Educational achievement and satisfaction during traditional, online and combined classes among students following intensive workplace related courses

Abstract

Following the Covid pandemic, significant disruption occurred in every aspect of the daily lives of people across the globe. Education was not an exception - the whole educational process for people around the world had to stop and freeze for a while, so that migration from the offline, class-based and face-to-face education to a completely online, remote method of conducting classes can be implemented. This switch happened literally overnight and was not optional, but necessary. Each party involved in the educational process didn't have time to systematically prepare for this change; instead it had to adapt and on a large scale even improvise. Long-term consequences from this major shift from offline to online type of facilitating educational activities are yet to be seen. In this study, the student's achievement and satisfaction while visiting offline, online and combined classes are measured, compared and conclusions are made based on the results from the groups that have been subject of our study. The data has been collected from students visiting intensive workplace related courses in the field of computer programming for a period of 10 months. The conclusions focus on what are some of the best ways to utilize the educational process in the future, which activities are robust enough and do not reflect changes in student behaviour when organized online and which activities are crucial to be held in a traditional class manner with a final goal - retain and increase student's achievement and satisfaction.