The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Students’ Learning at Universities in the Gauteng Province, South Africa

IF 0.2 Q4 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Africa Education Review Pub Date : 2022-01-02 DOI:10.1080/18146627.2023.2197152

Mary Motolani Olowoyo, S. Ramaila, Lydia Mavuru, L. Mugivhisa

{"title":"The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Students’ Learning at Universities in the Gauteng Province, South Africa","authors":"Mary Motolani Olowoyo, S. Ramaila, Lydia Mavuru, L. Mugivhisa","doi":"10.1080/18146627.2023.2197152","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Measures that were put in place to combat the spread of COVID-19, such as lockdowns, movement restrictions, and social distancing, resulted in remarkable changes in the traditional educational systems. Online learning was implemented to replace face-to-face teaching and learning, albeit with several challenges and varying levels of unpreparedness. The present study examined the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on university students’ learning and emotional stability with the aim of understanding the impact of the changes on students. A questionnaire was administered online to 254 registered students at three universities in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Results showed that for the majority of participants (84.9%), their source of internet connectivity for learning was data provided by the universities, while 21% of participants made use of the Wi-Fi also provided by the universities. However, the data for 91.9% of participants depleted before new data could be provided in a new month resulting in 30.9%, 30%, and 29.2% of participants buying, borrowing, and stopping to learn, respectively. On average, 33.7% of participants were neutral about having adequate time for studies and their academic performance improving during COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, 33.9% of participants were neutral about receiving adequate assistance from lecturers (34%) and family members (33.7%) during COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, 30% of participants indicated that they were neutral and disagreed that they were getting sufficient resources for studies during COVID-19 pandemic. Loneliness and boredom were the main problems faced by most participants since teaching was mostly done online. To make online teaching and learning more effective, it is recommended that more data and support are provided to the students by the university management so that teaching and learning as well as students’ academic performance can be enhanced during future similar situations.","PeriodicalId":44749,"journal":{"name":"Africa Education Review","volume":"19 1","pages":"143 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Africa Education Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18146627.2023.2197152","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Measures that were put in place to combat the spread of COVID-19, such as lockdowns, movement restrictions, and social distancing, resulted in remarkable changes in the traditional educational systems. Online learning was implemented to replace face-to-face teaching and learning, albeit with several challenges and varying levels of unpreparedness. The present study examined the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on university students’ learning and emotional stability with the aim of understanding the impact of the changes on students. A questionnaire was administered online to 254 registered students at three universities in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Results showed that for the majority of participants (84.9%), their source of internet connectivity for learning was data provided by the universities, while 21% of participants made use of the Wi-Fi also provided by the universities. However, the data for 91.9% of participants depleted before new data could be provided in a new month resulting in 30.9%, 30%, and 29.2% of participants buying, borrowing, and stopping to learn, respectively. On average, 33.7% of participants were neutral about having adequate time for studies and their academic performance improving during COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, 33.9% of participants were neutral about receiving adequate assistance from lecturers (34%) and family members (33.7%) during COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, 30% of participants indicated that they were neutral and disagreed that they were getting sufficient resources for studies during COVID-19 pandemic. Loneliness and boredom were the main problems faced by most participants since teaching was mostly done online. To make online teaching and learning more effective, it is recommended that more data and support are provided to the students by the university management so that teaching and learning as well as students’ academic performance can be enhanced during future similar situations.

查看原文本刊更多论文

2019冠状病毒病大流行对南非豪登省大学学生学习的影响

为遏制COVID-19的传播而采取的措施，如封锁、行动限制和社交距离，导致传统教育体系发生了显着变化。实施在线学习以取代面对面的教学和学习，尽管存在一些挑战和不同程度的准备不足。本研究考察了新冠肺炎疫情对大学生学习和情绪稳定性的影响，旨在了解这些变化对学生的影响。研究人员对南非豪登省三所大学的254名注册学生进行了在线问卷调查。调查结果显示，大部分参与者(84.9%)的互联网连接来源是大学提供的数据，而21%的参与者使用大学提供的Wi-Fi。然而，91.9%的参与者的数据在新的一个月可以提供新的数据之前耗尽，导致30.9%，30%和29.2%的参与者分别购买，借用和停止学习。平均而言，33.7%的参与者对在COVID-19大流行期间有足够的时间学习和学业成绩提高持中立态度。此外，33.9%的参与者对在COVID-19大流行期间获得讲师(34%)和家庭成员(33.7%)的充分援助持中立态度。此外，30%的参与者表示他们是中立的，并且不同意他们在COVID-19大流行期间获得足够的研究资源。由于教学主要是在线完成的，大多数参与者面临的主要问题是孤独和无聊。为了使在线教学更有效，建议大学管理层向学生提供更多的数据和支持，以便在未来类似情况下提高教学和学习，提高学生的学习成绩。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Africa Education Review EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH-

CiteScore

1.40

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Africa Education Review is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal that seeks the submission of unpublished articles on current educational issues. It encourages debate on theory, policy and practice on a wide range of topics that represent a variety of disciplines, interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary and transdisciplinary interests on international and global scale. The journal therefore welcomes contributions from associated disciplines including sociology, psychology and economics. Africa Education Review is interested in stimulating scholarly and intellectual debate on education in general, and higher education in particular on a global arena. What is of particular interest to the journal are manuscripts that seek to contribute to the challenges and issues facing primary and secondary in general, and higher education on the African continent and in the global contexts in particular. The journal welcomes contributions based on sound theoretical framework relating to policy issues and practice on the various aspects of higher education.