E-Character Education among Online Learning: Focusing on Performance, Collaborative, and Spiritual Character

Abstract

Character development is one of the goals of the teaching and learning process. On the other side, teachers are still looking for an effective way to instill good character in the students through online learning. According to the survey, this research focuses on the students' characters of individual performance, collaborative and spiritual character. The transition from conventional to e-learning because of the Covid-19 pandemic significantly affects the readiness of lecturers and students to get involved in learning activities, which affects the development of the students' characters. This is a mixed method case study, conducted in seven university.  Seven hundred forty-six students of public and private higher educations in Indonesia were investigated in this research. Data collected through observation, field journals and interviews. Data were analyzed through quantitatively and qualitatively. The result showed that the students' performance and collaboration characteristics were not as good as their spiritual character. The students did assignments without paying too much attention to the quality of the content. The students tended to finish the assignments independently, they were rarely involved in the discussion, felt the changing of the academic climate because of the difficulties in accessing the platform to fulfill the needs of remote interaction among the students. The lecturers' readiness was unfamiliar with the teaching platform, and they needed time for converting teaching material into digital form and gave them many assignments.