UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ STRUGGLES WITH ONLINE LEARNING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC LOCKDOWN

Abstract

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected most countries during the year 2020, the society had to adapt rapidly to new forms of working in which the Internet has been an essential tool. And so did the higher institutions around the world, which had to move from a face-to-face classroom environment to an online one. The change from traditional learning to online learning was so unexpected that neither the instructors nor the students may have been prepared for it and could have important consequences on students’ learning and academic achievement. The purpose of this study was to explore how university students had to struggle with online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown attending to three aspects: (a) availability and use of electronic devices, (b) personal factors, and (c) teaching factors. A non-experimental study based on a survey design was conducted, in which a convenience sample of 496 undergraduate and graduate students from two different universities located in south eastern Spain participated. The majority of the participants (66.3%) had very little or no experience in online learning and 55% considered that their academic performance was being worse than in face-to-face classes. Findings showed that most of the students had the electronic devices required for online learning (e.g. laptops, earphones, webcams, smartphones), although they mainly used laptops and earphones. They did not have other devices at home such as desktop computers, printers and scanners. The personal factors that most affected their academic performance were family problems and/or responsibilities (46.6%), psychological or emotional problems (41.6%), an inappropriate study environment (41.2%), and a bad Internet connection (31.4%). With regard to teaching factors, students complained of excessive assignments (82.6%), lack of lesson explanations (78.6%), loss of concentration during synchronous classes (64.3%), having to learn through the computer screen (58.9%), and feeling of being abandoned (57.4%), among others. In sum, university students’ struggles with online learning were more related to teaching factors than to personal and material factors. Therefore, higher education institutions and faculty should be prepared to respond to student’s needs in different teaching scenarios, and more specifically in online environments, by adapting not only their teaching styles and resources but also the way they interact with students.