Facing COVID-19 Challenges: 1st-Year Students’ Experience with the Romanian Hybrid Higher Educational System

Abstract

First-year students undergo several transformations like the transition from high school to university schedules, teaching methods, and discipline specificities to social changes that come with meeting new colleagues or moving to other locations far from family and friends. The COVID-19 outbreak brought additional concerns and uncertainties once educational systems implemented distance learning schemes for public health management. Nevertheless, higher educational organizations preferred to implement hybrid approaches for student engagement motivation and high dropout rate avoidance. In Romania, such an educational system has been applied with caution. Since the pandemic needs to be understood as an opportunity for adaptation and education improvements, the purpose of the present paper is to uncover lessons learned and to develop a systematized model based on students’ perception regarding face-to-face, online and hybrid systems. For this reason, a grounded theory approach has been preferred. Thus, 149 Romanian students enrolled in the first year in engineering specialities with ages between 18–26 years both male (50.3%) and female (49.7%) have answered the research questions in an online environment due to pandemic restrictions. Based on the online asynchronous student interviews, 220 codes and a further 13 categories have been developed. After a pertinent analysis of the relationships between categories and relevant literature sorting, a theoretical model for the Romanian higher educational current pandemic situation has been proposed. The main face-to-face and online education characteristics are outlined, the hybrid approach becoming a bridge between the two systems. Management implications are outlined together with further research directions.

Academic student satisfaction and perceived performance in the e-learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence across ten countries

“…Further, although digitalization in HEIs has been confirmed as significant and essential for the higher education system’s functioning during the lockdown [ 84 ] and e-learning has offered some kind of continuity of academic education, it does not meet all of the needs for practical and work-based learning, e.g. in medical and health or technical sciences education, especially when viewed in the long run [ 85 – 87 ]. In future research, more emphasis should be placed on analysing students’ perceived satisfaction and performance with online education in the context of differences between fields of study, particularly in relation to the nature of education (theoretical vs. practical) and the competencies that are supposed to be developed during education.…”

EU27 Higher Education Institutions and COVID-19, Year 2020

“…The articles have 90 different keywords, and only nine occur at least twice: The most used keywords are higher education (12), COVID-19 (9) and distance learning (5). The focus of most articles is distance learning.…”

“…Abruptly, as mentioned before, all doubts and problems had to be left behind: there was a need to work on the "new normal", continuing teaching activities. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a change in the educational process resulting in a real psychological impact for both students [9,10] and teachers [11] who had to adapt more quickly to this type of education [12].…”

Religiosity, Emotions, Resilience, and Wellness during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Taiwanese University Students

“…Within an educational setting, the opening up of schools or conducting online classes has also been troubled with uncertainties [ 4 ]. Issues from the quality of teaching [ 5 ] to the medium of instructions [ 6 ] have together highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on education. In Taiwan, schools are successfully kept open with strict rules and restrictions [ 7 ]; nonetheless, the anxiety and psychological wellness of individuals are still being affected [ 8 ].…”