Pandemic Covid-19: Challenges and Effects of Online Learning on the Counseling Students

This research aimed to identify the educational issues experienced by the counseling students in Malaysia. The objective of this research was to study the understanding of counselling students on the online learning. This research focused on exploring the experience, challenge and impact of online learning among counselling students during the pandemic Covid-19. The qualitative method in the form of semi-structured interviews had been conducted with five counseling students from three different universities. The findings showed that majority of the respondents experienced difficulties in the academic aspects by using online learning, eventually lead to the occurrence of emotional and psychological disturbances. The finding also found that the students are adapting in the current trends of learning in order to maintain academic achievement even though online learning is a challenging experience. The implications of this research in education field is to help and acknowledge educators to have the best approach in teaching despite the use of different medium. Lastly, the future research are recommended to study on readiness of counseling student in using technologies and the application of counseling skills via virtual session.