The influence of extrovert and introvert personality types on the acceptance of virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: a survey

Introduction

One of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is that many universities in Malaysia were forced to deliver classes entirely online, due to the movement control order (MCO) imposed in Malaysian on 18^th March 2020.¹ Online classes mean students are not able to have personal or face-to-face contact with their teachers and other students and are not able to participate in discussions in the same way. Based on students respective personalities, these learning conditions may affect students’ experience of virtual classes differently. Extroversion-introversion (E-I) variations have been shown to affect how students engage in class, their learning style and the way they process knowledge.^2,3 Most studies have focused on students and teachers’ engagement in online classes.⁴ However, very few studies have investigated how the differences in personality affect online learning, especially in relation to the acceptance and perception of virtual classes among students. As of March 2020 university classes are being conducted online, which presents a valuable opportunity to explore this question. The study's original goal was to investigate if there were any relationship between resilience and acceptance of virtual learning classes, across different personality types. However, owing to a lower number of responses from students than expected, the quantitative study was terminated, and instead, a qualitative analysis was conducted on various personalities types and students' acceptance of virtual classes. The study’s research question then evolved into trying to understand whether personality types influence students’ acceptance of virtual classes. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to explore how various personality types influence students’ acceptance of virtual learning classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Results

The responses from the students did not meet the sample size recommendation by Krejcie and Morgan.¹⁵ Thus, due to a lower than the projected number of responses from students, the resilience questions are excluded in the analysis, and instead, a qualitative analysis on various personality types and students' acceptance of virtual classrooms was done. A total of 31 students participated in the study. The demographic background of the student participants is shown in Table 1.

The findings obtained from this study revealed interesting differences between extrovert and introvert students in relation to their acceptance of virtual learning. Table 2 showed the results of personality types and the acceptance of virtual learning. Based on the test that the students took, 55% (17) of the students were categorised as introverts, 29 % (9) were extroverts, and 16% (5) met the private-public-introvert-extrovert personality type. About 61% (19) students positively accepted virtual learning and 39% (12) students did not enjoy virtual learning during the pandemic. From the 19 students who positively accepted virtual learning during the pandemic, 58% (11) of them were introverts, 32% (6) extroverts, and 10% (2) PPIEs.

The results reveal that the introverts seemed happy attending fully virtual classes and preferred staying at home rather than meeting people. This is consistent with the characteristics of introverts; being people who do not like to be around large groups and can tend to avoid public places or crowded events.¹⁰ Introverts also prefer to communicate through writing.

Compared to extroverts, introverts perform best when given time to reflect and process before participating in classroom activities.⁷ The results of our study confirmed the findings of research conducted by Offir et al., (2007), in which extroverts were found to dislike virtual classes.² For the extroverts in our study, having a certain percentage of classes conducted online is acceptable; however, they could not completely focus if they had to attend fully virtual classes. They preferred meeting people, talking to friends, and consulting their lecturers face-to-face. This was evidently expressed by one of the extrovert first-year female students (respondent no. 17), who mentioned in the open-ended question that “I must see people, meet people, talk to real people. I need a high degree of stimulus to stay involved”.¹²

We found that PPIE students did not like virtual classes, but that they are quite tolerant of such classes because of the situation created by the pandemic. Nevertheless, they claimed that they have to contact friends and lecturers after classes, for further help to understand the topic being studied. PPIE students reported that the virtual classes are satisfying enough if they have at least one or two classes where they are able to meet up in person with other students or teachers. This is in-keeping with the traits of PPIEs, whereby being able to meet and talk to people in person every now and then, is sufficient.

Extroverts are described by C. G. Jung (1971), who is a key figure in the study of personalities, as being oriented primarily toward the outside world, and as such, they prefer to focus their observation and judgment on people and objects. Introverts, on the other hand, are more focused on the inner world and thus, prefer to focus their observation and judgment on thoughts and ideas.¹⁶ As such, in any online class, there will likely be introvert students paying close attention and focusing on what the lecturer is trying to convey and working hard to complete all the work assigned to them. The extroverts might find being confined to one place, within which they are not able express their concern to the lecturer or fellow students, annoying and stressful.¹⁰ The findings of our study suggest that online learning is valuable, but a certain percentage of face-to-face activities are needed for a better student-teacher and student-peer engagement. Furthermore, according to Lestari et al. (2013), introvert and extrovert students have different learning styles; introvert students preferring to study alone while extroverts prefer to study in groups.⁷

Conclusion

The findings indicate that the students are aware of and understand the need for online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have no choice but to follow the new norm of learning in the current situation. For now, online learning is the only way that teacher-student interaction can be conducted in some countries, and one must adapt to the changing environment.

The results of the open-ended questions help researchers better understand how extroverts, introverts, and PPIE students perceive and embrace completely virtual learning programs. Even though the introverts indicated that virtual classes were ok for them, they stated that they still needed to see people in person to keep them “alive” and “intact”.¹² The urge to meet others, such as friends, classmates, and lecturers, is for study objectives rather than social purposes for introverts. Extroverts must interact with actual people in order to communicate, be heard and listen and love sharing their lives with others; not just for academic objectives.

Arguably, online learning, in a more structured way, could be the future of our teaching and learning. Perhaps, what we are facing now is just the beginning of a more complicated but perhaps stimulating future of education. However, the study cannot be generalised to all Malaysian students since it was only a case study with a small group of students in a Grooming and Professional Etiquette class at Multimedia University. Further research is therefore required to replicate this study on a larger scale, to aid better generalisability. More research is suggested to understand further the differences in personality and how it affects perceptions of online learning, with the hope that such research would be able to inform and improve teaching and learning methods in the future.

Data availability