Higher Education Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning during COVID-19—A Comparative Study

Abstract

The pandemic and subsequent ‘lockdowns’ dramatically changed the educational landscape of higher education institutions. Before-COVID-19, traditional universities had choices in pedagogical practice, which included a variety of teaching delivery modes. Overnight, a single mode of delivery became the only option for traditional higher education institutions. All services migrated to digital platforms, leading to a period of “emergency eLearning”. The full impact of this sudden shift to digital platforms on all cohorts of students is still unclear. A measure of disruption to the normal student learning experience, especially for those attending traditional universities, was inevitable. Moreover, this disruption was varied depending on the University’s country and the country’s lockdown logistics. This international, comparative, quantitative research project investigated and explored higher education students’ perceptions of emergency eLearning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experiences of students at universities in three countries were evaluated in terms of four dimensions: (1) home learning environment, (2) engagement, (3) participation preference, and (4) impact on learning skills. The research revealed significant differences between the participating universities students’ experiences. The most important differences were in the ‘home learning environment’, followed by ‘engagement’ and the perception of ‘impact on learning skills’. The differences in the ‘home learning environment’ can be attributed to the differing economic and digital development of the surveyed countries: South Africa, Wales, and Hungary. Finally, different cultural backgrounds suggest a noticeable difference in student engagement, participation, and learning skills.

STEM Students’ Perceptions on Emergency Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Successes

“…Acknowledging that the faculty were under-prepared to teach online [3][4][5], the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence (CAFÉ) at Cal Poly Pomona [6] offered workshops and faculty learning communities to prepare for the continuation of virtual learning in Fall 2020, with a focus on effectively using the campus Learning Management System (LMS). This unique situation provided an opportunity to explore the impact and effectiveness of virtual learning from students' perspectives.…”

“…Rather than wait for life to return to "normal," there was an effort to learn from and adapt to the situation. According to Shapiro [7], it is possible to design a quality online course, but the suddenness of the transition to online instruction did not allow for it [4,5]. In addition to faculty struggling to adjust course curricula and teaching methods, students' mental health declined.…”

“…In addition to faculty struggling to adjust course curricula and teaching methods, students' mental health declined. These were a few of the many barriers to effective remote learning [5,8].…”

Digital University Teaching and Learning in Management—The Gini from the COVID-19 Bottle and Its Empirical Representations in Germany

“…This will be the core challenge for university teaching in the next decade and this paper provided some empirical hints as well as in-depth thoughts regarding that issue from Germany. This has to be compared and complemented with experiences from other countries [54,55,[62][63][64][65][66] as well as other education areas [67]. In total, university lecturers are challenged globally to make the most out of the harsh and limiting circumstances experienced in the 2020/2021 timeframe due to COVID-19.…”

Nationality as an Influential Variable with Regard to the Social Skills and Academic Success of Immigrant Students

“…Given these shortcomings, in Spain it has been established to guarantee the digital inclusion of all these students, by adapting the current educational law (LOMLOE) [64], as well as with regional aid, in which laptops and tablets have been provided to the neediest students [65]. However, through this online teaching the expected educational expectations were not met, for this reason, in the second year of the pandemic, face-to-face teaching has been opted for, taking into account the health standards of social distancing, use of a mask and hand washing [66].…”