First-Year Student Transition at the University of the Free State during Covid‑19: Challenges and Insights

Abstract

First-year seminars and university induction programmes are embedded with academic and social skills required by students to transition into their first year of study. The first-year seminar at the University of the Free State is a credit-bearing module called UFS101, and is a prerequisite for degree completion. Students are assessed through summative assessment opportunities throughout the year. In 2020, the UFS101 module embarked on new territory by condensing the contact time for the first semester into a week-long summer school. Furthermore, the summer school was presented a week prior to the start of university, with repeat sessions during the first week of class, and during the March holiday. However, due to national lockdown regulations as a result of COVID-19, a part of the cohort had to self-study the content via an interactive online study guide. This created four distinct groups of students: those who attended face-to-face classes, some face-to-face classes and some self-study, self-study only, and students who could not access the content. In order to measure their transition into university, a questionnaire was distributed to the students, and the results were stratified according to one of the aforementioned categories. Unique similarities and differences were observed in the findings. The results depict that effective content design is at the heartbeat of student transition, but that other factors such as face-to-face interaction with students, and access to resources assist with the transition into university. This study highlighted the need to explore the challenges students experience within their first six months at university, and substantiates that this type of exploration should be routinely conducted to assist with the understanding and implementation of first-year student support.

Student perceptions on their transition experiences at a South African university offering a first-year experience programme.

“…While the COVID-19 pandemic has made online learning inevitable, students worldwide have struggled with the drastic shift from traditional classroom face-to-face learning to emergency online remote learning (Adnan & Anwar, 2020). The swift move to digital platforms has presented a steep learning curve for both students and academic staff, which was exacerbated by the low-level preparedness amongst students regarding the use of learning management systems such as Moodle (Adnan & Anwar, 2020;Combrink & Oosthuizen, 2020). At UKZN, this was notably worse for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, who comprised approximately 65% of the student population (UKZN, 2017).…”

“…Furthermore, the lockdowns imposed by the South African Government (Combrink & Oosthuizen, 2020) also aggravated the challenges students faced (Barrot et al, 2021). The temporary physical closure of universities implied that students' homes had to become online classrooms; hence it was not surprising that the notable challenges experienced by students in the sample related to limited access to the internet and devices such as laptops, poor internet connectivity and electricity outages in some communities.…”

Disrupting Norms: Reflections on the Challenges and Response Strategies in a Marketing Programme Due to COVID-19

“…This flexibility exacerbates procrastination in students because of concentration challenges. Combrink and Oosthuizen (2020) found that students lack time management skills and are unable to study effectively, and the transition to OL has worsened this challenge. According to Aguilera-Hermida (2020), students are inadequately prepared for balancing their personal, work and social lives with the new norms of learning.…”

“…The extant research shows a global increase in the number of countries forced by COVID-19 to transition to OL (Ali 2020;Combrink and Oosthuizen 2020;Crawford et al 2020). This was evident across the globe (Ali 2020), not only in developed nations, such the United States (Aguilera-Hermida 2020) and the United Kingdom (Crawford et al 2020), but also developing countries, such as Malaysia (Al-Kumaim et al 2021), India (Dhawan 2020), South Africa (Dube 2020;Mukuna and Aloka 2020) and Ghana (Agormeda et al 2020).…”

COVID-19 pandemic lockdown impact on parity of participation for students with mental health challenges in higher education

“…All South African HEIs were equally affected as they were forced to suddenly switch to remote online learning. Since the introduction of these lockdown restrictions, most South African HE researchers(Ramrathan, Ndimande-Hlongwa, Mkhize & Smit, 2020;Motala & Menon, 2020;Combrink & Oosthuizen, 2020;Le Grange, 2020;Hedding, Greve, Breetzke, Nel & Van Vuuren, 2020;Schreiber, Moja & Luescher, 2020;Combrink & Oosthuizen, 2020;van Schalkwyk, 2021;Laher, Bain, Bemath, de Andrade & Hassem, 2021) have conducted studies exploring the impact of COVID-19 on the learning of students at different HEIs. Yet most of these studies have overlooked the voices of SWDs, and the minimal available research specifically exploring the learning experiences of this group during COVID-19 lockdowns has primarily been featured in online newspaper articles (Lyner-Cleophas,…”