Psychological Wellbeing and Academic Experience of University Students in Australia during COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 has created significant challenges for higher education institutions and major disruptions in teaching and learning. To explore the psychological wellbeing of domestic and international university students during the COVID-19 pandemic, an online cross-sectional survey recruited 787 university students (18+ years) currently studying at an Australian university. In total, 86.8% reported that COVID-19 had significantly impacted their studies. Overall, 34.7% of students reported a sufficient level of wellbeing, while 33.8% showed low wellbeing and 31.5% very low wellbeing. Wellbeing was significantly higher in postgraduate students compared with undergraduate students. Future anxiety was significantly greater among undergraduate than postgraduate students. Multivariable regression models showed female gender, low subjective social status, negative overall learning experience or reporting COVID-19 having a huge impact on study, were associated with lower wellbeing in the first few months (May–July) of the pandemic. Supporting the health, wellbeing, and learning experiences of all students should be of high priority now and post-pandemic. Strategies specifically targeting female students, and those with low self-reported social status are urgently needed to avoid exacerbating existing disparities.

Identifying Predictors of University Students’ Wellbeing during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Data-Driven Approach

“…The present study furthers extends on past work by (a) focusing on students’ everyday wellbeing instead of mental health or psychopathology; (b) going beyond the early stages of lockdown in gathering data; and (c) avoiding some of the limitations of traditional statistical models in the exploratory stage (e.g., type I errors, model overfitting, and multicollinearity) [ 12 , 13 ]. We expect the regularized feature selection (i.e., LASSO) method we employ to reveal a set of critical variables that shares some overlap with variables identified in past work, but also identifies novel intervention targets.…”

Undergraduate medical education amid COVID-19: a qualitative analysis of enablers and barriers to acquiring competencies in distant learning using focus groups

“…In this case study, we investigated students' and teachers' views on the implementation of e-learning in a course entirely delivered as distant learning, identifying enablers and barriers. In our setting, thoughtful and attentive communication, generally high mental wellbeing, and alignment of content and assessment all contributed to a high motivation and commitment of both students and teachers averting potential barriers previously described [8,12,13,15,[29][30][31].…”

“…We chose focus groups for addressing our research question as a pragmatic tool to offer insights to participants' attitudes, feelings, beliefs, motivation, and experiences [12] in a setting where these factors are conditional and multifaceted. The interactive and discursive character of focus group interviews seemed most appropriate these facets.…”

“…In their BEME Guide to developments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Daniel et al identified several publications, but only three focussing on wellbeing in undergraduate medical education [2]. The comprehensive measures of social distancing with school and university closures, restricted social connections, and loss of routine potentially have a huge negative effect on individuals' social networks [9] and mental wellbeing [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] although risk factors in principle remain the same: low income, living alone, younger age, female gender, and pre-existing mental health conditions [12,13,15,21]. Thus, in addition to examining the primary impact of COVID-19, a second focus of research is needed to not only map but to explain the impact of secondary measures such as the fundamental shift of faculties to replacing or supplementing on-site teaching with e-learning on students' learning and mental wellbeing.…”

Investigating the Attitudes of First-Year Students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports of Galati towards Online Teaching Activities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The complacency of more than half of the students in sedentary activities is reported by [20], which also identifies that this negative aspect is counterbalanced by the involvement of students in high-intensity physical demands and mental concentration and that the students especially capitalize on the information provided through social networks in order to perform various motor activities. Moreover, at the level of other continents, the teaching system had to adapt to the require-ments imposed by the pandemic and the same mental problems, aggravated anxious states, depression and insecurity, for the investigated students [21][22][23][24].…”