. So, at the very end if we sum up all of these
we all can come to a conclusion that the corona pandemic has affected the students both in
family and educational matters in positive and negative ways alike.

Recommendation

Our Hypothesis consists of in two parts. In first portion we are discussing about the impacts of
online class on students due to the COVID pandemic and our second portion is impacts of
pandemic in family life. In conducting further research in this topic we have to keep in mind that
our questionnaire section question should be successively according to the topic not blending
together. For example in first portion of the questionnaire we should be asked regarding the
impact of the students and in last portion regarding impact on family. Through executing this
overture our questionnaire is going to be more comprehensible to the participant of the analysis
project as well as analyzing the data. We also focusing on the question that we need to be include
precise question on specific impacts with the suitable option rather than the yes no options.
Because of yes no answer will not provide us always the insight of the data we looking for. For
example in question 10 we should ask the students are satisfied in using technology platform as a
means of education instead of on class lecture. That’s will give us proper insights about the
students. In future research including that’s recommendation will be more productive for the in
depth insights of students and family.

Conclusion

In conclusion we can strongly say that the pandemic has an inexplicable impact on students due
to online class as well as in family life. Our hypothesis is sharply proven by the data we have
find through the research. Overwhelmed majority participant agree that the pandemic situation
affects the students mental health which lead them to the serious health hazardous. The leading
cause of this malfunction of the student body and mind is new learning technology platform
difficulties and inadequate understanding of the teacher lessons. Family life is impacted in large
–scale due to this pandemic. More or less all the families are suffering the financial crisis due to
loosing job or cutting salary which lead to several others affects. Like pay the house rent, having
food, run their daily lives. Mothers are facing the inconvenience to raising their child. Though
the only positive impacts of the pandemic are stronger the family bonding.
Reference

1. Effects of Covid-19 on Families. (2020, April 4). Retrieved from

[Link] on-families

2. Schroeder, R. (2020, October 1). Worldwide, lives are stressed and strained by COVID-
19. Nowhere is that more evident than in the lives of students, staff and faculty members
engaged in the transformed role of online learning. Retrieved from
[Link]
and- mental-health-2020-online-learning

3. Wirth, J. (2020, October). Online classes cause mental health struggles for students. The
Daily OrangeRetrieved from [Link]
mental- health-struggles-students/

4. Castaneda, L. (2020, October 12). Negative Impacts during a COVID-19 Pandemic on

6. Anwar, S. A., Nasrullah, M. N., & Hosen, M. J. H. (2020, April 30). COVID-19 and
Bangladesh: Challenges and How to Address Them. Frontiers in Public Health.
[Link]
7. Li, C. L., & Lalani, F. L. (2020, April 29). The COVID-19 pandemic has changed
education forever. This is how. World Economic Forum.
[Link]
digital-learning/

8. Gautam, P. G. (2020, October 10). Advantages And Disadvantages Of Online Learning.

9. Alam, M. A. A. (in press). Challenges and Possibilities of Online Education during

10. You, J. W., & Kang, M. (2014) The role of academic emotions in the relationship
between perceived academic control and self-regulated learning in online learning.
Computers & Education, 77, 125-133.