Measuring the Impact of the Pandemic on Female and Male Students’ Learning in a Society in Transition: A Must for Sustainable Education

Abstract

A sustainable education amid a disruptive event (e.g., a pandemic) requires the objective assessment of learning before and during the event and, if necessary, evidence-driven solutions in response to deficiencies. The present action research study illustrates an evidence-based response of educators to the widespread concerns that learning in college students, accustomed to face-to-face courses, might have been damaged during the pandemic by the switch to the online mode. It focuses on general education (GE) courses as they usually enroll students at the beginning of their journey in higher education, and thus, a population that is likely to be particularly sensitive to unforeseen changes. Pass/fail grades in courses taught face-to-face and online synchronously by the same instructors were examined. It was hypothesized that if the switch from face-to-face to online instruction changed the students’ approaches to learning, course performance would differ between the instructional modes. Differences in female and male students’ adaptation responses were expected to be reflected in their course performance. The study found that female students performed better online than face-to-face in Arabic Culture, Natural Science, Math, and Wellness courses. Male students also performed better online in Math and Natural Science courses, whereas they exhibited better performance face-to-face in Arabic Culture, Wellness, and Professional Competency courses. It was concluded that basic indices of uneven performance can guide further analyses into the sources of female and male students’ approaches to instructional modes.

Tracing Chinese international students’ psychological and academic adjustments in uncertain times: An exploratory case study in the United Kingdom

“…This view might be strongly espoused by the students consulted who relied heavily on fieldwork-based learning or need to conduct experiments in laboratories. Taken together, such problems further underscore the requirement for quality control in online learning mode and the must for a sustainable instructional environment in disruptive events where both temporary access to well-planned instruction is guaranteed and the robust learning and teaching ecosystem is recreated ( Crawford and Cifuentes-Faura, 2022 ; Pilotti et al, 2022 ).…”

“…In the field of British tertiary education, higher education institutions witnessed a sudden decline in the enrollment of international students in 2020 due to the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19 which has decreased international mobility and posed a lasting threat to the physical and mental health of international students who tend to be more vulnerable during the pandemic on account of their temporary immigration status ( Firang, 2020 ; Xu et al, 2021 ; Mok et al, 2022 ). In addition, due to travel restrictions, campus closure, the suspension of in-person classes, and the abrupt transition to online learning mode, the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely borne upon these students’ intercultural learning experiences and made serious inroads into the sustainability of higher education that figures in maintaining quality education in unforeseen and disruptive events ( Pilotti et al, 2022 ). Things seemed not to become better even in 2021.…”

Business Students Have Different Views about Their Performance and Approach to Study in Relation to Exam Formats, Depending on Attitudes Towards Digital Teaching

“…However, a comparison of students' performance with online teaching during the COVID-19 and traditional teaching before the coronavirus showed mixed results (Refaat, 2020;Iglesias-Pradas, 2021). Pilotti, El-Moussa & Abdelsalam (2022) suggest a key factor for success with online teaching is the strong institutional support of the participants. Some researchers have found a significant difference to the detriment of the academically clever students that is caused by switching from classroom to remote teaching (Nazempour, Darabi & Nelson, 2022;Rodrıguez-Planas, 2021).…”

Platform for hands-on remote labs based on the ESP32 and NOD-red

“…requires a special time and place. Due to the high enrolment in higher education and limited resources (number of rooms, equipment and human resources) [8] , the acquisition of knowledge in the face-to-face mode is rather delicate. However, new strategies have been developed to motivate students to learn electronics and electrical engineering as one cannot limit oneself to classical classroom-based methods.…”