Taking the Pulse of COVID-19 in Higher Education: Are Students Satisfied with the Experience of Online Learning?

This paper investigates the impact of COVID-19 on higher education. A pilot online survey followed by a course test and one field survey has been conducted sequentially in Chinese universities. The results of this exploratory research reveal that (1) more than half of respondents argue that online and traditional teaching pattern does make a difference in terms of teaching quality, and only a few students prefer virtual classroom to traditional classroom; (2) real data highlights that the pandemic has a critical impact on Chinese student grade via distance learning; and (3) only 49.33 percent students are satisfied with the experience of using virtual classroom during the earlier stage of the pandemic. The results are of particular interest to classroom teachers as well as administrators of higher education institutions under the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.