Pre- and Early-Pandemic Graduating Students’ Perceptions at a United States Business School

Abstract

Two separate samples of graduating business students completed online surveys in the Spring 2019 (pre-pandemic, n = 724) and Spring 2020 (early pandemic, n = 376). This research study explored changes in student grading assessment learning perceptions (GALP) between Spring of 2019 to Spring of 2020, as well as perceptions of video vault use, number of internships/co-ops completed, satisfaction with major, and satisfaction with business degree. With the abrupt change from face-to-face to all online classes in the middle of the Spring 2020 semester due to the pandemic, individual engagement GALP (e.g., attendance, participation) declined but video vault use increased. Reassuringly, other GALP scales as well as both satisfaction measures remained stable. Testing for changes in correlations from 2019 to 2020, using the four GALP scales, video vault use, and internships/co-ops completed as the independent variables and satisfaction with major and satisfaction with business degree as the dependent variables, there were several significant correlational changes. The correlation of video vault use to satisfaction with major increased from 2019 to 2020. Increased Individual Creative GALP – satisfaction with business degree, and Individual Engagement GALP – satisfaction with business degree correlations were also found. The positive Spring 2020 video vault use findings, and maintained GALP scale perceptions were at least partially due to the immediate online Zoom faculty training facilitated by the Business School Online and Digital Learning Department. However, there was a negative correlation from 2019 to 2020 in the internship/co-op completed – satisfaction with business degree. . Study limitations and future research issues with the continuing pandemic are discussed.