Senior High School Students Perceptions of Online Learning During the Pandemic Era

: This descriptive qualitative study is based on the implementation of online learning by the government during the pandemic era. Online learning system requires students and teachers to take advantage of existing technology to keep learning even though they do not meet each other. During the pandemic, almost all students in Indonesia experienced online learning by utilizing applications such as zoom and google meet. The purpose of this study is to discover the perceptions of XI grade students at SMA N 1 Patimuan for the academic year of 2021/2022 during the implementation of online learning in the pandemic era. All data obtained through questionnaires distributed using google form. The subjects of this study were the 112 students of XI grade at the SMA N 1 Patimuan. The study found that students felt dissatisfied and experienced some challenges during the implementation of online learning. From their point of view, the disadvantages of online classes outnumber the benefits. The lack of understanding about online learning applications, weak internet connectivity, poor interaction with others, and hard to understand the materials are the most challenges found.


Introduction
The pandemic era began with the emergence of the coronavirus disease or known as covid-19, in Indonesia in early 2020.The emergence of the virus greatly affected almost all aspects of life, including the education system.In order to prevent the transmission of the virus, the government implemented policies to phase out the traditional learning, which was changed by studying from home via online or online learning.(Hermanto & Srimulyani, 2021).This policy applies at the all levels of education from elementary until higher education level.
Nowadays, online learning is not just a trend or a solution dealing with covid-19 situation but it is seen as a development standard in education (Kumar et al., 2019).As it is stated by Szopinski and Bachnik (2021), Abstract: This descriptive qualitative study is based on the implementation of online learning by the government during the pandemic era.Online learning system requires students and teachers to take advantage of existing technology to keep learning even though they do not meet each other.During the pandemic, almost all students in Indonesia experienced online learning by utilizing applications such as zoom and google meet.The purpose of this study is to discover the perceptions of XI grade students at SMA N 1 Patimuan for the academic year of 2021/2022 during the implementation of online learning in the pandemic era.All data obtained through questionnaires distributed using google form.The subjects of this study were the 112 students of XI grade at the SMA N 1 Patimuan.The study found that students felt dissatisfied and experienced some challenges during the implementation of online learning.From their point of view, the disadvantages of online classes outnumber the benefits.The lack of understanding about online learning applications, weak internet connectivity, poor interaction with others, and hard to understand the materials are the most challenges found.online learning in education is now increasing rapidly to response to the growing needs of competition and students' population in the education market.The pandemic has forced many researchers to discuss the validity and the obstacles of fully implementation of online classes.They questioned whether online curricula should become an element of the school curricula and a permanent feature in the educational system.
Moreover, one of the important aspects in education is the students' satisfaction and motivation as the results of their interactions with the educational environment (Stukalina, 2012).Almost in the same line with evaluation, students' perceptions also should be aspect that need to be consider.Furthermore, learning process must be carried out in an easy and practical way so that it does not make it difficult for students.
Although it has a practical side, still, there will be obstacles faced by students dealing with online learning process.The financial terms such as internet packages and signals could be one of the students' obstacles.Learning from a distance may also lead students to find difficulties in understanding the materials.The presence of such difficulties will probably result in a range of student perceptions, especially for the XI grade students at the SMA N 1 Patimuan.
According to Agung and Surtikanti (2020), perception is the experience of an object and relationship that is gained from concluding the information and message.In line with this, Michotte (2017) defines perception as a stage of the whole process of action that allows us to adjust our activities to the world.In this study, the students' perceptions.In this study, the student's perception can be defined as the designed opinion following a specific experience that requires adjustment.As a result, this paper is focused on their accessibility, materials, participation, and assignment delivery to meet their needs and conditions.
There are many types of perceptions, such as the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of changing the educational system.Due to time constraints, this research will only focus on discovering the students' perceptions of online learning during the pandemic era from XI grade students at SMA N 1 Patimuan.This school was chosen because its location that far from the city.The conditions that the students experience will be different with those who live with an easy internet connection.Then, XI grade students were chosen because they have been through online learning for about 2 years.Hence, the research question in this study is (1) what are the perceptions of class XI students of SMA Negeri 1 Patimuan regarding the implementation of online learning.

The Introduction to Online Learning
There have been numerous stages of online learning; the first stage is the CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) system which began in a few universities around 1980.The definition of CALL is as computers and additional software used to support the teaching and learning process (Robert & Pennington, 1996).
Technology is now becoming a thing that cannot be separated from learning.As supported by Richard and Haya (2009), technological devices have evolved into indispensable tools in the teaching and learning process.Learners can share and access information via the Internet.Furthermore, Singh and Thurman (2019) stated that in online learning, students will experience a synchronous and asynchronous teaching atmosphere and use a variety of technological devices in addition to internet access.Following the pandemic circumstance, most academic institutions now offer synchronous online classes.According to Carey (2020, as cited in Dahwan, 2020), the crucial problem is responding to the pandemic and, more significantly, serving the good quality of online education and the mechanism of changing it from the traditional one.

Advantages and challenges of online learning
Recently, many researchers have discussed the advantages and the challenges of implementing of online learning.Even though technology plays an important role in the teaching-learning process, still, there is a compulsion for the educators to prepare for the appropriate integration of technological tools.Hsboula (2009) pointed out that there is a potential effect of online learning in improving the educational system as well as the quality of the learning process.He believed that technology such as online educational programs should be provided for students at a reasonable cost.However, if the learning technologies are used in the wrong way, they will fail in the learning process.On this point, educators and students should emphasize the potential benefits of online learning and realize that technology should be used effectively and easily in providing online resources Fedynich (2014).

The Nature of Perception
There are many definitions of perceptions.The word "perception" comes from the Latin words perception, perception, which means "receiving, collecting, the action of taking possession, and apprehension with the mind or senses.Perception is defined by Akrim and Sulasmi (2020) as a person's process of understanding things around him or his environment through five senses that are affected by experience so that he is aware of what has been observed, which ultimately affects his attitudes and behaviour.Perception, according to Akande (2009), has something to do with understanding issues.All of the definitions above lead to the conclusion that perception is a complex process that each individual and experiences differently depending on their point of view and other factors

Types of perception
According to Irwanto, as cited in Riduan ( 2021), there are two types of perceptions as a response to the interaction between individuals and objects, namely, positive and negative.Positive perceptions refer to a perception that describes all information or knowledge positively.The statements of students can be categorized as 'positive perceptions' if they choose 'Strongly Agree' and 'Agree' on the questionnaire.The second type, negative perception, is a perception of viewing an object negatively or not suitable with the object that is perceived.'Disagree' and 'Strongly Disagree' are statements that can be categorized as 'negative perceptions'.

METHODS
This research was a descriptive qualitative study aimed at acquiring information about the student's perceptions during the implementation of online learning.Qualitative research is one type of research that is used to describe and analyze social activities, phenomena, attitudes, beliefs, events, perceptions, and thoughts of individuals or groups (Sukmadinata, 2016).Furthermore, the descriptions are analyzed to find out the explanation, reason, or principle to conclude several phenomena.The population in this study was 112 XI-grade senior high school students in SMA N 1 Patimuan.Students of this school were chosen as samples in this study because the school is located in a small village in the west part of the Cilacap Regency.This school has 4 classes for grade X, 4 classes for grade XI, and 4 classes for grade XII.It is important to know the perceptions of students in this school regarding the inadequate technology available and the lack of signal services.The students had never been familiar with the Google Meet and Zoom applications before.Then, the reason for choosing the XI grade students is because they have been through online learning for about 2 years.The above is a consideration for researchers to find out students' perceptions of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.Moreover, given the size of the population, the distribution of questionnaires was done via Google Forms.
For this study, a closed-ended survey was selected because it is a dependable and easy method of gathering information from multiple respondents in an efficient and timely manner.Its goal was to obtain relevant information about students' perceptions of online classes.The questionnaire used a 5-point Likert scale.Questions in the Likert scale offer respondents the possibility to choose and rate among several options from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

FINDINGS
The questionnaire in this research consists of 15 questions to cover students' perceptions about online learning.13.3% of respondents were male and 86.7% were female.The results of the questionnaire will be presented below: Based on the sophistication of technology in this modern era, Online English learning can continue to be developed.

40% 40% 20%
**Adopted from (Ermawati, 2020) The table above shows the positive and negative perceptions felt by the students of SMA N 1 Patimuan during online learning.When asked about the ease of learning English online, 40% chose neutral while 26,3% of them chose to disagree.It means that students feel confused in choosing should which one is better between online or offline learning.Online learning in SMA N 1 Patimuan also failed to create a pleasant learning atmosphere and the effectiveness of learning for students.It is proved by the second and third questions in the questionnaire.33.3% did not feel they enjoyed online learning English and 40% of them chose online English learning did not make the English learning process more effective.
In the next question, students agree that online English learning can increase their interest, motivation, and independence in learning.But in fact, they said that it still cannot improve their understanding.Then, dealing with the ease of collecting assignments, 40% agree and 6,7% strongly agree that online learning makes it easy to collect their assignment.This statement is supported by the availability of Google Classroom which can make it easy to gather the assignments wherever and whenever they are.
One of the difficulties faced by the students is in implementing learning media such as mobile phones, limited internet packages, and poor signal problems.40 % agree and 26,7% strongly agree with it.They also agree that online English learning is wasteful of internet data.On the other hand, students agree that online English learning makes it easy to communicate and interact anytime and anywhere with their teachers.They also believe that online English learning can save time in the learning process because they don't need to go to school.Despite the results of the questionnaire, the researchers found that they were neutral on some questions.They don't agree disagree about these.Hence, from all the positive and negative perceptions toward the implementation of online learning in SMA N 1 Patimuan, 60% of them believe that online English learning can still be developed to meet the learning objective and provide benefit to all parties.

DISCUSSION
This study aims to find out what are the perceptions of X-grade students at SMA N 1 Patimuan for the academic year of 2021/2022 in participating in online learning during the pandemic era.The research question in this study was "What are the students' perceptions towards online learning during the pandemic era?".To answer this question, from the data obtained by the students of SMA N 1 Patimuan who have participated in online learning, can be concluded that: a) Most of the students did not feel satisfied with online learning.They found it difficult to understand the materials during online learning.Furthermore, the limitation of the internet and signal become the next problem.They cannot concentrate because sometimes the connection is bad.b) Online learning English is difficult because of the lack of students understanding the use of online learning applications.However, they believe that the online process makes it easier to submit assignments and communicate with teachers.c) Dealing with its practicality, most of the students agree that online English learning makes the learning process more effectively and efficiently because they do not need to go to school.The finding was the opposite of the result of research conducted by Yunita and Maisarah (2020).Based on the data collected through the questionnaire, there are positive responses toward the implementation of online learning from the students.The results revealed that a questionnaire with an average score of 1211.25 for 40 items from the five indicators of the items that were responded to received the highest score.
The result of this study is also different from (Muthuprasad et al., 2021).They indicated that most of the students have a positive attitude towards online classes during the COVID-19.Online classes have proven to give a lot of advantages for students from their flexibility and convenience.Because the samples are university students, they preferred well-structured learning materials uploaded to university websites.They also suggested the need for interactive sessions with quizzes and assignments at the end of each class to optimize the learning experience.
Different from the two previous studies, Zboun and Farrah (2021) found that students of Hebron University, Palestine feel dissatisfied with the online learning process.The result of this study revealed that most of the students are not satisfied with the online classes.Also, they focus on showing the challenges they faced rather than showing their advantages.The disadvantage is that they don't interact or be motivated in online classes.Also, they feel bored.

CONCLUSION
Covid-19 has had an impact on face-to-face learning methods in academic institutions all over the world.As a result, the online classroom was a crucial topic that needed to be discussed.There might be positive and negative perceptions toward the implementation of online learning.The readiness of learning media, teacher readiness with a new learning atmosphere, signal problems, students' level of education, students' maturity, and school location could be the aspects that influence students' perceptions.Based on the questionnaire that was distributed to 112 students, the result showed that students were not satisfied with the online classes.XI grade students of SMA N 1 Patimuan feel it is difficult to understand the learning objective in online learning.They prefer and recommend face-to-face classes to make them participate, interact, and understand more in learning English.They are still not used to online learning.However, they agree that in this modern era, we need to deal with technology and believe that online learning systems should be developed and fixed so there will be no problems in implementing them in the future.