Students' Perception of Syiah Kuala University History Education Against Online Lectures as a Learning Tool During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study aims to determine the perception of historical education students at Syiah Kuala University (USK) towards online learning in terms of several indicators, namely learning materials and evaluation questions, community, online lecturers, collaboration opportunities, and multimedia. The approach used in this research is a qualitative approach with the type of phenomenological research. The subjects of this research were USK history education students batch 2018. Data collection was carried out by interview. Data analysis techniques with data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that the materials and evaluation questions were available and could be downloaded by students. Have a community to learn and discuss together. Students are more inclined to video conference-based media in the implementation of online learning, namely Google Meet with Google Classroom as a forum for collecting assignments. The use of media has not been maximized.


INTRODUCTION
The learning method that is commonly implemented is face-to-face. However, since the 2019 corona virus (covid-19) outbreak in Indonesia, the method has been shifted to online learning, as stated in the circular letter of the Ministry of Education and Culture No. All sectors of life have been seriously affected by the rapid and deadly mutation of the COVID-19 virus. Any place where crowds are possible has a great potential for spreading this virus. Therefore, to avoid the explosion in the number of people infected with this epidemic through the education sector, based on the directions in the circular letter of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the chancellors of universities in Aceh also followed up, including Syiah Kuala University (USK).
The conventional learning process is abolished and replaced with online learning. The online learning process is carried out from home by utilizing technology and internet media that do not require students to be present in class (Zhafira, et al 2020: 38). The implementation of online learning is supported by using services from various applications, such as Zoom, WhatsApp, YouTube, Google Classroom, Edmodo, and others. Through the use of digital technology, it is easier for students and lecturers to carry out the learning process even though they are in different places. This convenience does not necessarily smooth the process of implementing online learning.
There are various obstacles that are commonly faced (especially students) that cannot be ruled out because they may affect the effectiveness of learning. Such as initial observations with USK history education students , even before the pandemic they used a blended learning learning model , which combines face-to-face learning delivery strategies with internet-based online learning and mobile learning (Kuntarto, et al 2016:2). However, they felt a significant difference between face-to-face learning and fully online online learning.
There are several differences felt by students. These differences include the availability of modules or learning materials that will be discussed by both lecturers and students and class management and lecturers' efforts to motivate students. Including the readiness of the students themselves in understanding the material with a particular learning style used. Because student learning styles affect the level of understanding in absorbing learning material (Sadikin, 2020: 51). Each individual has different learning procedures. Some are able to express their opinions face-to-face, but not necessarily online. Not to mention there are other problems that may arise.
When carrying out face-to-face learning, they usually create groups in the WhatsApp application. The group is used as a medium for exchanging information between students and lecturers related to the tasks that are being or will be done by students that were previously given by the lecturer during face-to-face learning. The group is also used as a space to collect assignments. There are times when students are also asked to send assignments via e-mail. However, they have never used conference applications such as Zoom or Google Classroom in the learning process or the delivery of material by lecturers to students as happened in the online learning process during the current pandemic . The use of the application has implications for the readiness and convenience of students and lecturers in carrying out the online lecture process (Mulyana et al, 2020: 51).
The success of online lectures is strongly influenced by students' perceptions of the use of various media and technology (Nugroho, 2012: 138). Perception is the process of interpreting the stimulus received by someone based on the assumption that it can be useful, not useful, satisfied, dissatisfied, good or bad (Rahmawati and Putri, 2020: 19). Given the uncertain pandemic conditions, knowing student perceptions of online lectures has a positive impact on campus institutions, because it can be used as evaluation material and a basis for taking policy steps for the next learning (Rahmatih and Fauzi, 2020: 144). Therefore, it is important to know students' perceptions of online learning so that the learning process can run well and learning objectives can be achieved.
Based on the description of the problems and phenomena that have been described previously, the author wants to conduct further research on History Education students at Syiah Kuala University, entitled: Perceptions of History Education Students at Syiah Kuala University towards Online Lectures as a Learning Tool during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Perception is a complex process for obtaining and interpreting sensory information. Information that makes it possible to perceive the environment in a meaningful way. According to Gibson in (Shafaruddin, et al, 2013: 4) perception is a cognitive process carried out by individuals to interpret and understand objects or the surrounding environment. In line with Gibson, according to Ling and Catling in (Permana, et al 2019: 1) perception is the interpretation of stimuli from the environment in the form of various situations and information in order to understand the things around them. This separation is important when the object recognition process is carried out.
Not much different from Ling and Calting, according to Pasek and Satyawan (2013: 149), perception is a stimulus that is sensed by an individual, organized and then interpreted so that the individual realizes and understands what has been sensed. This means that someone understands what action is appropriate in responding to the situation at hand. In addition, perception can also be interpreted as a process of interpreting the stimulus received by someone based on the assumption that it can be useful, not useful, satisfied, dissatisfied, good or bad (Rahmawati and Putri, 2020: 19).
Based on some of these opinions, it can be concluded that students' perception of online learning as a learning tool is a sensory process that involves high cognitive and produces information so as to produce student opinions related to learning activities. Opinions that direct them are able to determine actions to achieve learning objectives effectively and efficiently.
Factors that influence perception are divided into two, namely internal factors and external factors (Nugroho, 2012: 139). Internal factors are factors that arise from within the individual. Some of the things that are covered by internal factors include: a. Physiological, namely the entry of information through the senses. This information will then influence the efforts made and even complete it to give meaning to the surrounding environment. Everyone's interpretation of the environment is different, because the capacity of the senses to perceive is different.
b. Attention to focus on the physical form and mental facilities that exist in an object. Attention requires energy and everyone's energy is different. This will affect each individual's perception of an object.
c. Interest, because a person's tendency to pay attention to an object varies.

Adding
Nugroho's opinion, According to Hasmine (2013) there are 3 other internal factors that also affect perception, namely: a. Unidirectional needs. This factor relates to how strong a person is to seek messages from objects that can provide answers according to him.
b. Experience and memory. What has been experienced by a person will be formed into a collective memory. The more events that a person remembers in the past, the more broad understanding will be stimulated.
c. Mood. The emotional state of a person affects his behavior. These feelings can affect a person's process of receiving, reacting, and remembering.
External factors are influences that arise from the environment and objects around the individual that have various elements that can change the individual's point of view. The following external factors that affect perception are: a. The size and placement of the object or stimulus. The greater the relationship of an object, the easier it will be to understand. The form will affect the individual's perception.
b. The color of the objects. If more light is produced, it will be easier to understand. Vice versa, the less light the more energy is needed to understand the object.
c. The uniqueness and contrast of the stimulus. If the stimulus contains new and contemporary things, it will attract the attention of the individual.
Not only internal factors, Hasmine (2013) also agrees with Nugroho on external factors and added two other factors, namely: The intensity and strength of the stimulus. External stimuli that are often noticed will have a greater effect, compared to those that are only seen once. The strength of the stimulus becomes the power of an object that affects perception.
Online lectures are learning activities carried out online at the university level. Online lectures have the same meaning as electronic learning (e-learning). Online learning is carried out using the internet network. Maulah, et al (2020: 50) say that online learning is full online learning that makes it easy to access anywhere, by relying on the internet as a lecture rate that makes it easier for lecturers and students to determine communication models for the implementation of learning.
According to Mustofa in (Fitriyani, et al, 2020: 166) online learning is a distance education system with a set of teaching methods, in which there are teaching activities that are carried out separately from learning activities. The implementation of online learning involves elements of technology as a means and the internet network as a system (Fitriyani, et al 2020: 166).
According to Meidawati in (Pohan, 2020: 2), online learning can be understood as formal education which in its implementation, namely schools require interactive telecommunications to connect students with their instructors (teachers) and the various resources needed in it.
Based on several definitions that have been described previously, it can be concluded that online learning is a learning activity organized by the campus with the help of interactive telecommunications to connect students with lecturers who are in separate locations, who can interact directly or indirectly with a set of teaching methods. The online learning system according to Munawar et al in (Budi et al, 2019: 106) must be designed by fulfilling 3 learning principles, namely as follows: The learning system must be simple so that it is easy to learn, Learning systems must be made personal so that system users do not depend on each other. The system must be fast in finding material or answering questions from the results of the system design being developed.
According to Kumar in (Karwati, 2014: 48) there are several indicators in online learning, namely: tudy Materials and Evaluation Questions, availability of material in the form of modules containing evaluation questions as well as evaluation results displayed. These results are then used as a benchmark and fulfill what is needed by students as students.
a. Community Community development by students to get support and a variety of mutually beneficial information.
b. Online Lecturer There are lecturers who always provide direction, answer questions, and help students in discussions.
c. Opportunity to Work Together The existence of software or applications that can bring together lecturers with students online so that learning can be carried out simultaneously or in real time without being affected by distance.
d. Multimedia Delivery of learning materials that can attract students' interest in learning by using audio and video-based technology.

RESEARCH METHOD
The approach used in this research is a quantitative approach . Qualitative research is research that focuses on quality , which is the most important thing from the nature of objects or services, the important thing is social events or phenomena and the meanings they contain are examined so that they can be used as valuable lessons for the development of theoretical concepts (Satori and Komariah, 2011: 22). . The type of research used is a qualitative research type of phenomenology, namely research that is used to examine a phenomenon and the meaning it contains for an individual (Satori and Komariah, 2011: 34).

Research Location and Time
This research was conducted on students of history education at Syiah Kuala University batch 2018. This selection was based on the initial observations made by researchers on the lecture process that had been carried out precisely in History Education. This research was carried out from the time the researcher submitted the title until the research stage was carried out in March 2021.

Research Subjects and Objects
Subjects in this study were determined by incidental sampling technique. According to Agustianingsih (2016: 2), the incidental sampling technique is a technique for taking samples by chance, meaning that researchers make anyone they meet incidentally or coincidentally as a sample if they are considered able to provide the required data. Researchers use this technique because the conditions of lectures are still online so it is difficult to find students who will be used as data sources. Therefore, whoever the 2018 Syiah Kuala University History Education student that the researcher met incidentally, then they became part of the subject.
The number of samples cannot be determined with certainty at the beginning of the study, but when the study took place on the sixth person and so on, the information obtained was the same and repeated. Therefore the number of subjects in this study as many as 5 people. The determination of the number of samples is according to the opinion of Satori and Komariah (2011: 60) that the number of sampling in quantitative research is determined by certain calculations before going to the field, while in qualitative research the number of sampling can be determined when it has found informants who reveal the data correctly.
The object of research that is the focus or attention in this research is online learning. The object will be discussed and analyzed by the researcher in accordance with the theories that support and relate to the object of the research.

Availability of Study Materials and Evaluation Questions
Based on the results of interviews with students of History Education FKIP USK regarding access to learning materials, the informants explained that the learning materials had been provided by the lecturers, either in the form of materials made by the lecturers themselves or on certain websites or links that could be downloaded immediately. Only one in five students said that the limited quota and network made them unable to download learning materials even though the materials were already available. This shows that online lectures provide an opportunity to expand the range of material resources needed by students.
According to Wang (in Wagimin, et al, 2014:23), the learning process carried out through the internet opens wider access for students to reach various online data bases, so that it will help students in finding sources of information. learning resources related to the problems encountered in the learning process.
Daniswara in (Hanum, 2013: 93-94) suggests that learning materials play a direct role in the learning process, so they have an important role for the implementation of learning. The type, content and weight of the material are one of the parameters for the success of online learning.
Just continuing education is not enough. The success or failure of learning is an evaluation to find the success of a teaching and learning activity (Rahmawati, 2020: 48). So it is no different from face-to-face learning, to determine the success of online learning is to do an evaluation in the form of giving assignments and exam questions. This is in accordance with the research results obtained. Assignments or evaluation questions are given through Google Form and Google Classroom. The availability of learning materials and evaluation questions from what is experienced and perceived by USK History Education students meets and is in accordance with one of the principles of online learning, namely the system must be fast in finding material or answering questions from the results of the system design developed (Munawar et al in Budi et al, 2019 : 106).

Existence of Student Community Groups for Information Dissemination
Regarding the existence of student community groups that can be used to disseminate or obtain information, the research results show that students of history education at USK FKIP already have community groups even before the transition from face-to-face learning to online learning. Community groups in question are online groups in certain applications, in this case WhatsApp.
Learning activities are not only focused on student interactions with lecturers, but also interactions between students to obtain additional learning. According to Sekar and Kamarubiani ( 2020: 11), a learning community is a nonformal space where members have the same learning goals, participate and interact with each other in order to realize these learning goals.

Online Lecturer
Regarding online lecturers, the question posed was whether lecturers were easily contacted during the online learning process, all students stated that they could easily communicate with lecturers during online lectures. However, it is difficult to contact and interact outside of class hours. Regarding the difficulty of contacting, students have two opinions. Some expressed their concern that the language used was not polite and even offended the lecturers, so that it made it difficult for them to contact the lecturers. There is another opinion which states that lecturers are difficult to contact because of the pandemic condition which causes the number of students who contact lecturers to be far more than usual, thus making lecturers slow to respond.
This condition is the same as the previous research conducted by Widodo with the title Lecturer's Efforts in Optimizing Learning from the Heterogeneity of Student Characteristics. Based on this research, from the lecturer's point of view, related to one aspect of learning, namely the relationship between students and lecturers, several things were found, including less open communication, rarely consulting about learning so that it was not possible to know what the student's difficulties were and the approach taken outside of class hours was lacking. .

Opportunity to Work Together
The results of the research related to the opportunity to work together were asked several questions. As for the first, regarding the opinion of students whether the lecturer was involved in the community that was formed, it was found that the lecturer was active in a group containing all students who only contracted the course. Where the group is used as a forum for coordination about the implementation of lectures. Meanwhile, the student community group in smaller groups that aim to learn from each other and discuss with the lecturers is not active at all because the lecturer is not included in the group. According to Brenan in (Sekar and Kamarubiani, 2020: 11) the learning community is a non-formal education that has three functions, namely as a complement, an alternative and an addition. Therefore, because it is nonformal in nature, there is no necessity for lecturers to be active in it. Because from the very beginning the presence of the community was to exchange information or learn together anything that had not been or was incompletely obtained from lecturers or formal education.
As for the second regarding whether online learning is able to support collaboration between students, from the informants it was found that online learning does not prevent them from working together . This is because there are many applications that can be used as a place to communicate and discuss as needed, whether through chat or video calls.
The collaborative activities carried out have a good impact on learning, not only from the cognitive side but also from many other sides. According to Ihsan in (Jaelani, et al, 2013: 80) cooperation will support the development of various student abilities, both physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. This ability is certainly needed by students in the learning process in order to achieve learning objectives.
Next, regarding the application used by lecturers in online lectures, in general students are willing to always follow online lectures. It's just that the limited internet access quota, the ease and convenience of using the application affect student participation in these online lectures. The use of the Google Meet, Google Class and WhatsApp applications received positive perceptions from USK history education students. The reason for using Google Meet is a more stable network. When compared to Zoom, Google Meet is also more quota efficient. Using the Zoom application requires a lot of quota and a stronger network. This is as described by (Setiani, 2020: 525) the use of the Zoom application has several obstacles, namely: 1. Spend a lot of credit or internet quota. So the implementation of online lectures using this application is considered wasteful. Especially with the declining economic conditions since the pandemic, many people are affected and parents are unable to meet these needs. 2. The economic capacity of the community is very diverse. For students with middle to lower economic conditions, parents are difficult and even unable to meet the quota needs.

Network speed levels in the interior
. It is common knowledge that the internet speed in urban areas is much higher than in rural areas.
Even in some areas in rural areas, internet access has not been reached. Apart from these three things, students also feel distracted when using the Zoom application basic which will stop automatically every 40 minutes. From the observations that the researchers also found, during lectures using the Zoom application, many students did not activate the camera on the grounds that the network was unstable. Thus, it is natural that the history education students of FKIP USK are more dominant in choosing to use the Google Meet application. In the March 2020 period, Vynk & Bergen in (Abdillah and Kurniawan, 2021: 45) stated that GMeet is one of the applications with the largest users, namely 120 million users.
Likewise with Google Classroom, which is a free educational service that can be used to send assignments, interact between lecturers and students which has been used by around 100 million users so far. Meanwhile, WhatsApp, since before the pandemic, almost all students have used it for various purposes. In addition, this application also does not require or drain a lot of quota (Mulyana et al, 2020: 53).
So collaboration using Google Meet as an online lecture medium, Google Classroom as a forum for collecting assignments and WhatsApp as an alternative forum if there are network problems is a good collaboration. Because then students will be better prepared to attend lectures. Likewise, lecturers will find it easier to minimize student absenteeism due to common problems that can be anticipated from the start, namely network constraints or wasteful quotas.

Multimedia Use
Everything that is able to encourage the learning process by stimulating the thoughts, feelings, attention and willingness of students is part of the media (Miarso, in Umar, 2014: 132-133). Thus the use of media in the teaching and learning process is an important element in achieving effective and efficient learning.
The results of research in the field found that the use of media in the online lecture process experienced by students of History Education FKIP USK still varied depending on the lecturer who was in charge. There are several lecturers who use media in the form of videos and visuals. But there are also those who only use visual media such as ppt. Some even do not use the media at all.
This situation shows that the use of media is still less than optimal and varied. Because the media is an intermediary for the delivery of learning materials by lecturers to students, the use of media should be maximized and more varied. In order for the use of media to be more varied, the media you want to use can be selected based on certain criteria.
According to Umar (2014: 134) there are two criteria in the selection of media, namely according to the learning objectives or competencies to be achieved and complement/completeness. As for the example of the first criteria, for example, if the competence to be achieved by students in learning is in the form of words, then audio media is more appropriate to use. If the purpose of learning is to understand the content of reading, print media is the most appropriate choice of media. Likewise, the goal to be achieved is something that is motor in nature, namely in the form of activity and movement, so the most appropriate media in the learning can be in the form of relevant films or videos. As for the second criterion, something that is complementary, for example the condition of students, availability, usability, etc.

Obstacles Faced by USK History Education Students in Taking Online Lectures
Constraints are obstacles faced by a person in carrying out a particular activity. Obstacles have the potential to reduce productivity in the implementation of an activity or even make the activity fail to be implemented. In this case, the informant revealed the obstacles faced in participating in online lectures.
The results of interviews with informants can be seen that the obstacles they experience are fundamental or fundamental constraints such as network constraints or lack of funds in buying internet quota packages. Most of the students are students from various regions. Since the decision to switch colleges to be online, they return to their hometowns. It is undeniable that there are areas that have many internet service providers. However, there are also many areas where there are very few choices of internet service providers, especially in rural areas. The available providers also have a fairly poor quality internet network, making them inadequate for online learning.
The results of interviews that researchers have conducted, most informants complain about the quality of the internet network, as well as the high price of the quota or internet package they need. The solution they do to overcome the problem of internet network is to go to places that are located higher. There are also those who choose to go to a more crowded area where the area is considered to have a better network. However, if you look back, this is actually contrary to the Government's policy which requires studying from home or studying from home and as much as possible avoiding crowds or crowds. However, with the obstacles they face, they inevitably and are forced to stay out of the house in order to attend online lectures properly.
The next obstacle is the large number of assignments given by the lecturers to them. The informants admitted that they had difficulties to maximize their learning from the lecturers. This is due to the short time to do the assignments given, but on the other hand, they must continue to attend online lectures for other subjects. They seem to be in a race between attending lectures and doing the assigned tasks.
The informants considered that the number of tasks exceeding the task at face-to-face did not make them more familiar with the related material. Instead, they are often in a stalemate position between having to prepare themselves for lectures or racing to do the assigned tasks. This, according to the informants, gives pressure or pressure to take part in lectures. In order to overcome the obstacles in doing these tasks, on the one hand the students try to divide their time as best as possible. However, they hope that the intensity of the assignment will be adjusted again and maximize the provision of material in the teaching and learning process, considering that they also have related obstacles, namely network difficulties and difficulties in consulting with lecturers.

CONCLUSION
Based on the results of research that researchers have conducted in the USK History Education department on the perceptions of USK History Education students towards online lectures as a learning tool during the covid-19 pandemic, it can be concluded that learning materials and evaluation questions are available and can be downloaded by USK History Education students so that learning is can take place according to the principles of online learning. USK History Education students already have a learning community group that is used as a forum for exchanging information. Communication between students and lecturers only takes place during learning, but outside of lectures, lecturers are difficult to contact.
Applications used for lectures are very diverse. However, students who choose to use Google Meet for the learning process, Google Classroom as a medium for collecting assignments and WhatsApp as an alternative and supporting media dominate. The use of multimedia has been carried out by several lecturers but it is still not optimal and varied. Constraints faced by students in the online lecture process are the instability of the internet network, the cost of buying quotas and the increasing workload.