A Polish-German Comparative Study of Support Information for First-Year University Students Faced with the COVID-19 Pandemic at Selected Universities

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has leftits mark on higher education, including first-year university students. The transition to online education has been particularly challenging for the University of Silesia and, to a far lesser extent, the International University of Applied Sciences. This study examines the academic experiences of first-year students entering university in the academic year 2020/2021. This article presents the results of a comparative study conducted on a sample of N=185 students from the University of Silesia (Poland) and N=120 students from the University of Applied Sciences (Germany) using an online questionnaire. The research showed that German students ranked the investigated issues higher; this does not mean that the University of Silesia provides a lower level of support, but that the information strategy and support elements are different.