The worldwide education systems were severely affected due to a series of consequent infection control measures responding to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), with up to two-thirds of an academic year lost on average worldwide due to school closure (Cucinotta and Vanelli, 2020). In Hong Kong, the first COVID-19 case was confirmed on January 23, 2020 (Wong et al., 2020) and the Education Bureau (EDB) has announced school closure and class suspension amid the several consequent waves of the epidemic (The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2020). Although schools would sometimes resume regular operation during the lockdown, most schools were required to arrange just a limited number of students to return to school everyday for face-to-face classes or activities.

To accommodate the unexpected disturbances, educational institutions had to abruptly shift to online teaching to ensure the Students’ continuous learning in this pandemic era (Aboagye et al., 2021). However, a smooth shift could be challenging. Students have encountered lots of obstacles, such as lack of access to devices for online learning (Almanthari et al., 2020; Dube, 2020), unstable internet connectivity (Rotas and Cahapay, 2020), lack of technical know-how of devices (Owusu-Fordjour et al., 2020), schools’ inexperience in offering online education (Wodon, 2020), family’s financial unpreparedness (Agormedah et al., 2020), lack of parental support (Owusu-Fordjour et al., 2020), and feeling bored due to lack of interpersonal communication (Irawan et al., 2020). Likewise, parents expressed their worries about children’s increased screen time, more exposure to harmful content over the Internet, reduced physical activities, and lack of socializing (Harjule et al., 2021). Moreover, teachers faced challenges in implementing online teaching due to insufficient training with digital tools, absence of constant contact with students to monitor their study routine, and lack of support and assistance from parents (Shamir-Inbal and Blau, 2021).

The obstacles above alerted us that students could be vulnerable to receiving satisfying and effective online education during COVID-19. The situation could be even worse for primary school students, who are still developing their self-regulation and attention control skills and are incompetent to handle technological problems and other emergencies independently (Gallagher and Cottingham, 2020) compared to students in secondary and tertiary educations.

Therefore, special attention should be paid to the primary school Students’ online learning amid COVID-19 pandemic, with their demands, difficulties encountered, and expectations deeply understood. As for younger children, learning at home means parental support is crucial. The abrupt shift to online learning was challenging and an issue of concern owing to the lack of sufficient support offered to the parents and this may facilitate parental burnout, which would passively impact children’s well-being and online learning during COVID-19 pandemic (Griffith, 2020). So, it is vital to investigate young children’s relationships with their parents (Sheehan et al., 2019) and their happiness level at home (Fidan, 2021) when they are receiving online education. Thus, we examined how children’s satisfaction with parents and happiness at home, as family factors, would be associated with their online learning. Besides, as the efficacy of online education relied on the school resources available (Tran et al., 2020), school factors were also examined, including teacher–student interaction (Alqurashi, 2019), school’s happiness index rated by students (Cote, 2006), and Students’ happiness level at school (Mauro and Machell, 2019). In addition, children’s individual factors were another category worthy of exploring as prior research has substantiated that loneliness (ValÅs, 1999), sleep (Peigneux et al., 2001; Al-Sharman and Siengsukon, 2013), self-awareness (Steiner, 2014), academic performance (Zeegers, 2004), and mobility in schools (Sorin and Iloste, 2006) would significantly influence Students’ learning. Therefore, correlations between online learning and Students’ individual factors, including self-perceived loneliness, sleep time, satisfaction with self-performance, perceived academic performance, and intention of school transfer, were demonstrated in this study.

To summarize, from primary school Students’ perspectives, this study explored 10 potential factors from three aspects: (a) Student’s family factors (satisfaction with parents and happiness level at home); (b) Student’s school factors (happiness level at school, school’s happiness index, and teacher–student interaction); and (c) Student’s individual factors (self-perceived loneliness, sleep time, satisfaction with self-performance, perceived academic performance, and intention of school transfer), to investigate how these factors would influence Students’ perception of online learning during COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aimed to provide policymakers, institutions, educators, and researchers a deeper insight into younger children’s experience in receiving online learning in this unexpected crisis, which was rarely explored as prior research predominantly focused on the views of parents, teachers, and students in tertiary education. The findings of this study can serve as instrumental references and inspirations in refining pedagogical designs to better adapt primary school students to the online learning practice during COVID-19 or under future tendencies and unexpected crises.

A total of 781 students completed the survey, with 60.5% from aided schools and 39.5% from the DSS and private schools. About 35.2% of students were studying in grades 1–2, 28.8% of students were studying in grades 3–4, and 36.0% of students were studying in grades 5–6. About 67.2% of students were male and 32.8% of students were female.

Students’ responses to the questionnaire and their demographic characteristics are given in Table 1. Half of the students (50.1%) reported that teachers often or always interacted with them during online learning. Less than three-fifths (57%) were satisfied with their schools’ online learning arrangement. Nearly half (49.6%) reflected the effect of online learning as good or very good. About one-eighth students (12.8%) preferred online learning and the rest preferred in-person schooling (67.2%) or did not indicate any preference (20.0%).

Overall, in-person schooling was still the preferred learning mode among primary school students. During COVID-19 pandemic, less than three-fifths of the students were satisfied with their schools’ online learning arrangement and only nearly half regarded it as effective. Moreover, the grade of study, school type, happiness at school and home, satisfaction with parents, perceived academic performance, teacher–student interaction during online learning, and school’s happiness index were associated with the primary school Students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, or preference in online learning.

Teacher–student interaction was of notable importance, which echoed prior research findings among university students. A study found that lack of interaction with instructors was a significant challenge perceived by college students (Adnan and Anwar, 2020). Also, Students’ attention declined quickly, especially when they were lack of reminders from teachers or peers (Bradbury, 2016) and encountered external stimuli that could distract them from studying (Wilson, 2004). The teacher–student interaction could facilitate more satisfaction and better learning outcomes in online learning (Alqurashi, 2019) by capturing the Students’ attention, guiding them to be focused during online learning, and obtaining Students’ constant and instant feedback for teachers to adjust teaching methods (Baber, 2020).

The grade of study was associated with Students’ perceived effectiveness and preference in online learning: younger primary students reflected more negative attitudes. They probably lacked the self-confidence to use digital platforms critically for learning (Drane et al., 2020) and still need to improve their self-regulation and attention skills (Gallagher and Cottingham, 2020). Thus, they would rely more on cognitive scaffolding (Tomasik et al., 2020). Parents and teachers may also need to help younger children with technical problems (Putri et al., 2020), guide them to be focused (Lau and Lee, 2020), and explain more to facilitate their understanding. Furthermore, adaptability could be another concern among grades 1–2 students who had engaged in a new school environment for only a short time. Adaptability was substantiated as a direct predictor of positive (persistence, planning, and task management) and negative (disengagement and self-handicapping) behavioral engagement (Collie et al., 2017). In this way, grades 1–2 students with lower adaptability skills may present weaker engagement during online learning, which further affected their online learning experiences and preferences passively.

The perceived academic performance was significantly correlated with the perceived effectiveness in online learning. As the academic performance was influenced by self-efficacy [ones’ beliefs that one can successfully perform given academic tasks at designated levels (Schunk, 1991)] (Alivernini and Lucidi, 2011), students having greater academic self-efficacy tended to attain better academic performance. So, those who perceived better academic performance could have higher self-efficacy in online learning, which resulted in their greater perceived effectiveness in online learning.

Happiness was a significant factor associated with various online learning outcomes. Students who reported lower happiness levels at school preferred online learning. It was suggested that children with unhappy school experiences (Murray-Harvey and Slee, 2010) tended to exhibit a variety of adaptive difficulties, such as academic concerns and interpersonal relationship obstacles (Whitley et al., 2012). These students would thrive in isolated distant learning, which could protect them from the pressure to look good, socialization, and bullying at school (Kaden, 2020). However, lower happiness levels at home could weaken Students’ satisfaction and perceived effectiveness in online learning. A lower happiness level at home can result from child abuse and domestic violence (Sternberg et al., 1993), unpleasant relationships with parents or siblings (Pike et al., 2005), and restricted personal space (Foye, 2017). Successful online learning required the capability of dealing with interruptions and emergencies and then refocus, which was harder to achieve while learning at home (McSporran and Young, 2001), especially for children exposed to domestic violence and quarrels. So, students with unhappy experiences at home could dislike online learning and hardly gain a positive online learning outcome. Also, this study found that students being satisfied with their parents would weaken their preference for online learning. These children receiving high parental care and support were more robust and more competent in tackling challenges (Parker and Benson, 2004; Trumpeter et al., 2008), thus would prefer to attend school in person. By contrast, having a child with school refusal, a parent may protect the child from unpleasant experiences and allow the child to depend excessively on them (Christogiorgos and Giannakopoulos, 2014), which could stimulate the child’s preference for learning at home. Additionally, higher happiness indexes for the school were correlated to Students’ satisfaction and perceived effectiveness in online learning. A Happy Schools Framework was proposed constituting 22 criteria of three related categories: (1) people, regarding social relationships; (2) process, regarding teaching and learning methods; and (3) place, regarding contextual factors (Salmon, 2016). Happier schools could provide more facilities and deliver diverse teaching methods, fostering interpersonal relationships and creating a better environment for Students’ learning and play. So, when online learning was necessarily applied, these schools could deliver more satisfying online learning experiences for students. The DSS and private schools delivered online education more effectively, as reported by students. These schools were more flexible in curriculum design and resources allocation than aided schools (Chiu and Walker, 2007), so they were more likely to apply student-centered methods in teaching. However, whether this association exists requires further study to verify.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Survey and Behavioral Research Ethics Committee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

XZ: formal analysis, data curation, and writing—original draft. DZ: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition. EL: investigation, writing—review and editing, and project administration. ZX and EM: investigation, data curation, writing—review and editing, and project administration. ZZ, PM, and XY: writing—review and editing. SW: writing—review and editing, supervision, and funding acquisition. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version of the manuscript.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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