online education during covid 19 essay

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education forever. This is how 

With schools shut across the world, millions of children have had to adapt to new types of learning. Image:  REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

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Stay up to date:.

• The COVID-19 has resulted in schools shut all across the world. Globally, over 1.2 billion children are out of the classroom.
• As a result, education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning, whereby teaching is undertaken remotely and on digital platforms.
• Research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, and take less time, meaning the changes coronavirus have caused might be here to stay.

While countries are at different points in their COVID-19 infection rates, worldwide there are currently more than 1.2 billion children in 186 countries affected by school closures due to the pandemic. In Denmark, children up to the age of 11 are returning to nurseries and schools after initially closing on 12 March , but in South Korea students are responding to roll calls from their teachers online .

With this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe, some are wondering whether the adoption of online learning will continue to persist post-pandemic, and how such a shift would impact the worldwide education market.

Even before COVID-19, there was already high growth and adoption in education technology, with global edtech investments reaching US$18.66 billion in 2019 and the overall market for online education projected to reach $350 Billion by 2025 . Whether it is language apps , virtual tutoring , video conferencing tools, or online learning software , there has been a significant surge in usage since COVID-19.

How is the education sector responding to COVID-19?

In response to significant demand, many online learning platforms are offering free access to their services, including platforms like BYJU’S , a Bangalore-based educational technology and online tutoring firm founded in 2011, which is now the world’s most highly valued edtech company . Since announcing free live classes on its Think and Learn app, BYJU’s has seen a 200% increase in the number of new students using its product, according to Mrinal Mohit, the company's Chief Operating Officer.

Tencent classroom, meanwhile, has been used extensively since mid-February after the Chinese government instructed a quarter of a billion full-time students to resume their studies through online platforms. This resulted in the largest “online movement” in the history of education with approximately 730,000 , or 81% of K-12 students, attending classes via the Tencent K-12 Online School in Wuhan.

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Other companies are bolstering capabilities to provide a one-stop shop for teachers and students. For example, Lark, a Singapore-based collaboration suite initially developed by ByteDance as an internal tool to meet its own exponential growth, began offering teachers and students unlimited video conferencing time, auto-translation capabilities, real-time co-editing of project work, and smart calendar scheduling, amongst other features. To do so quickly and in a time of crisis, Lark ramped up its global server infrastructure and engineering capabilities to ensure reliable connectivity.

Alibaba’s distance learning solution, DingTalk, had to prepare for a similar influx: “To support large-scale remote work, the platform tapped Alibaba Cloud to deploy more than 100,000 new cloud servers in just two hours last month – setting a new record for rapid capacity expansion,” according to DingTalk CEO, Chen Hang.

Some school districts are forming unique partnerships, like the one between The Los Angeles Unified School District and PBS SoCal/KCET to offer local educational broadcasts, with separate channels focused on different ages, and a range of digital options. Media organizations such as the BBC are also powering virtual learning; Bitesize Daily , launched on 20 April, is offering 14 weeks of curriculum-based learning for kids across the UK with celebrities like Manchester City footballer Sergio Aguero teaching some of the content.

What does this mean for the future of learning?

While some believe that the unplanned and rapid move to online learning – with no training, insufficient bandwidth, and little preparation – will result in a poor user experience that is unconducive to sustained growth, others believe that a new hybrid model of education will emerge, with significant benefits. “I believe that the integration of information technology in education will be further accelerated and that online education will eventually become an integral component of school education,“ says Wang Tao, Vice President of Tencent Cloud and Vice President of Tencent Education.

There have already been successful transitions amongst many universities. For example, Zhejiang University managed to get more than 5,000 courses online just two weeks into the transition using “DingTalk ZJU”. The Imperial College London started offering a course on the science of coronavirus, which is now the most enrolled class launched in 2020 on Coursera .

Many are already touting the benefits: Dr Amjad, a Professor at The University of Jordan who has been using Lark to teach his students says, “It has changed the way of teaching. It enables me to reach out to my students more efficiently and effectively through chat groups, video meetings, voting and also document sharing, especially during this pandemic. My students also find it is easier to communicate on Lark. I will stick to Lark even after coronavirus, I believe traditional offline learning and e-learning can go hand by hand."

These 3 charts show the global growth in online learning

The challenges of online learning.

There are, however, challenges to overcome. Some students without reliable internet access and/or technology struggle to participate in digital learning; this gap is seen across countries and between income brackets within countries. For example, whilst 95% of students in Switzerland, Norway, and Austria have a computer to use for their schoolwork, only 34% in Indonesia do, according to OECD data .

In the US, there is a significant gap between those from privileged and disadvantaged backgrounds: whilst virtually all 15-year-olds from a privileged background said they had a computer to work on, nearly 25% of those from disadvantaged backgrounds did not. While some schools and governments have been providing digital equipment to students in need, such as in New South Wales , Australia, many are still concerned that the pandemic will widenthe digital divide .

Is learning online as effective?

For those who do have access to the right technology, there is evidence that learning online can be more effective in a number of ways. Some research shows that on average, students retain 25-60% more material when learning online compared to only 8-10% in a classroom. This is mostly due to the students being able to learn faster online; e-learning requires 40-60% less time to learn than in a traditional classroom setting because students can learn at their own pace, going back and re-reading, skipping, or accelerating through concepts as they choose.

Nevertheless, the effectiveness of online learning varies amongst age groups. The general consensus on children, especially younger ones, is that a structured environment is required , because kids are more easily distracted. To get the full benefit of online learning, there needs to be a concerted effort to provide this structure and go beyond replicating a physical class/lecture through video capabilities, instead, using a range of collaboration tools and engagement methods that promote “inclusion, personalization and intelligence”, according to Dowson Tong, Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent and President of its Cloud and Smart Industries Group.

Since studies have shown that children extensively use their senses to learn, making learning fun and effective through use of technology is crucial, according to BYJU's Mrinal Mohit. “Over a period, we have observed that clever integration of games has demonstrated higher engagement and increased motivation towards learning especially among younger students, making them truly fall in love with learning”, he says.

A changing education imperative

It is clear that this pandemic has utterly disrupted an education system that many assert was already losing its relevance . In his book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century , scholar Yuval Noah Harari outlines how schools continue to focus on traditional academic skills and rote learning , rather than on skills such as critical thinking and adaptability, which will be more important for success in the future. Could the move to online learning be the catalyst to create a new, more effective method of educating students? While some worry that the hasty nature of the transition online may have hindered this goal, others plan to make e-learning part of their ‘new normal’ after experiencing the benefits first-hand.

The importance of disseminating knowledge is highlighted through COVID-19

Major world events are often an inflection point for rapid innovation – a clear example is the rise of e-commerce post-SARS . While we have yet to see whether this will apply to e-learning post-COVID-19, it is one of the few sectors where investment has not dried up . What has been made clear through this pandemic is the importance of disseminating knowledge across borders, companies, and all parts of society. If online learning technology can play a role here, it is incumbent upon all of us to explore its full potential.

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• Published: 25 January 2021

Online education in the post-COVID era

• Barbara B. Lockee 1  

Nature Electronics volume  4 ,  pages 5–6 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The coronavirus pandemic has forced students and educators across all levels of education to rapidly adapt to online learning. The impact of this — and the developments required to make it work — could permanently change how education is delivered.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to engage in the ubiquitous use of virtual learning. And while online and distance learning has been used before to maintain continuity in education, such as in the aftermath of earthquakes 1 , the scale of the current crisis is unprecedented. Speculation has now also begun about what the lasting effects of this will be and what education may look like in the post-COVID era. For some, an immediate retreat to the traditions of the physical classroom is required. But for others, the forced shift to online education is a moment of change and a time to reimagine how education could be delivered 2 .

Looking back

Online education has traditionally been viewed as an alternative pathway, one that is particularly well suited to adult learners seeking higher education opportunities. However, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has required educators and students across all levels of education to adapt quickly to virtual courses. (The term ‘emergency remote teaching’ was coined in the early stages of the pandemic to describe the temporary nature of this transition 3 .) In some cases, instruction shifted online, then returned to the physical classroom, and then shifted back online due to further surges in the rate of infection. In other cases, instruction was offered using a combination of remote delivery and face-to-face: that is, students can attend online or in person (referred to as the HyFlex model 4 ). In either case, instructors just had to figure out how to make it work, considering the affordances and constraints of the specific learning environment to create learning experiences that were feasible and effective.

The use of varied delivery modes does, in fact, have a long history in education. Mechanical (and then later electronic) teaching machines have provided individualized learning programmes since the 1950s and the work of B. F. Skinner 5 , who proposed using technology to walk individual learners through carefully designed sequences of instruction with immediate feedback indicating the accuracy of their response. Skinner’s notions formed the first formalized representations of programmed learning, or ‘designed’ learning experiences. Then, in the 1960s, Fred Keller developed a personalized system of instruction 6 , in which students first read assigned course materials on their own, followed by one-on-one assessment sessions with a tutor, gaining permission to move ahead only after demonstrating mastery of the instructional material. Occasional class meetings were held to discuss concepts, answer questions and provide opportunities for social interaction. A personalized system of instruction was designed on the premise that initial engagement with content could be done independently, then discussed and applied in the social context of a classroom.

These predecessors to contemporary online education leveraged key principles of instructional design — the systematic process of applying psychological principles of human learning to the creation of effective instructional solutions — to consider which methods (and their corresponding learning environments) would effectively engage students to attain the targeted learning outcomes. In other words, they considered what choices about the planning and implementation of the learning experience can lead to student success. Such early educational innovations laid the groundwork for contemporary virtual learning, which itself incorporates a variety of instructional approaches and combinations of delivery modes.

Online learning and the pandemic

Fast forward to 2020, and various further educational innovations have occurred to make the universal adoption of remote learning a possibility. One key challenge is access. Here, extensive problems remain, including the lack of Internet connectivity in some locations, especially rural ones, and the competing needs among family members for the use of home technology. However, creative solutions have emerged to provide students and families with the facilities and resources needed to engage in and successfully complete coursework 7 . For example, school buses have been used to provide mobile hotspots, and class packets have been sent by mail and instructional presentations aired on local public broadcasting stations. The year 2020 has also seen increased availability and adoption of electronic resources and activities that can now be integrated into online learning experiences. Synchronous online conferencing systems, such as Zoom and Google Meet, have allowed experts from anywhere in the world to join online classrooms 8 and have allowed presentations to be recorded for individual learners to watch at a time most convenient for them. Furthermore, the importance of hands-on, experiential learning has led to innovations such as virtual field trips and virtual labs 9 . A capacity to serve learners of all ages has thus now been effectively established, and the next generation of online education can move from an enterprise that largely serves adult learners and higher education to one that increasingly serves younger learners, in primary and secondary education and from ages 5 to 18.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also likely to have a lasting effect on lesson design. The constraints of the pandemic provided an opportunity for educators to consider new strategies to teach targeted concepts. Though rethinking of instructional approaches was forced and hurried, the experience has served as a rare chance to reconsider strategies that best facilitate learning within the affordances and constraints of the online context. In particular, greater variance in teaching and learning activities will continue to question the importance of ‘seat time’ as the standard on which educational credits are based 10 — lengthy Zoom sessions are seldom instructionally necessary and are not aligned with the psychological principles of how humans learn. Interaction is important for learning but forced interactions among students for the sake of interaction is neither motivating nor beneficial.

While the blurring of the lines between traditional and distance education has been noted for several decades 11 , the pandemic has quickly advanced the erasure of these boundaries. Less single mode, more multi-mode (and thus more educator choices) is becoming the norm due to enhanced infrastructure and developed skill sets that allow people to move across different delivery systems 12 . The well-established best practices of hybrid or blended teaching and learning 13 have served as a guide for new combinations of instructional delivery that have developed in response to the shift to virtual learning. The use of multiple delivery modes is likely to remain, and will be a feature employed with learners of all ages 14 , 15 . Future iterations of online education will no longer be bound to the traditions of single teaching modes, as educators can support pedagogical approaches from a menu of instructional delivery options, a mix that has been supported by previous generations of online educators 16 .

Also significant are the changes to how learning outcomes are determined in online settings. Many educators have altered the ways in which student achievement is measured, eliminating assignments and changing assessment strategies altogether 17 . Such alterations include determining learning through strategies that leverage the online delivery mode, such as interactive discussions, student-led teaching and the use of games to increase motivation and attention. Specific changes that are likely to continue include flexible or extended deadlines for assignment completion 18 , more student choice regarding measures of learning, and more authentic experiences that involve the meaningful application of newly learned skills and knowledge 19 , for example, team-based projects that involve multiple creative and social media tools in support of collaborative problem solving.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, technological and administrative systems for implementing online learning, and the infrastructure that supports its access and delivery, had to adapt quickly. While access remains a significant issue for many, extensive resources have been allocated and processes developed to connect learners with course activities and materials, to facilitate communication between instructors and students, and to manage the administration of online learning. Paths for greater access and opportunities to online education have now been forged, and there is a clear route for the next generation of adopters of online education.

Before the pandemic, the primary purpose of distance and online education was providing access to instruction for those otherwise unable to participate in a traditional, place-based academic programme. As its purpose has shifted to supporting continuity of instruction, its audience, as well as the wider learning ecosystem, has changed. It will be interesting to see which aspects of emergency remote teaching remain in the next generation of education, when the threat of COVID-19 is no longer a factor. But online education will undoubtedly find new audiences. And the flexibility and learning possibilities that have emerged from necessity are likely to shift the expectations of students and educators, diminishing further the line between classroom-based instruction and virtual learning.

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The pandemic has had devastating impacts on learning. What will it take to help students catch up?

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, megan kuhfeld , megan kuhfeld senior research scientist - nwea @megankuhfeld jim soland , jim soland assistant professor, school of education and human development - university of virginia, affiliated research fellow - nwea @jsoland karyn lewis , and karyn lewis director, center for school and student progress - nwea @karynlew emily morton emily morton research scientist - nwea @emily_r_morton.

March 3, 2022

As we reach the two-year mark of the initial wave of pandemic-induced school shutdowns, academic normalcy remains out of reach for many students, educators, and parents. In addition to surging COVID-19 cases at the end of 2021, schools have faced severe staff shortages , high rates of absenteeism and quarantines , and rolling school closures . Furthermore, students and educators continue to struggle with mental health challenges , higher rates of violence and misbehavior , and concerns about lost instructional time .

As we outline in our new research study released in January, the cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ academic achievement has been large. We tracked changes in math and reading test scores across the first two years of the pandemic using data from 5.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8. We focused on test scores from immediately before the pandemic (fall 2019), following the initial onset (fall 2020), and more than one year into pandemic disruptions (fall 2021).

Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were 0.20-0.27 standard deviations (SDs) lower relative to same-grade peers in fall 2019, while reading test scores were 0.09-0.18 SDs lower. This is a sizable drop. For context, the math drops are significantly larger than estimated impacts from other large-scale school disruptions, such as after Hurricane Katrina—math scores dropped 0.17 SDs in one year for New Orleans evacuees .

Even more concerning, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20% in math (corresponding to 0.20 SDs) and 15% in reading (0.13 SDs), primarily during the 2020-21 school year. Further, achievement tended to drop more between fall 2020 and 2021 than between fall 2019 and 2020 (both overall and differentially by school poverty), indicating that disruptions to learning have continued to negatively impact students well past the initial hits following the spring 2020 school closures.

These numbers are alarming and potentially demoralizing, especially given the heroic efforts of students to learn and educators to teach in incredibly trying times. From our perspective, these test-score drops in no way indicate that these students represent a “ lost generation ” or that we should give up hope. Most of us have never lived through a pandemic, and there is so much we don’t know about students’ capacity for resiliency in these circumstances and what a timeline for recovery will look like. Nor are we suggesting that teachers are somehow at fault given the achievement drops that occurred between 2020 and 2021; rather, educators had difficult jobs before the pandemic, and now are contending with huge new challenges, many outside their control.

Clearly, however, there’s work to do. School districts and states are currently making important decisions about which interventions and strategies to implement to mitigate the learning declines during the last two years. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) investments from the American Rescue Plan provided nearly $200 billion to public schools to spend on COVID-19-related needs. Of that sum, $22 billion is dedicated specifically to addressing learning loss using “evidence-based interventions” focused on the “ disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups. ” Reviews of district and state spending plans (see Future Ed , EduRecoveryHub , and RAND’s American School District Panel for more details) indicate that districts are spending their ESSER dollars designated for academic recovery on a wide variety of strategies, with summer learning, tutoring, after-school programs, and extended school-day and school-year initiatives rising to the top.

Comparing the negative impacts from learning disruptions to the positive impacts from interventions

To help contextualize the magnitude of the impacts of COVID-19, we situate test-score drops during the pandemic relative to the test-score gains associated with common interventions being employed by districts as part of pandemic recovery efforts. If we assume that such interventions will continue to be as successful in a COVID-19 school environment, can we expect that these strategies will be effective enough to help students catch up? To answer this question, we draw from recent reviews of research on high-dosage tutoring , summer learning programs , reductions in class size , and extending the school day (specifically for literacy instruction) . We report effect sizes for each intervention specific to a grade span and subject wherever possible (e.g., tutoring has been found to have larger effects in elementary math than in reading).

Figure 1 shows the standardized drops in math test scores between students testing in fall 2019 and fall 2021 (separately by elementary and middle school grades) relative to the average effect size of various educational interventions. The average effect size for math tutoring matches or exceeds the average COVID-19 score drop in math. Research on tutoring indicates that it often works best in younger grades, and when provided by a teacher rather than, say, a parent. Further, some of the tutoring programs that produce the biggest effects can be quite intensive (and likely expensive), including having full-time tutors supporting all students (not just those needing remediation) in one-on-one settings during the school day. Meanwhile, the average effect of reducing class size is negative but not significant, with high variability in the impact across different studies. Summer programs in math have been found to be effective (average effect size of .10 SDs), though these programs in isolation likely would not eliminate the COVID-19 test-score drops.

Figure 1: Math COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) Table 2; summer program results are pulled from Lynch et al (2021) Table 2; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span; Figles et al. and Lynch et al. report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. We were unable to find a rigorous study that reported effect sizes for extending the school day/year on math performance. Nictow et al. and Kraft & Falken (2021) also note large variations in tutoring effects depending on the type of tutor, with larger effects for teacher and paraprofessional tutoring programs than for nonprofessional and parent tutoring. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

Figure 2 displays a similar comparison using effect sizes from reading interventions. The average effect of tutoring programs on reading achievement is larger than the effects found for the other interventions, though summer reading programs and class size reduction both produced average effect sizes in the ballpark of the COVID-19 reading score drops.

Figure 2: Reading COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; extended-school-day results are from Figlio et al. (2018) Table 2; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) ; summer program results are pulled from Kim & Quinn (2013) Table 3; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: While Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span, Figlio et al. and Kim & Quinn report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

There are some limitations of drawing on research conducted prior to the pandemic to understand our ability to address the COVID-19 test-score drops. First, these studies were conducted under conditions that are very different from what schools currently face, and it is an open question whether the effectiveness of these interventions during the pandemic will be as consistent as they were before the pandemic. Second, we have little evidence and guidance about the efficacy of these interventions at the unprecedented scale that they are now being considered. For example, many school districts are expanding summer learning programs, but school districts have struggled to find staff interested in teaching summer school to meet the increased demand. Finally, given the widening test-score gaps between low- and high-poverty schools, it’s uncertain whether these interventions can actually combat the range of new challenges educators are facing in order to narrow these gaps. That is, students could catch up overall, yet the pandemic might still have lasting, negative effects on educational equality in this country.

Given that the current initiatives are unlikely to be implemented consistently across (and sometimes within) districts, timely feedback on the effects of initiatives and any needed adjustments will be crucial to districts’ success. The Road to COVID Recovery project and the National Student Support Accelerator are two such large-scale evaluation studies that aim to produce this type of evidence while providing resources for districts to track and evaluate their own programming. Additionally, a growing number of resources have been produced with recommendations on how to best implement recovery programs, including scaling up tutoring , summer learning programs , and expanded learning time .

Ultimately, there is much work to be done, and the challenges for students, educators, and parents are considerable. But this may be a moment when decades of educational reform, intervention, and research pay off. Relying on what we have learned could show the way forward.

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Teachers and Students Describe a Remote-Learning Life

They talk about how the change to online instruction has affected them.

By The New York Times

This article is part of our latest Learning special report , which focuses on the challenges of online education during the coronavirus outbreak.

We asked teachers and college students about their experiences with the change to online instruction. The Learning Network, a site about teaching and learning with content from The New York Times, asked students in grades K through 12 how they have been coping with remote learning. The following comments have been edited and condensed.

Teachers’ Voices

So much of what we do in classrooms are driven by student responses and reactions. I’d give anything to watch their faces light up, their hands in the air, their smiles and fist pumps when they share a new learning or big idea with me. – Meg Burke, teaches grades 3 through 8, Doylestown, Pa.

Here I am, at 66, within a year of full retirement, having to learn how to use Google Classroom with 35 first graders at various places in their learning. I feel as though I am attempting to drive on a road that I am simultaneously paving while also following a paper map. – Janet Kass, teaches first grade, Bloomingburg, N.Y.

Over 80 percent of the students at my school come from low-income families, and only a quarter of my students have a computer at home. For economically disadvantaged students, this outbreak means they will fall even further behind their wealthier peers. – Kaitlin Barnes, teaches fourth grade, Baltimore

Dear Parents: I promise you that we have your child’s best interest at heart. We worry about them, we miss them, we want more than anything to be back in the classroom. We don’t teach because we like figuring out how to work Zoom, we don’t teach to stare at a screen all day, we don’t teach to field an onslaught of emails each day. We teach because we love your children. – Kara Conceison, teaches sixth grade, Watertown, Mass.

I work with continuation high school students (where I have been for 23 years) who have a deep connection to our school, and I know we all feel lost, lost without the daily hugs, fist bumps and dose of reality we try to provide to each other. – Gregg Witkin, teaches grades 10 through 12, San Jose, Calif.

I miss getting to celebrate with them, cry with them, laugh with them. These are memories with my seniors that I will never get back. That is what hurts the most. – Stacey Travis, teaches high school math, Maryville, Tenn.

I miss real conversations with my students, about anything, but particularly about their writing. It doesn’t seem like students have any motivation to participate in things outside of school. – Matthew Ebersole, teaches eighth grade, Gloucester, Va.

Teaching involves human connection, and I feel like that’s been taken away from me. – Mathew Kennedy, teaches grades 7 and 8, New Orleans

My students are eighth graders. They may not be learning as much history as my former students, or writing as many essays, but they are LIVING history right now. But they’re learning so much — resilience, time management and how to be responsible for their own learning. – Lauren Brown, teaches eighth grade, Oak Park, Ill.

I believe that this distance learning has enhanced portions of my teaching. I am now allowed to utilize technology that perhaps I haven’t had time to before. I’ve also noticed that my students who struggled academically in class are excelling online. – Jodi Ramos, teaches sixth grade, San Antonio

No amount of online instruction can replace the power and potential of student-teacher relationships and the learning that happens in that context. Both teachers and students are the lesser for that. – Joshua Fleming, teaches ninth grade, Redmond, Wash.

I attempted a Zoom discussion about the end of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with my eighth graders. In response to my questions, I heard two or three strong ideas and a parent asking about chores. It made me a little sad, since the play is always a favorite of ours, and our study of it ended in such an anticlimactic way. – Pauline Brew, teaches grades 6-8, Columbus, Ohio

Student Voices

I have had more free time, but I feel less productive, taking more time to complete each assignment (however this hasn’t necessarily led to better results). I very much miss the social aspect of school. – Ariana Oppenheimer, 15, The Pennington School, Lawrenceville, N.J.

I believe that I have it very lucky and I know that some of my peers are struggling a lot. I know that my school is trying very hard to help the kids, like providing food for children that relied on school lunches and having a curbside pickup for laptop rentals. – Morgan Sharp, 15, Anna High School, Anna, Texas

Me and my friends often have to work for quite a long time, like at least 5 hours on all the assignments. It’s really boring to read the lesson info by yourself and then apply it to your assignments. I feel like this is the hard part. The good thing however, is that we don’t have to wake up at a certain time, so we are at least now getting enough sleep. – Danny Peng, 13, William Alexander Middle School, Brooklyn

Remote learning has introduced a new classroom dynamic, in which the inability to see one’s classmates/students causes classmates to begin speaking at the same time (and consequently stop speaking) and teachers to move on to the next subject despite a student’s hurried attempt to type their question into the chat box. – Cindy Li, 16, Glenda Dawson High School, Pearland, Texas

I have committed to college, school has been canceled (any student’s dream), and ice cream can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So why do I still wish that I was back in school? – Ethan Turkewitz, 17, New Rochelle High School, New Rochelle, N.Y.

There are some distractions when learning at home. Since everyone is required to do remote learning, it can be really loud if there are people in your house who are also doing the same thing. – Alvin L., 14, William Alexander Middle School, Brooklyn

Since my school has started online class it’s been harder to motivate myself to work and pay attention. I also miss my art elective. We had our first online art class today and it was only 20 minutes long which was strange because it’s usually two hours. – Alexis Jennings, 16, School of the Woods High School, Houston, Texas

It can become very stressful to completely shift our schedules and our academic plans. Due to this, the one day at a time method has become extremely helpful for me. – Valeria Casas, 17, Glenbard West High School, Glen Ellyn, Ill.

At the beginning I was so confused and didn’t know how to work anything and set up my Google classroom for different classes, and keep track of all the homework. But I’m getting the hang of it. Hopefully things can go back to normal, because I miss going to school. – Mia Mohamed, 13, Middle School 51 William Alexander, Brooklyn

Online school has been a stressful process for many of my friends and me. I live in an area where internet access and Wi-Fi are hard to get and, as a result, I’m not only stressed about school but I’m often anxious that I will not be able to join and maintain access to online classes and assignments. – Kitty Evans, 16, The Pennington School, Stockton, N.J.

Remote learning has been difficult for me. I have encountered obstacles such as slow internet, procrastination, and feelings of isolation from my friends and family. While technology does allow us to interact with each other somewhat effectively, it should not replace face to face interactions. – Argelina Jeune, 15, Valley Stream North High School, Valley Stream, N.Y.

I wake up every morning and do homework all day long. I thought having all my classes online would make my life easier because I’d be able to work ahead, but I’m actually falling behind. – Laney McDermott, 17, Williams High School, Burlington, N.C.

College Students’ Voices

I was studying abroad in Buenos Aires and was sent home after 17 days. I am now living at home, taking classes in Spanish about Argentina online and struggling to get a refund for room and board from my study abroad program. However, all in all I have been incredibly lucky as no one in my family is sick, and I’m not worried about where my next meal or paycheck is coming from. – Pearl Sullivan, Atlanta, Elon University

I’m an international student, so I had to go home. The time difference is nine hours, so all my classes are at night and extend into the early morning. I’m studying at desks I share with my brother and dad. My campus bookstore is offering to ship my textbooks for free, but it’ll take months for them to reach me. – Amina Elmasry, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Northwestern University

My schooling was online already. The difference is now being faced with food and financial insecurity and still being expected to turn in all homework, study topics that are all pretty disturbing (for social work master’s degree) and get projects done on time. – Sonya Davis, San Diego, Rutgers University

My attention span at home is a lot shorter than it is at school since my house was not created to be a school environment. Every time I have a class or I want to get some homework done, there’s always some kind of distraction. – EJ Onah, Ithaca, N.Y., SUNY Albany

I would so much rather be back in class. Online courses are more work that the normal classes. It’s also harder to get feedback on you work. The professors and T.A.s are doing the best they can to support “office” hours, but it’s just not the same. I can’t wait to be back in class. – Howard Lukk, Los Angeles, University of California, Santa Barbara

I am a biology student with the intention of going into medicine after graduation. One of the most important parts of our undergrad education are science labs, which give us practical experience and application of the difficult concepts we learn in our lecture courses. Due to the outbreak, my organic chemistry lab has had to go online, which is essentially an impossible undertaking. All of us are missing out on this essential process of synthesizing our own reagents and running a chemical reaction, replaced by this poor substitute of watching videos and doing worksheets. – Andrei Robu, Greenville, S.C., University of South Carolina, Columbia

My university gave me three days to move out of my dorm. With my parents living 10 hours away, it was terrible circumstances. I had no car to put everything I owned. My boyfriend’s family came in a clutch and helped me move out and let me stay in a spare bedroom of theirs. If not for his family, I would have had no where to stay. The day after I moved my stuff out, Whitmer announced a shelter in place order to start the next day at midnight. I called my parents, and my dad drove 20 hours round trip to get me home. – Karen Larss, Iron Mountain, Mich., Western Michigan University

I am a 55-year-old man who takes two classes per semester after work towards a TESL degree: teaching English as a second language. I enjoy the classroom experience. It is how I effectively learn. Listening to live lectures, asking questions, and speaking with other students about assignments and concepts. Both my classes went online, and I knew immediately that I would have to drop one of them as I was having trouble with the material in a normal classroom setting. I knew that I would not be successful sitting in my living room with all the distractions of home around me while trying to focus on a tough subject. – Kent Shimizu, Santa Clarita, Calif., California State University, Northridge

I do enjoy being able to wake up later because now I just have to log in to a class rather than get ready for an entire day. I can also sleep more, but I still miss the in-person interactions going to class on campus provides. I’m also worried how moving online is going to impact classes that require sequential learning or classes that assume I acquired skills already learned in a prior class. – Kate Carniol, Great Falls, Va., Syracuse University

As a senior, transitioning to online learning has been nothing but difficult. Sometimes I’m not even motivated to do my work. I am a good student, I have a 3.5 gpa but everything is on you now. – Casey Malone, Milford, Conn., Westfield State University

Being at college, I was able to forget the sometimes-traumatizing moments I lived through as a teenager. But now, every part of my childhood home reminds me of the past I’ve tried very hard to move on from. I know I should be grateful simply to have a roof over my head and relative financial security at a time like this, but it’s hard not to let myself get sucked down the rabbit hole of my high school mental health challenges that seemed so far gone while I was living on my own at college. – Kelsey Bonham, Washington, Colgate University

As a theater major, the online curriculum poses particular challenges for my classmates and I, since much of our learning is highly kinesthetic. In my Presentational Styles acting class, we’re performing Shakespeare’s Macbeth via Zoom, and the project certainly loses much of its excitement and immediacy when we aren’t all performing in a room together. Despite these setbacks, I remain impressed by how adaptable and positive my professors have been in approaching them. – Sydney Cahill, New Providence, N.J., Providence College

Our academic advisers are going beyond and above to make sure all students are comfortable with this change. Online tutoring has been implemented for the success of the students. We meet with the president of the school weekly via Instagram live along with our academic advisers via Zoom. I’m a hands-on type of person, and as a member of the Quinnite Nation I am proud to say through these trying times we are an uplifted community. – Pakedra D. McCoy, Dallas, Paul Quinn College

Things are much more self-managed. My emotions toward school range from feeling unmotivated to writing shadow letters to my professors apologizing for my lack of focus. I have always loved school, but this doesn’t feel like learning. My professors try to create normalcy, but there is none. – Alexsis Tarte, Fairfax, Va., George Mason University

I’m a junior, and my anxiety is at an all-time high. More recently, my exams, assignments, discussion boards and document submissions have been piling up. I work at a noncorporate, family-owned, restaurant drive-through full time and go to school full time. With Shreveport and Louisiana becoming a hot spot, I fear I might attract the virus by working, but going to work is my escape from school and general life. – Jacob Pickett, Stonewall, La., Louisiana State University, Shreveport

Going to school filled me to the brim with nirvana, that is, until we switched to online instruction. Now, my education is no longer an escape into “me time” — it is midnight after a long day, dry-eyed and exhausted, staring blankly at my laptop screen searching for motivation. As a new mother of a 4-month-old, in-person classes held the irreplaceable value of “me time.” Even the hourlong commutes, with raging drivers and construction detours, were enjoyable because of the break it gave me to just do something for myself. – Alexis Coates, Ridley Park, Penn., West Chester University of Pennsylvania

How to Write About Coronavirus in a College Essay

Students can share how they navigated life during the coronavirus pandemic in a full-length essay or an optional supplement.

Writing About COVID-19 in College Essays

Getty Images

Experts say students should be honest and not limit themselves to merely their experiences with the pandemic.

The global impact of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, means colleges and prospective students alike are in for an admissions cycle like no other. Both face unprecedented challenges and questions as they grapple with their respective futures amid the ongoing fallout of the pandemic.

Colleges must examine applicants without the aid of standardized test scores for many – a factor that prompted many schools to go test-optional for now . Even grades, a significant component of a college application, may be hard to interpret with some high schools adopting pass-fail classes last spring due to the pandemic. Major college admissions factors are suddenly skewed.

"I can't help but think other (admissions) factors are going to matter more," says Ethan Sawyer, founder of the College Essay Guy, a website that offers free and paid essay-writing resources.

College essays and letters of recommendation , Sawyer says, are likely to carry more weight than ever in this admissions cycle. And many essays will likely focus on how the pandemic shaped students' lives throughout an often tumultuous 2020.

But before writing a college essay focused on the coronavirus, students should explore whether it's the best topic for them.

Writing About COVID-19 for a College Application

Much of daily life has been colored by the coronavirus. Virtual learning is the norm at many colleges and high schools, many extracurriculars have vanished and social lives have stalled for students complying with measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.

"For some young people, the pandemic took away what they envisioned as their senior year," says Robert Alexander, dean of admissions, financial aid and enrollment management at the University of Rochester in New York. "Maybe that's a spot on a varsity athletic team or the lead role in the fall play. And it's OK for them to mourn what should have been and what they feel like they lost, but more important is how are they making the most of the opportunities they do have?"

That question, Alexander says, is what colleges want answered if students choose to address COVID-19 in their college essay.

But the question of whether a student should write about the coronavirus is tricky. The answer depends largely on the student.

"In general, I don't think students should write about COVID-19 in their main personal statement for their application," Robin Miller, master college admissions counselor at IvyWise, a college counseling company, wrote in an email.

"Certainly, there may be exceptions to this based on a student's individual experience, but since the personal essay is the main place in the application where the student can really allow their voice to be heard and share insight into who they are as an individual, there are likely many other topics they can choose to write about that are more distinctive and unique than COVID-19," Miller says.

Opinions among admissions experts vary on whether to write about the likely popular topic of the pandemic.

"If your essay communicates something positive, unique, and compelling about you in an interesting and eloquent way, go for it," Carolyn Pippen, principal college admissions counselor at IvyWise, wrote in an email. She adds that students shouldn't be dissuaded from writing about a topic merely because it's common, noting that "topics are bound to repeat, no matter how hard we try to avoid it."

Above all, she urges honesty.

"If your experience within the context of the pandemic has been truly unique, then write about that experience, and the standing out will take care of itself," Pippen says. "If your experience has been generally the same as most other students in your context, then trying to find a unique angle can easily cross the line into exploiting a tragedy, or at least appearing as though you have."

But focusing entirely on the pandemic can limit a student to a single story and narrow who they are in an application, Sawyer says. "There are so many wonderful possibilities for what you can say about yourself outside of your experience within the pandemic."

He notes that passions, strengths, career interests and personal identity are among the multitude of essay topic options available to applicants and encourages them to probe their values to help determine the topic that matters most to them – and write about it.

That doesn't mean the pandemic experience has to be ignored if applicants feel the need to write about it.

Writing About Coronavirus in Main and Supplemental Essays

Students can choose to write a full-length college essay on the coronavirus or summarize their experience in a shorter form.

To help students explain how the pandemic affected them, The Common App has added an optional section to address this topic. Applicants have 250 words to describe their pandemic experience and the personal and academic impact of COVID-19.

"That's not a trick question, and there's no right or wrong answer," Alexander says. Colleges want to know, he adds, how students navigated the pandemic, how they prioritized their time, what responsibilities they took on and what they learned along the way.

If students can distill all of the above information into 250 words, there's likely no need to write about it in a full-length college essay, experts say. And applicants whose lives were not heavily altered by the pandemic may even choose to skip the optional COVID-19 question.

"This space is best used to discuss hardship and/or significant challenges that the student and/or the student's family experienced as a result of COVID-19 and how they have responded to those difficulties," Miller notes. Using the section to acknowledge a lack of impact, she adds, "could be perceived as trite and lacking insight, despite the good intentions of the applicant."

To guard against this lack of awareness, Sawyer encourages students to tap someone they trust to review their writing , whether it's the 250-word Common App response or the full-length essay.

Experts tend to agree that the short-form approach to this as an essay topic works better, but there are exceptions. And if a student does have a coronavirus story that he or she feels must be told, Alexander encourages the writer to be authentic in the essay.

"My advice for an essay about COVID-19 is the same as my advice about an essay for any topic – and that is, don't write what you think we want to read or hear," Alexander says. "Write what really changed you and that story that now is yours and yours alone to tell."

Sawyer urges students to ask themselves, "What's the sentence that only I can write?" He also encourages students to remember that the pandemic is only a chapter of their lives and not the whole book.

Miller, who cautions against writing a full-length essay on the coronavirus, says that if students choose to do so they should have a conversation with their high school counselor about whether that's the right move. And if students choose to proceed with COVID-19 as a topic, she says they need to be clear, detailed and insightful about what they learned and how they adapted along the way.

"Approaching the essay in this manner will provide important balance while demonstrating personal growth and vulnerability," Miller says.

Pippen encourages students to remember that they are in an unprecedented time for college admissions.

"It is important to keep in mind with all of these (admission) factors that no colleges have ever had to consider them this way in the selection process, if at all," Pippen says. "They have had very little time to calibrate their evaluations of different application components within their offices, let alone across institutions. This means that colleges will all be handling the admissions process a little bit differently, and their approaches may even evolve over the course of the admissions cycle."

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Original research article, impact of the covid-19 pandemic on online learning in higher education: a bibliometric analysis.

• 1 Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• 2 Department of Primary Level Education, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted higher education by forcing the transition to online learning, which became a mandatory teaching process during the lockdowns. Although the epidemiological situation has gradually improved since then, online learning is becoming ever more popular as it provides new learning opportunities. Therefore, the paper aims to present recent research trends concerning online learning in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic by using selected bibliometric approaches. The bibliometric analysis is based on 8,303 documents from the Scopus database published between January 2020 and March 2022, when repeated lockdowns meant most countries were experiencing constant disruptions to the educational process. The results show that the COVID-19 pandemic increased interest in online learning research, notably in English-speaking and Asian countries, with most research being published in open-access scientific journals. Moreover, the topics most frequently discussed in the online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic were ICT and pedagogy, technology-enhanced education, mental health and well-being, student experience and curriculum and professional development. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged explorations of emergency remote learning approaches like e-learning, distance learning and virtual learning, which are intended to limit physical contact between teachers and students, where the specific requirements of a given field of study often guide which online learning approach is the most suitable. The findings add to the existing body of scientific knowledge and support the evidence-based policymaking needed to ensure sustainable higher education in the future.

1. Introduction

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted higher education by forcing the transition to online learning, which became a mandatory teaching process during the lockdowns ( Aristovnik et al., 2020a ). Despite the educational process saw disruptions on all levels of education, i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary ( Tang, 2023 ), as well as in adult education ( James and Thériault, 2020 ), worker education ( Dedeilia et al., 2023 ) and lifelong education ( Waller et al., 2020 ), higher education students proved to be one of the worst affected groups because the social distancing measures, on top of their education, challenged their financial and housing situation ( Aristovnik et al., 2020a ). Challenges arising from the density of students in educational facilities (e.g., campuses, faculties, dormitories etc.) meant higher education institutions were forced to offer education relying on various information and communication technologies (ICTs) and tried to ensure education comparable in quality to traditional learning, noting that the quality of online learning delivery holds important implications for student satisfaction and student performance ( Keržič et al., 2021 ). Nevertheless, the lockdown periods were devastating for many students also in terms of their emotional functioning ( Raccanello et al., 2022 ). The COVID-19 pandemic eventually grew more predictable and manageable, allowing higher education institutions to gradually shift back to traditional learning approaches. Although the epidemiological situation has improved over time, online learning is becoming increasingly popular as it provides new learning opportunities, especially when combined with traditional learning.

The rapid, yet from the health protection point of view necessary ( Aristovnik et al., 2020b ), shift from traditional learning to online learning considerably affected teaching and learning. The transition to online learning was made without adequate consideration of whether the study materials and teaching methods were suitable for this mode of higher education delivery. This was an ad hoc shift in a situation of great uncertainty for both teachers and students. The transition to online learning has also brought to the surface gaps in higher education providers’ preparedness and their lack of ICT infrastructure, resulting in unequal access to quality education for all, particularly students from rural areas and regions with lower socio-economic development. It is important to note here that the rapid shift to an online learning environment in emergency circumstances should not be confused with properly planned online education equipped with appropriate infrastructure that enables and supports pedagogical work and study in an online environment ( Hodges et al., 2020 ; Fuchs, 2022 ; Misiejuk et al., 2023 ). Apart from the changes in teaching and learning, the social aspect of students’ lives has been affected as well. The most worrying consequence has been social isolation leading to a lack of crucial social interaction for students ( Elmer et al., 2020 ; Bonsaksen et al., 2021 ; Fried et al., 2021 ; Van der Graaf et al., 2021 ) and in some cases also in coronavirus-related post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) ( Ochnik et al., 2021 ). According to Gavriluţă et al. (2022) , three dimensions affected students during the COVID-19 pandemic: educational, social, and emotional. The transition from traditional to online learning entailed a significant transformation in education, requiring changes in teaching practices and new learning approaches. Further, the social aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns is evident in the absence of relational, economic and professional problems (in)directly affecting the transition to adulthood. The new reality changed attitudes to various aspects of life and, in turn, also affected emotional responsiveness. Briefly, substantial changes to everyday student lives were made during the COVID-19 pandemic that may hold far-reaching effects of currently unknown scope in the near and distant future ( Campos et al., 2022 ; Gao et al., 2022 ; Keržič et al., 2022 ; Rasli et al., 2022 ).

Therefore, the educational community requires greater insights into different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on online learning, e.g., students, teachers, pedagogy, ICT technology, online learning approaches and implications for various fields of study. In the context of higher education, some bibliometric studies (e.g., Gurcan et al., 2022 ; Saqr et al., 2023 ) have already sought to address issues involving online learning during the pandemic. Yet, they relied on a limited and narrow bibliographic dataset of peer-reviewed literature or lacked a qualitative synthesis of the results beyond the metrics, thereby neglecting some general comprehensive outlines of the global research into the topic ( Saqr et al., 2023 ). Moreover, despite some bibliometric studies focusing on technical aspects (e.g., Navarro-Espinosa et al., 2021 ; Bozkurt, 2022 ; Tlili et al., 2022 ), the identification of the most effective ICT tools for specific online learning approaches remains unclear. Finally, there are also some bibliometric studies that attempt to determine the effectiveness of online learning in providing higher education ( Brika et al., 2021 ; Baber et al., 2022 ; Bilal et al., 2022 ; Bozkurt, 2022 ; Fauzi, 2022 ; Küçük-Avci et al., 2022 ; Yan et al., 2022 ), however, they often overlook the specific requirements of individual fields of study, thereby neglecting the crucial aspect of tailoring online learning provision to different disciplines.

The bibliometric study presented in the paper accordingly aims to fill the presented gaps in the literature. Specifically, it aims to present a global overview of the recent research trends in online learning in higher education using a comprehensive dataset of literature encompassing different varieties of online learning approaches that can facilitate online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, provide some relevant qualitative synthesis of the results beyond the metrics and examine the relationships between ICT tools, online learning approaches and fields of study. Thus, the present bibliometric study, focusing on higher education, tries to answer the following three research questions:

• RQ1: What is the current state of the online learning research by conducting a descriptive overview and identifying top-cited documents?

• RQ2: What is the scientific production of online learning research across countries and sources?

• RQ3: Which are the main research hotspots and concepts in online learning research?

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section provides a literature review of recent bibliometric studies. The following section outlines the materials and methods applied in the study before the results of the present bibliometric analysis are described in the next section. At the end, the final section provides a discussion and conclusion while summarizing the main findings and implications.

2. Literature review

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led many governments to expand the use of online learning approaches as a solution to the global health challenge. Researchers thus showed rising interest in investigating the field of online learning, its dimensions, and its trends on all levels of education, particularly higher education. Such research relied heavily on bibliometric approaches to analyzing scientific research in the higher education context. Pham et al. (2022) concluded based on the 414 articles that although in the decades prior, there was an increase in the number of articles touching on the components of e-learning, such as the learning management system, this rise was accelerated during the pandemic in both developed and developing countries. This may be attributed to the attention of governmental policies that considered the topic of e-learning to be critical and worthy of priority. Similarly, Fauzi (2022) investigated 1,496 articles and concluded that the research focused on a few specific topics. The first is the delivery factor, which refers to selecting the appropriate learning practices. The second is the health and safety factor that relates to minimizing any risk that e-learning could bring to the mental and physical health of learners or teachers, such as stress, anxiety or even depression. The third topic refers to the field of study and the impact of e-learning. In areas like medical education, where clinical activities and labs have to be attended in person, some online learning approaches might be less appropriate than when used in other areas, such as social studies, where the requirements are less complex or different. Zhang et al. (2022) confirmed this finding after performing bibliometric research on 1,061 articles published between January 2020 and August 2021. They explained that theorists and researchers showed a growing interest in ways to respond to crises, such as the pandemic, and how to develop the best practices to ensure the quality and efficiency of e-learning. Examples of such practices might be inquiry-oriented learning and hands-on activities. This could derive from the already existing tendency of education researchers to respond to unprecedented global challenges or changes. The authors explain that this conclusion addresses interest in e-learning practices holistically.

In the same context, Yan et al. (2022) employed a bibliometric approach and identified that various digital tools are used in e-learning in the field of health studies. After investigating 132 studies, they concluded that selecting appropriate tools depends on many factors, including the field of a given course, the aims, and their effectiveness. They add that these findings can be significant for groups of people such as experts or trainee teachers. Okoro et al. (2022) researched 1,722 articles published between 2012 and 2021 and detected a surge in interest in the mental health of postgraduate students, as revealed by the research trends discussed in these articles. Still, they describe this surge as having been greater between 2020 and 2021, which may be attributed to the COVID-19 restrictions and their implications. Moreover, they believe that this research focus will likely continue soon.

After looking at 2,307 articles published between 2017 and 2021, Baber et al. (2022) detected an increasing trend in researching digital literacy. While this was underway before the pandemic, the latter caused a statistically significant further surge. Digital literacy is approached in the studied articles through parameters like instruction, teachers, learners, ICT and its applications, content knowledge, competencies, skills, perceptions, and higher education. It is also associated with acquiring the qualities required to deal with topics such as misinformation, fake news, technological content knowledge, health literacy, COVID-19, and distance education. The authors state that their study identified dynamics hidden in these research trends, which will likely continue in the next few years.

In higher education specifically, based on 602 articles, Brika et al. (2021) corroborated the growing trend of publishing articles on e-learning during the pandemic and outlined certain sub-topics of it, namely: motivation and students’ attitudes; blended and virtual learning comparison; types of online assessment; stress, anxiety and mental health; strategies to improve learners’ skills; quality; performance of the education delivered; challenges; and the potential of technology to lead to change and reform of higher education syllabi or curricula. The scope of those articles was to paint a bigger picture of how higher education communities and institutions use and treat online learning. This is expected to help with efficient decision-making in the future in order to have better results and functions in higher education and appropriate response to crises.

The bibliometric studies carried out during the pandemic identified a trend among researchers in higher education institutions to investigate more the technology factor and how the progress of the Internet, along with information and communication technologies generally, can further assist new modes of learning, such as online learning and distance learning. This might be attributed to a vision for a better means for new types of learning, as Küçük-Avci et al. (2022) claimed after carrying out a bibliometric analysis of 1,547 articles published between 2020 and 2021. The authors detected certain trends regarding distance learning in higher education. A main finding of their study, along with the increase in studies on distance education and e-learning in higher education, is that before the pandemic, the fact that these approaches were not so mandatory meant there was greater efficiency, probably due to the learners’ motivation. The authors further claim that researchers show a stronger interest in the technological means that can assist these types of learning. In addition, while researching 1,986 articles, Bozkurt (2022) established an increase in the implementation of blended learning by researchers who also aim to investigate the relationship between technological applications and learning institutions. Within these tendencies, researchers consider four thematic fields: a comparison of online and onsite learning with regard to effectiveness and efficiency; the experience, impressions and attitudes of stakeholders and learning community members with respect to blended learning; teacher training and curriculum development that will assure the appropriate and challenge-free implementation of blended learning; and the use of mostly a quantitative approach to research of blended learning.

Bilal et al. (2022) also examined research trends concerned with e-learning in higher education during the COVID-19 period by researching 1,595 studies published between 2020 and 2021. The four main trends they identified were supplementary to those mentioned by other authors: the first is about the challenges regarding online learning or blended learning along with the appropriate strategies in response; the second is student-centered collaborative learning and appropriate curriculum design; the third concerns home-based learning through a type of laboratory and the general conditions surrounding it; and the fourth addresses teachers’ background, training, professional competencies and interdisciplinary learning.

Tlili et al. (2022) focused on mapping COVID-19’s impact on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The overall finding from the 108 articles they considered is that there has been growing interest in these courses generally, and more specifically in research around their function and quality. This interest encompasses the main features of such courses, which provide easy accessibility and flexibility. However, they noted that this interest followed another trend among researchers in the context. In other words, the countries that published on MOOCs before the pandemic are the same countries that published during the period under study. Moreover, they stated that there is interest in the technical characteristics and requirements of such courses. Finally, the authors concluded that although most MOOCs were ICT courses, research has escalated into courses that refer to business, personal development or the humanities.

Several conclusions can be drawn from the above bibliometric studies. First, the series of bibliometric studies conducted during the pandemic demonstrates the rise of interest in online learning in higher education during the pandemic. Of course, there was a tendency toward e-learning before the pandemic, but between 2020 and 2022, this seems to have accelerated. The phenomenon is more intense in countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, India and China. Concerning the area of study, the focus of researchers appears to be greater in fields such as Engineering, Sciences, and Health Sciences, albeit all fields seem to be investigated ( Djeki et al., 2022 ; Pham et al., 2022 ; Vaicondam et al., 2022 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). Various studies have focused on determining the effectiveness of e-learning classes and courses or pointing out parameters that influence their effectiveness. These could be the appropriate conditions or subtopics like motivation, blended learning, learning tools, teacher training, cooperation between different institutions or efficient practices ( Brika et al., 2021 ; Baber et al., 2022 ; Bilal et al., 2022 ; Bozkurt, 2022 ; Fauzi, 2022 ; Küçük-Avci et al., 2022 ; Yan et al., 2022 ). A specific trend of authors is to examine virtual classes and laboratories ( Kartimi et al., 2022 ; Rojas-Sánchez et al., 2022 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). Finally, there is a focus on the technology factor. Namely, researchers have concentrated on technical issues and conditions related to e-learning courses and their proper functioning ( Navarro-Espinosa et al., 2021 ; Bozkurt, 2022 ; Tlili et al., 2022 ).

3. Materials and methods

Comprehensive bibliometric data on online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic were retrieved on 1 March 2022 from Scopus, a world-leading bibliographic database of peer-reviewed literature. The Scopus database was preferred because it has a broader coverage of scientific research than other databases such as Web of Science ( Falagas et al., 2008 ). This was confirmed by an initial search using the same search query in each database, revealing that Scopus provided more relevant documents than Web of Science. Moreover, compared to the Scopus database, the Web of Science has been found to be a database that significantly underrepresents the scientific disciplines of the Social Sciences and the Arts and Humanities ( Mongeon and Paul-Hus, 2016 ). Although English dominates in both Scopus and Web of Science, Scopus generally offers wider coverage of non-English documents, given that the titles, abstracts, and keywords are in English ( Vera-Baceta et al., 2019 ). According to the basic statistical theory, which can also be applied in the context of bibliometric analysis, larger samples lead to analytical outcomes that are likely to be more accurate ( Rogers et al., 2020 ). Therefore, Scopus appears to be a more relevant bibliographic database meeting the specifics of online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The search strategy was based on title, abstract, and keywords search using the advanced search engine and the search query covered keywords related to different online learning types (using the Boolean operator ‘OR’) and the COVID-19 pandemic (using the Boolean operator ‘AND’). The search was further limited to the period 2020–2022 (using the Boolean operator ‘AND’) to capture documents published between January 2020 and March 2022, when most countries were experiencing constant disruptions in the educational process imposed by repeated lockdowns. As the search query had no language restrictions, the full text of the obtained documents can be in any language, provided that the titles, abstracts, and keywords are in English. Therefore, the language has no impact on the results, as the bibliometric analysis is conducted solely based on the titles, abstracts, and keywords of the documents. According to the presented search query, 9,921 documents were obtained. After further revising the obtained documents, it was identified that some of them are not explicitly related to the context of higher education. By machine screening of documents by title, abstract, and keywords, those related to lower levels of education (i.e., primary and secondary education), as well as adult and worker education (i.e., lifelong education), were excluded from the database. There were 1,618 or 16% of such documents. The remaining 8,303 documents were identified as eligible for further bibliometric examination of online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bibliometric analysis utilized several bibliometric approaches ( Figure 1 ).

Figure 1 . Bibliometric approaches used in the bibliometric analysis. Own elaboration.

First, a descriptive overview was conducted to examine particular general bibliometric items, including timespan, number of (all, cited, single-authored) documents, authors, sources and author keywords and authors, references, and citations per document as well as to identify the most relevant documents. Scientific production was also examined to determine the most relevant countries and sources. Finally, network analysis was performed to identify the research hotspots according to the keyword co-occurrence network and examine the relationship between the main concepts based on a three-field plot analysis. The presented bibliometric approaches required the use of several different software tools. The descriptive overview was conducted using the Python Data Analysis Library Pandas ( McKinney, 2012 ), scientific production was visualized by the Python Visualization Library Matplotlib ( Hunter, 2007 ), while network analysis was performed using VOSviewer (keyword co-occurrence) ( Van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ) and the Python Visualization Library Plotly (a three-field plot) ( Pandey and Panchal, 2020 ). Specifically, the calculation for the three-field plot analysis included the following steps. Suppose that C 1 , C 2 , … , C m are analysed concepts where each concept C i is defined by a set of keywords and represented by binary indicators W i 1 , W i 2 , … , W i k i , expressed as C i = max j = 1 , … , k i W i j for i = 1 , … , m (matrix column). Using this notation, the relationship between C i and C j can be defined as C 1 T ∗ C j (matrix multiplication) where i and j are from three different sets (ICT tools, online learning approaches, fields of study).

The descriptive overview presented in Table 1 shows the main characteristics of online learning and COVID-19 research in the higher education context. This research area covers a total of 8,303 documents (of which 7,922 (95%) have the full text in English) published in 2,447 sources between January 2020 and March 2022. Slightly less than half (46%) of these documents have at least one citation, while a relatively small number (15%) were written by a single author. The average number of references per document in this research area is 31.39, which is below the general scientific area of Educational Research (44.00) ( Patience et al., 2017 ), suggesting that online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic is grounded on fewer existing studies than general research. Finally, 3.50 citations per document can be observed for this research area. Due to the potential benefits of online learning, especially when combined with the traditional learning approaches and hence the development of the blended learning environment, this research is expected to further develop and be extended in the ensuing years ( Fauzi, 2022 ). Further, upon analyzing the documents, it is evident that the average year of references is 2014.03, with an h-index of 60 (indicating at least 60 papers with 60 or more citations each) and a g-index of 94 (denoting that the top 94 publications have accumulated citations equal to or greater than the square of 94). Finally, it was found that within the examined dataset, a total of 1,334 documents (16%) have achieved a minimum of 5 citations (C5), while 691 documents (8%) have attained at least 10 citations (C10), 302 documents (4%) have obtained a minimum of 20 citations (C20), 79 documents (1%) have acquired at least 50 citations (C50), and 31 documents (0.4%) have obtained more than 100 citations (C100).

Table 1 . Descriptive overview of online learning and COVID-19 research (2020–2022).

The most relevant (top-10) highly cited documents in online learning and COVID-19 research in the context of higher education are shown in Table 2 . The overview of the most relevant documents reveals several important topics that were intensively discussed. The first most relevant topic concerns ICT. The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for higher education, especially for medical and surgical education, which requires personal attendance in clinical activities and labs. Accordingly, several innovative ICT tools (i.e., videoconferencing, social media, and telemedicine) and online learning approaches (i.e., flipped classroom or blended learning and virtual learning) were proposed to address this challenge. It is also stressed that by using appropriately established ICT solutions, online learning can lead to more sustainable education ( Adedoyin and Soykan, 2020 ; Chick et al., 2020 ; Dedeilia et al., 2020 ).

Table 2 . Most relevant documents in online learning and COVID-19 research (2020–2022).

The next top-cited topic relates to pedagogy. The disruption of education around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic required teachers to possess specific pedagogical content knowledge related to designing and organizing better learning experiences with digital technologies. At the same time, challenges for online assessment and post-pandemic pedagogy are also highlighted ( García Peñalvo et al., 2020 ; Iyer et al., 2020 ; Murphy, 2020 ; Rapanta et al., 2020 ). Finally, life and work is another of the most cited topics. Namely, the COVID-19 pandemic has considerably reshaped education and other aspects of life and work, often also through the perspective of mental health or emotional well-being ( Dwivedi et al., 2020 ; Kapasia et al., 2020 ; Aristovnik et al., 2020a ).

Furthermore, it is noteworthy that all of the highly cited documents were published in 2020. However, it is also evident that there are notable and highly relevant publications that emerged in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, there are two documents with a minimum of 100 citations published in 2021. In the COVID-19 pandemic context, Watermeyer et al. (2021) , with 148 citations, examined the implications of digital disruption in universities within the United Kingdom, highlighting the challenges and opportunities arising from the emergency shift to online learning. Meanwhile, Pokhrel and Chhetri (2021) conducted a literature review to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teaching and learning.

The scientific production across countries and sources is presented in terms of the number of documents and citations, whereby additional information is provided by a circle’s size, revealing the h-index as a measure of the scientific impact ( Harzing and Van Der Wal, 2009 ) and by its color, presenting the time dimension in scientific production. The most relevant (top-10) highly cited countries in online learning and COVID-19 research are shown in Figure 2 . While the United States of America stands out among all countries, the United Kingdom, China and India have a relatively large number of documents and citations. The findings are similar to those of other bibliometric studies on this topic ( Saqr et al., 2023 ).

Figure 2 . Most relevant countries in online learning and COVID-19 research (2020–2022). Own elaboration based on the Scopus database.

The most relevant (top-10) highly cited sources in online learning and COVID-19 research in the context of higher education are presented in Figure 3 . Despite conference proceedings being prominent in terms of the relatively high number of documents, the most prominent journals, considering the number of citations, are Journal of Chemical Education, with the highest number of citations as well as documents, followed by Sustainability, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, and Education Sciences. More specifically, the most relevant journals address different topics. First, Journal of Chemical Education covers the attempts, successes and failures of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in chemistry education. It covers various topics, including the development of at-home practical activities ( Schultz et al., 2020 ), student engagement and learning ( Perets et al., 2020 ), online assessments ( Nguyen et al., 2020 ) and virtual reality labs ( Williams et al., 2021 ). Further, Sustainability is focused on student and teacher perceptions of e-learning and related challenges ( Khan et al., 2020 ; Aristovnik et al., 2020a ) and sustainability in education during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Sobaih et al., 2020 ) to improve online learning and sustain higher education during uncertain times. Further, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health covers various topics like the health and psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic ( Sundarasen et al., 2020 ), including well-being and changes in behavior and habits. Finally, Education Sciences publishes some general research on the challenges and opportunities for online learning ( Almazova et al., 2020 ), including student and teacher experiences ( García-Alberti et al., 2021 ; Müller et al., 2021 ).

Figure 3 . Most relevant sources in online learning and COVID-19 research (2020–2022). Own elaboration based on the Scopus database.

The keyword co-occurrence network is presented in Figure 4 . Note that the nodes indicate keywords and the links the relations of co-occurrence between them. The node size is proportional to the number of keyword occurrences, showing the research intensity (node degree), while the link width is proportional to the co-occurrences between keywords (edge weight). In addition, the node color indicates the cluster to which a particular keyword belongs ( Wang et al., 2020 ; Ravšelj et al., 2022 ). The keyword co-occurrence analysis reveals five research hotspots in online learning in higher education research during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are ICT and pedagogy (red cluster), technology-enhanced education (green cluster), mental health and well-being (blue cluster), student experience (yellow cluster) and curriculum and professional development (purple cluster).

Figure 4 . Keyword co-occurrence network in online learning and COVID-19 research (2020–2022). Own elaboration based on the Scopus database.

A detailed synopsis of the research hotspots, including representative (the most frequent) keywords and documents (with several representative keywords), is presented in Table 3 . The first research hotspot highlights the relevance of ICT and pedagogy in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most representative documents looked at the quality of online learning mechanisms ( Gritsova and Tissen, 2021 ), active learning activities ( Yan et al., 2021 ) and the role of e-learning departments in controlling the quality of academic processes ( Hamdan et al., 2021 ). The second research hotspot refers to technology-enhanced education from different perspectives, such as opportunities to incorporate technological and curricular innovations ( Shapiro and Reza, 2021 ), the adoption of different virtual experiences such as telehealth and virtual learning ( Kahwash et al., 2021 ), and the utilization of social media to reach higher education students ( Leighton et al., 2021 ). The third research hotspot emphasizes the problem of mental health and well-being issues that became a prevalent topic of discussion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Namely, several studies showed an increase in depression, anxiety and stress levels among higher education students in response to the COVID-19 pandemic ( Abu Kwaik et al., 2021 ; Keskin, 2021 ; Yaghi, 2022 ). The fourth cluster is about student experience during the COVID-19 pandemic with specific focus on the between interaction and online learning satisfaction ( Bawa'aneh, 2021 ; Bismala and Manurung, 2021 ; She et al., 2021 ). The fifth research hotspot underscores the relevance of curriculum and professional development. Several studies described the ways in which courses were adapted to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the related challenges and strategies ( Chen et al., 2020 ; Gonzalez and Knecht, 2020 ; Rhile, 2020 ).

Table 3 . Research hotspots based on the author keyword co-occurrence network in online learning and COVID-19 research (2020–2022).

Finally, the three-field plot analysis of the relationship between the main concepts (i.e., ICT tools, online learning approaches, fields of study) is presented in a Sankey diagram shown in Figure 5 . The size of a rectangle corresponds to the number of documents for each theme, while the edge width reflects the inclusion index for connected themes ( Wang et al., 2020 ; Ravšelj et al., 2022 ). These three concepts have been proven to be relevant in the context of online learning. Namely, ICT tools are a precondition for delivering course content through different online learning approaches, while the choice of online learning approaches may depend on the field of study ( Ferri et al., 2020 ). During the COVID-19 pandemic, most attention was devoted to exploring e-learning (a combination of asynchronous and synchronous learning), distance learning (pre-recorded online lectures), followed by virtual learning (real-time online lectures). Since all these online learning approaches limit physical contact between teachers and students, they have been referred to as emergency remote learning approaches ( Hodges et al., 2020 ; Fauzi, 2022 ; Fuchs, 2022 ), while other online learning approaches (computer-based learning, blended learning, m-learning) do not necessarily take place in an online learning environment. The emergency remote learning approaches were primarily supported by several ICT tools, particularly by social media (e.g., Facebook), gamification/simulation and virtual reality (integration of game-like elements into online learning platforms, mobile applications, or virtual reality simulations), Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms, as well as telehealth (for educating health professionals). Regarding the fields of study, e-learning, distance learning and virtual learning were mostly addressed in the context of medical/health education, while computer-based learning (i.e., specific engineering software programs etc.) was examined in the context of engineering education. This implies that the specific requirements of a given field of study often guide the selection of the most suitable online learning approaches ( Fauzi, 2022 ).

Figure 5 . Three-field plot showing the network between ICT tools (left), online approaches (middle), and fields of study (right) (2020–2022). Own elaboration based on the Scopus database.

5. Conclusion

The presented bibliometric study provides several important insights arising from research into online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this period, a large volume of scientific knowledge was produced in the context of education that considered a range of aspects ( Saqr et al., 2023 ). Therefore, a combination of selected bibliometric approaches was utilized to extract some general comprehensive outlines of the global research. The bibliometric analysis revealed the following.

As suggested by the descriptive overview of the state of Educational Research ( Patience et al., 2017 ), the research into online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic is characterized by greater cooperation between authors, which coincides with the general observation that (international) scientific collaboration grew significantly during the pandemic ( Duan and Xia, 2021 ). Further, online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic is grounded on fewer studies than Educational Research ( Patience et al., 2017 ), which may be explained by the absence of COVID-19-related literature at the time these documents were published. Nevertheless, noting the potential benefits of online learning approaches also when the epidemiological conditions are favorable, this line of research is expected to further develop and be extended in the ensuing years ( Fauzi, 2022 ). The potential benefits refer especially to the development of a blended learning environment, which combines online and traditional learning approaches ( Rasheed et al., 2020 ). The overview of the most relevant documents revealed three topics that were intensively discussed in the academic community, i.e., ICT, pedagogy, and life and work. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance and role of reliable ICT infrastructure for ensuring effective pedagogy in the online environment, as was needed to prevent the spread of the virus and to protect public health. Apart from the devastating health consequences for those directly affected by the virus and the disrupted educational process, the COVID-19 pandemic also dramatically affected students’ social life and work ( Aristovnik et al., 2020a ). The educational community is increasingly interested in finding ways to respond to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and develop effective pedagogical practices that assure high-quality and efficient education in the online learning environment ( Zhang et al., 2022 ).

The scientific production of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic was geographically uneven. The greatest scientific production in terms of citations and number of documents can be observed in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, China and India. Besides developed English-speaking countries, emerging Asian economies also seem to have played a crucial role in online learning research. Similar findings also emerged from other bibliometric studies on this topic ( Saqr et al., 2023 ). Moreover, despite conference proceedings being prominent in terms of the relatively high number of documents, the most prominent journals, considering the number of citations, are Journal of Chemical Education, Sustainability, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and Education Sciences, indicating that online learning research at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic was primarily published in open-access journals, as already observed in other research ( Zhang et al., 2022 ).

The network analysis revealed five research hotspots in online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of higher education: (1) ICT and pedagogy, focused on the quality of online learning mechanisms ( Gritsova and Tissen, 2021 ), active learning activities ( Yan et al., 2021 ) and the role of e-learning departments in controlling the quality of academic processes ( Hamdan et al., 2021 ); technology-enhanced education concentrated on opportunities to incorporate technological and curricular innovations ( Shapiro and Reza, 2021 ), the adoption of different virtual experiences such as telehealth and virtual learning ( Kahwash et al., 2021 ), and the utilization of social media to reach higher education students ( Leighton et al., 2021 ); (2) mental health and well-being issues facing higher education students, including depression, anxiety, and stress levels ( Abu Kwaik et al., 2021 ; Keskin, 2021 ; Yaghi, 2022 ); student experience with specific focus on the between interaction and online learning satisfaction ( Bawa'aneh, 2021 ; Bismala and Manurung, 2021 ; She et al., 2021 ) and (3) curriculum and professional development, focused on the ways in which courses were adapted to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the related challenges and strategies ( Chen et al., 2020 ; Gonzalez and Knecht, 2020 ; Rhile, 2020 ).

Further, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the exploration of emergency remote learning approaches such as e-learning, distance learning and virtual learning, which are intended to limit physical contact between teachers and students. These approaches were chiefly supported by several ICT tools, including social media, gamification/simulation, virtual reality, videoconferencing platforms, and telehealth. While computer-based learning, blended learning and m-learning do not necessarily occur in an online learning environment, they may still be suitable for certain fields of study, especially in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period. This implies that the determination of which online learning approach is the most suitable is often guided by the specific requirements of a given field of study ( Fauzi, 2022 ).

Before generalizing these conclusions, it is important to note the limitations of the paper. First, the bibliometric analysis relied on documents indexed in the Scopus database, which might not cover the entire collection of research. Namely, documents that are published in journals indexed in other databases such as Web of Science, Education Research Index, Educational Resources Information Centre, etc. are not included in the analysis. However, to achieve the comparability of bibliometric metrics across documents, the bibliometric metrics are obtained from the single and, in general, broader Scopus database. Given the substantial overlap of documents across different databases of peer-reviewed literature, this limitation might not significantly affect the general observations on global research trends. Nevertheless, to check the robustness of the findings, it is still valuable to consider other bibliometric databases for future research. Second, the bibliometric analysis is conducted the bibliometric is based on a short time period (January 2020 – March 2022), which may also impact the metrics of documents published in closed-access (subscription-based) journals, placing them at a disadvantage compared to documents published in open-access journals. While it is not possible to overcome this limitation at present, conducting a bibliometric study with a longer time span would provide further time-dimensional insights. This would also be beneficial in terms of achieving better comparability between documents published in closed-access and open-access journals. Finally, despite the detailed search queries, some other relevant keywords may have been overlooked in the document search. Finally, the bibliometric method, as a method based on big data analysis, may miss certain highlights from the scientific literature that a systematic literature review would otherwise capture. Therefore it would be beneficial for future bibliometric studies also to incorporate a systematic literature review methodology, as the combined approach can provide a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on online learning in higher education.

The bibliometric study provides some possible avenues for future research. First, in future bibliometric studies, it would be beneficial to conduct in-depth analyses of the relevant contexts that have emerged as highly significant in online learning during the pandemic. These include ICT and innovation, mental health and well-being, online learning and engagement, and curriculum and professional development. Examining these contexts more comprehensively can provide valuable insights into the specific dynamics and trends within each area, contributing to a deeper understanding of the implications of online learning during the pandemic. Second, it would be beneficial to conduct separate bibliometric analyses and comparisons to examine the differences between developed and developing countries. This approach can shed light on the unique research trends, contributions, and challenges faced by each group of countries in the context of online learning during the pandemic. This can provide a more nuanced understanding of the global landscape and identify potential areas for collaboration and knowledge sharing between developed and developing countries. Finally, it would be valuable to investigate the long-term impact of rapid publishing in open-access journals on the recognition and dissemination of scholarly findings in the field of online learning in higher education during the pandemic.

From the practical perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted higher education, but at the same time, it also accelerated the use of online learning tools in the educational process. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has gradually subsided over time, online learning approaches developed during this period continue to hold relevance and value for future education. Therefore, higher education institutions should prioritize leveraging ICT tools and innovative solutions in their educational delivery, which proved effective during the pandemic. Moreover, higher education institutions should also prioritize adapting appropriate online learning approaches and curricula to align with modern realities and the corresponding fields of study. This adaptation is crucial for enhancing student engagement and ensuring that educational programs remain relevant and responsive to the evolving needs of students in various disciplines.

The findings may help not only the scientific community in detecting research gaps in online learning research during the COVID-19 pandemic but also evidence-based policymaking by assisting in identifying appropriate educational practices in emergency circumstances. Specifically, the findings may help higher education policymakers to address the underlying shortcomings of the existing educational framework exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and to design proactive mechanisms to deal effectively with such disruptions, thereby enabling them to create a more resilient and adaptable education system that can successfully navigate unforeseen challenges and ensure the continuity of quality higher education in the future.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.

Author contributions

AA contributed to the design of the study. DR and LU assisted with the data identification, cleaning, and analysis. DR and KK wrote the manuscript in consultation with AA. All authors contributed to the manuscript’s revision and read and approved the submitted version.

This research and the APC were funded by the Slovenian Research Agency under grant numbers P5-0093 and Z5-4569.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding no. P5-0093 and project no. Z5-4569). A preliminary version of the paper was presented at the International Conference on Information, Communication Technologies in Education (ICICTE) in July 2022. The authors are grateful to colleagues who attended the presentation and provided interesting comments and suggestions. Further, they wish to thank the reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: online learning, e-learning, higher education, bibliometrics, mapping, visualization, VOSviewer, COVID-19

Citation: Aristovnik A, Karampelas K, Umek L and Ravšelj D (2023) Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on online learning in higher education: a bibliometric analysis. Front. Educ . 8:1225834. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2023.1225834

Received: 19 May 2023; Accepted: 14 July 2023; Published: 03 August 2023.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Aristovnik, Karampelas, Umek and Ravšelj. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Aleksander Aristovnik, [email protected] ; Dejan Ravšelj, [email protected]

This article is part of the Research Topic

Increased Quality Education Through Cross-Campus Learning Environments

• Open access
• Published: 12 December 2023

Examining the role of community resilience and social capital on mental health in public health emergency and disaster response: a scoping review

• C. E. Hall 1 , 2 ,
• H. Wehling 1 ,
• J. Stansfield 3 ,
• J. South 3 ,
• S. K. Brooks 2 ,
• N. Greenberg 2 , 4 ,
• R. Amlôt 1 &
• D. Weston 1  

BMC Public Health volume  23 , Article number:  2482 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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The ability of the public to remain psychologically resilient in the face of public health emergencies and disasters (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) is a key factor in the effectiveness of a national response to such events. Community resilience and social capital are often perceived as beneficial and ensuring that a community is socially and psychologically resilient may aid emergency response and recovery. This review presents a synthesis of literature which answers the following research questions: How are community resilience and social capital quantified in research?; What is the impact of community resilience on mental wellbeing?; What is the impact of infectious disease outbreaks, disasters and emergencies on community resilience and social capital?; and, What types of interventions enhance community resilience and social capital?

A scoping review procedure was followed. Searches were run across Medline, PsycInfo, and EMBASE, with search terms covering both community resilience and social capital, public health emergencies, and mental health. 26 papers met the inclusion criteria.

The majority of retained papers originated in the USA, used a survey methodology to collect data, and involved a natural disaster. There was no common method for measuring community resilience or social capital. The association between community resilience and social capital with mental health was regarded as positive in most cases. However, we found that community resilience, and social capital, were initially negatively impacted by public health emergencies and enhanced by social group activities.

Several key recommendations are proposed based on the outcomes from the review, which include: the need for a standardised and validated approach to measuring both community resilience and social capital; that there should be enhanced effort to improve preparedness to public health emergencies in communities by gauging current levels of community resilience and social capital; that community resilience and social capital should be bolstered if areas are at risk of disasters or public health emergencies; the need to ensure that suitable short-term support is provided to communities with high resilience in the immediate aftermath of a public health emergency or disaster; the importance of conducting robust evaluation of community resilience initiatives deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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For the general population, public health emergencies and disasters (e.g., natural disasters; infectious disease outbreaks; Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear incidents) can give rise to a plethora of negative outcomes relating to both health (e.g. increased mental health problems [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]) and the economy (e.g., increased unemployment and decreased levels of tourism [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]). COVID-19 is a current, and ongoing, example of a public health emergency which has affected over 421 million individuals worldwide [ 7 ]. The long term implications of COVID-19 are not yet known, but there are likely to be repercussions for physical health, mental health, and other non-health related outcomes for a substantial time to come [ 8 , 9 ]. As a result, it is critical to establish methods which may inform approaches to alleviate the longer-term negative consequences that are likely to emerge in the aftermath of both COVID-19 and any future public health emergency.

The definition of resilience often differs within the literature, but ultimately resilience is considered a dynamic process of adaptation. It is related to processes and capabilities at the individual, community and system level that result in good health and social outcomes, in spite of negative events, serious threats and hazards [ 10 ]. Furthermore, Ziglio [ 10 ] refers to four key types of resilience capacity: adaptive, the ability to withstand and adjust to unfavourable conditions and shocks; absorptive, the ability to withstand but also to recover and manage using available assets and skills; anticipatory, the ability to predict and minimize vulnerability; and transformative, transformative change so that systems better cope with new conditions.

There is no one settled definition of community resilience (CR). However, it generally relates to the ability of a community to withstand, adapt and permit growth in adverse circumstances due to social structures, networks and interdependencies within the community [ 11 ]. Social capital (SC) is considered a major determinant of CR [ 12 , 13 ], and reflects strength of a social network, community reciprocity, and trust in people and institutions [ 14 ]. These aspects of community are usually conceptualised primarily as protective factors that enable communities to cope and adapt collectively to threats. SC is often broken down into further categories [ 15 ], for example: cognitive SC (i.e. perceptions of community relations, such as trust, mutual help and attachment) and structural SC (i.e. what actually happens within the community, such as participation, socialising) [ 16 ]; or, bonding SC (i.e. connections among individuals who are emotionally close, and result in bonds to a particular group [ 17 ]) and bridging SC (i.e. acquaintances or individuals loosely connected that span different social groups [ 18 ]). Generally, CR is perceived to be primarily beneficial for multiple reasons (e.g. increased social support [ 18 , 19 ], protection of mental health [ 20 , 21 ]), and strengthening community resilience is a stated health goal of the World Health Organisation [ 22 ] when aiming to alleviate health inequalities and protect wellbeing. This is also reflected by organisations such as Public Health England (now split into the UK Health Security Agency and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities) [ 23 ] and more recently, CR has been targeted through the endorsement of Community Champions (who are volunteers trained to support and to help improve health and wellbeing. Community Champions also reflect their local communities in terms of population demographics for example age, ethnicity and gender) as part of the COVID-19 response in the UK (e.g. [ 24 , 25 ]).

Despite the vested interest in bolstering communities, the research base establishing: how to understand and measure CR and SC; the effect of CR and SC, both during and following a public health emergency (such as the COVID-19 pandemic); and which types of CR or SC are the most effective to engage, is relatively small. Given the importance of ensuring resilience against, and swift recovery from, public health emergencies, it is critically important to establish and understand the evidence base for these approaches. As a result, the current review sought to answer the following research questions: (1) How are CR and SC quantified in research?; (2) What is the impact of community resilience on mental wellbeing?; (3) What is the impact of infectious disease outbreaks, disasters and emergencies on community resilience and social capital?; and, (4) What types of interventions enhance community resilience and social capital?

By collating research in order to answer these research questions, the authors have been able to propose several key recommendations that could be used to both enhance and evaluate CR and SC effectively to facilitate the long-term recovery from COVID-19, and also to inform the use of CR and SC in any future public health disasters and emergencies.

A scoping review methodology was followed due to the ease of summarising literature on a given topic for policy makers and practitioners [ 26 ], and is detailed in the following sections.

Identification of relevant studies

An initial search strategy was developed by authors CH and DW and included terms which related to: CR and SC, given the absence of a consistent definition of CR, and the link between CR and SC, the review focuses on both CR and SC to identify as much relevant literature as possible (adapted for purpose from Annex 1: [ 27 ], as well as through consultation with review commissioners); public health emergencies and disasters [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ], and psychological wellbeing and recovery (derived a priori from literature). To ensure a focus on both public health and psychological research, the final search was carried across Medline, PsycInfo, and EMBASE using OVID. The final search took place on the 18th of May 2020, the search strategy used for all three databases can be found in Supplementary file 1 .

Selection criteria

The inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed alongside the search strategy. Initially the criteria were relatively inclusive and were subject to iterative development to reflect the authors’ familiarisation with the literature. For example, the decision was taken to exclude research which focused exclusively on social support and did not mention communities as an initial title/abstract search suggested that the majority of this literature did not meet the requirements of our research question.

The full and final inclusion and exclusion criteria used can be found in Supplementary file 2 . In summary, authors decided to focus on the general population (i.e., non-specialist, e.g. non-healthcare worker or government official) to allow the review to remain community focused. The research must also have assessed the impact of CR and/or SC on mental health and wellbeing, resilience, and recovery during and following public health emergencies and infectious disease outbreaks which affect communities (to ensure the research is relevant to the review aims), have conducted primary research, and have a full text available or provided by the first author when contacted.

Charting the data

All papers were first title and abstract screened by CH or DW. Papers then were full text reviewed by CH to ensure each paper met the required eligibility criteria, if unsure about a paper it was also full text reviewed by DW. All papers that were retained post full-text review were subjected to a standardised data extraction procedure. A table was made for the purpose of extracting the following data: title, authors, origin, year of publication, study design, aim, disaster type, sample size and characteristics, variables examined, results, restrictions/limitations, and recommendations. Supplementary file 3 details the charting the data process.

Analytical method

Data was synthesised using a Framework approach [ 32 ], a common method for analysing qualitative research. This method was chosen as it was originally used for large-scale social policy research [ 33 ] as it seeks to identify: what works, for whom, in what conditions, and why [ 34 ]. This approach is also useful for identifying commonalities and differences in qualitative data and potential relationships between different parts of the data [ 33 ]. An a priori framework was established by CH and DW. Extracted data was synthesised in relation to each research question, and the process was iterative to ensure maximum saturation using the available data.

Study selection

The final search strategy yielded 3584 records. Following the removal of duplicates, 2191 records remained and were included in title and abstract screening. A PRISMA flow diagram is presented in Fig.  1 .

PRISMA flow diagram

At the title and abstract screening stage, the process became more iterative as the inclusion criteria were developed and refined. For the first iteration of screening, CH or DW sorted all records into ‘include,’ ‘exclude,’ and ‘unsure’. All ‘unsure’ papers were re-assessed by CH, and a random selection of ~ 20% of these were also assessed by DW. Where there was disagreement between authors the records were retained, and full text screened. The remaining papers were reviewed by CH, and all records were categorised into ‘include’ and ‘exclude’. Following full-text screening, 26 papers were retained for use in the review.

Study characteristics

This section of the review addresses study characteristics of those which met the inclusion criteria, which comprises: date of publication, country of origin, study design, study location, disaster, and variables examined.

Date of publication

Publication dates across the 26 papers spanned from 2008 to 2020 (see Fig.  2 ). The number of papers published was relatively low and consistent across this timescale (i.e. 1–2 per year, except 2010 and 2013 when none were published) up until 2017 where the number of papers peaked at 5. From 2017 to 2020 there were 15 papers published in total. The amount of papers published in recent years suggests a shift in research and interest towards CR and SC in a disaster/ public health emergency context.

Graph to show retained papers date of publication

Country of origin

The locations of the first authors’ institutes at the time of publication were extracted to provide a geographical spread of the retained papers. The majority originated from the USA [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ], followed by China [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ], Japan [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], Australia [ 51 , 52 , 53 ], The Netherlands [ 54 , 55 ], New Zealand [ 56 ], Peru [ 57 ], Iran [ 58 ], Austria [ 59 ], and Croatia [ 60 ].

There were multiple methodological approaches carried out across retained papers. The most common formats included surveys or questionnaires [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 42 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 57 , 59 ], followed by interviews [ 39 , 40 , 43 , 51 , 52 , 60 ]. Four papers used both surveys and interviews [ 35 , 41 , 45 , 58 ], and two papers conducted data analysis (one using open access data from a Social Survey [ 44 ] and one using a Primary Health Organisations Register [ 56 ]).

Study location

The majority of the studies were carried out in Japan [ 36 , 42 , 44 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], followed by the USA [ 35 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ], China [ 43 , 45 , 46 , 53 ], Australia [ 51 , 52 ], and the UK [ 54 , 55 ]. The remaining studies were carried out in Croatia [ 60 ], Peru [ 57 ], Austria [ 59 ], New Zealand [ 56 ] and Iran [ 58 ].

Multiple different types of disaster were researched across the retained papers. Earthquakes were the most common type of disaster examined [ 45 , 47 , 49 , 50 , 53 , 56 , 57 , 58 ], followed by research which assessed the impact of two disastrous events which had happened in the same area (e.g. Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Mississippi, and the Great East Japan earthquake and Tsunami; [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 42 , 44 , 48 ]). Other disaster types included: flooding [ 51 , 54 , 55 , 59 , 60 ], hurricanes [ 35 , 39 , 41 ], infectious disease outbreaks [ 43 , 46 ], oil spillage [ 40 ], and drought [ 52 ].

Variables of interest examined

Across the 26 retained papers: eight referred to examining the impact of SC [ 35 , 37 , 39 , 41 , 46 , 49 , 55 , 60 ]; eight examined the impact of cognitive and structural SC as separate entities [ 40 , 42 , 45 , 48 , 50 , 54 , 57 , 59 ]; one examined bridging and bonding SC as separate entities [ 58 ]; two examined the impact of CR [ 38 , 56 ]; and two employed a qualitative methodology but drew findings in relation to bonding and bridging SC, and SC generally [ 51 , 52 ]. Additionally, five papers examined the impact of the following variables: ‘community social cohesion’ [ 36 ], ‘neighbourhood connectedness’ [ 44 ], ‘social support at the community level’ [ 47 ], ‘community connectedness’ [ 43 ] and ‘sense of community’ [ 53 ]. Table  1 provides additional details on this.

How is CR and SC measured or quantified in research?

The measures used to examine CR and SC are presented Table  1 . It is apparent that there is no uniformity in how SC or CR is measured across the research. Multiple measures are used throughout the retained studies, and nearly all are unique. Additionally, SC was examined at multiple different levels (e.g. cognitive and structural, bonding and bridging), and in multiple different forms (e.g. community connectedness, community cohesion).

What is the association between CR and SC on mental wellbeing?

To best compare research, the following section reports on CR, and facets of SC separately. Please see Supplementary file 4  for additional information on retained papers methods of measuring mental wellbeing.

• Community resilience

CR relates to the ability of a community to withstand, adapt and permit growth in adverse circumstances due to social structures, networks and interdependencies within the community [ 11 ].

The impact of CR on mental wellbeing was consistently positive. For example, research indicated that there was a positive association between CR and number of common mental health (i.e. anxiety and mood) treatments post-disaster [ 56 ]. Similarly, other research suggests that CR is positively related to psychological resilience, which is inversely related to depressive symptoms) [ 37 ]. The same research also concluded that CR is protective of psychological resilience and is therefore protective of depressive symptoms [ 37 ].

• Social capital

SC reflects the strength of a social network, community reciprocity, and trust in people and institutions [ 14 ]. These aspects of community are usually conceptualised primarily as protective factors that enable communities to cope and adapt collectively to threats.

There were inconsistencies across research which examined the impact of abstract SC (i.e. not refined into bonding/bridging or structural/cognitive) on mental wellbeing. However, for the majority of cases, research deems SC to be beneficial. For example, research has concluded that, SC is protective against post-traumatic stress disorder [ 55 ], anxiety [ 46 ], psychological distress [ 50 ], and stress [ 46 ]. Additionally, SC has been found to facilitate post-traumatic growth [ 38 ], and also to be useful to be drawn upon in times of stress [ 52 ], both of which could be protective of mental health. Similarly, research has also found that emotional recovery following a disaster is more difficult for those who report to have low levels of SC [ 51 ].

Conversely, however, research has also concluded that when other situational factors (e.g. personal resources) were controlled for, a positive relationship between community resources and life satisfaction was no longer significant [ 60 ]. Furthermore, some research has concluded that a high level of SC can result in a community facing greater stress immediately post disaster. Indeed, one retained paper found that high levels of SC correlate with higher levels of post-traumatic stress immediately following a disaster [ 39 ]. However, in the later stages following a disaster, this relationship can reverse, with SC subsequently providing an aid to recovery [ 41 ]. By way of explanation, some researchers have suggested that communities with stronger SC carry the greatest load in terms of helping others (i.e. family, friends and neighbours) as well as themselves immediately following the disaster, but then as time passes the communities recover at a faster rate as they are able to rely on their social networks for support [ 41 ].

Cognitive and structural social capital

Cognitive SC refers to perceptions of community relations, such as trust, mutual help and attachment, and structural SC refers to what actually happens within the community, such as participation, socialising [ 16 ].

Cognitive SC has been found to be protective [ 49 ] against PTSD [ 54 , 57 ], depression [ 40 , 54 ]) mild mood disorder; [ 48 ]), anxiety [ 48 , 54 ] and increase self-efficacy [ 59 ].

For structural SC, research is again inconsistent. On the one hand, structural SC has been found to: increase perceived self-efficacy, be protective of depression [ 40 ], buffer the impact of housing damage on cognitive decline [ 42 ] and provide support during disasters and over the recovery period [ 59 ]. However, on the other hand, it has been found to have no association with PTSD [ 54 , 57 ] or depression, and is also associated with a higher prevalence of anxiety [ 54 ]. Similarly, it is also suggested by additional research that structural SC can harm women’s mental health, either due to the pressure of expectations to help and support others or feelings of isolation [ 49 ].

Bonding and bridging social capital

Bonding SC refers to connections among individuals who are emotionally close, and result in bonds to a particular group [ 17 ], and bridging SC refers to acquaintances or individuals loosely connected that span different social groups [ 18 ].

One research study concluded that both bonding and bridging SC were protective against post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms [ 58 ]. Bridging capital was deemed to be around twice as effective in buffering against post-traumatic stress disorder than bonding SC [ 58 ].

Other community variables

Community social cohesion was significantly associated with a lower risk of post-traumatic stress disorder symptom development [ 35 ], and this was apparent even whilst controlling for depressive symptoms at baseline and disaster impact variables (e.g. loss of family member or housing damage) [ 36 ]. Similarly, sense of community, community connectedness, social support at the community level and neighbourhood connectedness all provided protective benefits for a range of mental health, wellbeing and recovery variables, including: depression [ 53 ], subjective wellbeing (in older adults only) [ 43 ], psychological distress [ 47 ], happiness [ 44 ] and life satisfaction [ 53 ].

Research has also concluded that community level social support is protective against mild mood and anxiety disorder, but only for individuals who have had no previous disaster experience [ 48 ]. Additionally, a study which separated SC into social cohesion and social participation concluded that at a community level, social cohesion is protective against depression [ 49 ] whereas social participation at community level is associated with an increased risk of depression amongst women [ 49 ].

What is the impact of Infectious disease outbreaks / disasters and emergencies on community resilience?

From a cross-sectional perspective, research has indicated that disasters and emergencies can have a negative effect on certain types of SC. Specifically, cognitive SC has been found to be impacted by disaster impact, whereas structural SC has gone unaffected [ 45 ]. Disaster impact has also been shown to have a negative effect on community relationships more generally [ 52 ].

Additionally, of the eight studies which collected data at multiple time points [ 35 , 36 , 41 , 42 , 47 , 49 , 56 , 60 ], three reported the effect of a disaster on the level of SC within a community [ 40 , 42 , 49 ]. All three of these studies concluded that disasters may have a negative impact on the levels of SC within a community. The first study found that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had a negative effect on SC and social support, and this in turn explained an overall increase in the levels of depression within the community [ 40 ]. A possible explanation for the negative effect lays in ‘corrosive communities’, known for increased social conflict and reduced social support, that are sometimes created following oil spills [ 40 ]. It is proposed that corrosive communities often emerge due to a loss of natural resources that bring social groups together (e.g., for recreational activities), as well as social disparity (e.g., due to unequal distribution of economic impact) becoming apparent in the community following disaster [ 40 ]. The second study found that SC (in the form of social cohesion, informal socialising and social participation) decreased after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan; it was suggested that this change correlated with incidence of cognitive decline [ 42 ]. However, the third study reported more mixed effects based on physical circumstances of the communities’ natural environment: Following an earthquake, those who lived in mountainous areas with an initial high level of pre-community SC saw a decrease in SC post disaster [ 49 ]. However, communities in flat areas (which were home to younger residents and had a higher population density) saw an increase in SC [ 49 ]. It was proposed that this difference could be due to the need for those who lived in mountainous areas to seek prolonged refuge due to subsequent landslides [ 49 ].

What types of intervention enhance CR and SC and protect survivors?

There were mixed effects across the 26 retained papers when examining the effect of CR and SC on mental wellbeing. However, there is evidence that an increase in SC [ 56 , 57 ], with a focus on cognitive SC [ 57 ], namely by: building social networks [ 45 , 51 , 53 ], enhancing feelings of social cohesion [ 35 , 36 ] and promoting a sense of community [ 53 ], can result in an increase in CR and potentially protect survivors’ wellbeing and mental health following a disaster. An increase in SC may also aid in decreasing the need for individual psychological interventions in the aftermath of a disaster [ 55 ]. As a result, recommendations and suggested methods to bolster CR and SC from the retained papers have been extracted and separated into general methods, preparedness and policy level implementation.

General methods

Suggested methods to build SC included organising recreational activity-based groups [ 44 ] to broaden [ 51 , 53 ] and preserve current social networks [ 42 ], introducing initiatives to increase social cohesion and trust [ 51 ], and volunteering to increase the number of social ties between residents [ 59 ]. Research also notes that it is important to take a ‘no one left behind approach’ when organising recreational and social community events, as failure to do so could induce feelings of isolation for some members of the community [ 49 ]. Furthermore, gender differences should also be considered as research indicates that males and females may react differently to community level SC (as evidence suggests males are instead more impacted by individual level SC; in comparison to women who have larger and more diverse social networks [ 49 ]). Therefore, interventions which aim to raise community level social participation, with the aim of expanding social connections and gaining support, may be beneficial [ 42 , 47 ].

Preparedness

In order to prepare for disasters, it may be beneficial to introduce community-targeted methods or interventions to increase levels of SC and CR as these may aid in ameliorating the consequences of a public health emergency or disaster [ 57 ]. To indicate which communities have low levels of SC, one study suggests implementing a 3-item scale of social cohesion to map areas and target interventions [ 42 ].

It is important to consider that communities with a high level of SC may have a lower level of risk perception, due to the established connections and supportive network they have with those around them [ 61 ]. However, for the purpose of preparedness, this is not ideal as perception of risk is a key factor when seeking to encourage behavioural adherence. This could be overcome by introducing communication strategies which emphasise the necessity of social support, but also highlights the need for additional measures to reduce residual risk [ 59 ]. Furthermore, support in the form of financial assistance to foster current community initiatives may prove beneficial to rural areas, for example through the use of an asset-based community development framework [ 52 ].

Policy level

At a policy level, the included papers suggest a range of ways that CR and SC could be bolstered and used. These include: providing financial support for community initiatives and collective coping strategies, (e.g. using asset-based community development [ 52 ]); ensuring policies for long-term recovery focus on community sustainable development (e.g. community festival and community centre activities) [ 44 ]; and development of a network amongst cooperative corporations formed for reconstruction and to organise self-help recovery sessions among residents of adjacent areas [ 58 ].

This scoping review sought to synthesise literature concerning the role of SC and CR during public health emergencies and disasters. Specifically, in this review we have examined: the methods used to measure CR and SC; the impact of CR and SC on mental wellbeing during disasters and emergencies; the impact of disasters and emergencies on CR and SC; and the types of interventions which can be used to enhance CR. To do this, data was extracted from 26 peer-reviewed journal articles. From this synthesis, several key themes have been identified, which can be used to develop guidelines and recommendations for deploying CR and SC in a public health emergency or disaster context. These key themes and resulting recommendations are summarised below.

Firstly, this review established that there is no consistent or standardised approach to measuring CR or SC within the general population. This finding is consistent with a review conducted by the World Health Organization which concludes that despite there being a number of frameworks that contain indicators across different determinants of health, there is a lack of consensus on priority areas for measurement and no widely accepted indicator [ 27 ]. As a result, there are many measures of CR and SC apparent within the literature (e.g., [ 62 , 63 ]), an example of a developed and validated measure is provided by Sherrieb, Norris and Galea [ 64 ]. Similarly, the definitions of CR and SC differ widely between researchers, which created a barrier to comparing and summarising information. Therefore, future research could seek to compare various interpretations of CR and to identify any overlapping concepts. However, a previous systemic review conducted by Patel et al. (2017) concludes that there are nine core elements of CR (local knowledge, community networks and relationships, communication, health, governance and leadership, resources, economic investment, preparedness, and mental outlook), with 19 further sub-elements therein [ 30 ]. Therefore, as CR is a multi-dimensional construct, the implications from the findings are that multiple aspects of social infrastructure may need to be considered.

Secondly, our synthesis of research concerning the role of CR and SC for ensuring mental health and wellbeing during, or following, a public health emergency or disaster revealed mixed effects. Much of the research indicates either a generally protective effect on mental health and wellbeing, or no effect; however, the literature demonstrates some potential for a high level of CR/SC to backfire and result in a negative effect for populations during, or following, a public health emergency or disaster. Considered together, our synthesis indicates that cognitive SC is the only facet of SC which was perceived as universally protective across all retained papers. This is consistent with a systematic review which also concludes that: (a) community level cognitive SC is associated with a lower risk of common mental disorders, while; (b) community level structural SC had inconsistent effects [ 65 ].

Further examination of additional data extracted from studies which found that CR/SC had a negative effect on mental health and wellbeing revealed no commonalities that might explain these effects (Please see Supplementary file 5 for additional information)

One potential explanation may come from a retained paper which found that high levels of SC result in an increase in stress level immediately post disaster [ 41 ]. This was suggested to be due to individuals having greater burdens due to wishing to help and support their wide networks as well as themselves. However, as time passes the levels of SC allow the community to come together and recover at a faster rate [ 41 ]. As this was the only retained paper which produced this finding, it would be beneficial for future research to examine boundary conditions for the positive effects of CR/SC; that is, to explore circumstances under which CR/SC may be more likely to put communities at greater risk. This further research should also include additional longitudinal research to validate the conclusions drawn by [ 41 ] as resilience is a dynamic process of adaption.

Thirdly, disasters and emergencies were generally found to have a negative effect on levels of SC. One retained paper found a mixed effect of SC in relation to an earthquake, however this paper separated participants by area in which they lived (i.e., mountainous vs. flat), which explains this inconsistent effect [ 49 ]. Dangerous areas (i.e. mountainous) saw a decrease in community SC in comparison to safer areas following the earthquake (an effect the authors attributed to the need to seek prolonged refuge), whereas participants from the safer areas (which are home to younger residents with a higher population density) saw an increase in SC [ 49 ]. This is consistent with the idea that being able to participate socially is a key element of SC [ 12 ]. Overall, however, this was the only retained paper which produced a variable finding in relation to the effect of disaster on levels of CR/SC.

Finally, research identified through our synthesis promotes the idea of bolstering SC (particularly cognitive SC) and cohesion in communities likely to be affected by disaster to improve levels of CR. This finding provides further understanding of the relationship between CR and SC; an association that has been reported in various articles seeking to provide conceptual frameworks (e.g., [ 66 , 67 ]) as well as indicator/measurement frameworks [ 27 ]. Therefore, this could be done by creating and promoting initiatives which foster SC and create bonds within the community. Papers included in the current review suggest that recreational-based activity groups and volunteering are potential methods for fostering SC and creating community bonds [ 44 , 51 , 59 ]. Similarly, further research demonstrates that feelings of social cohesion are enhanced by general social activities (e.g. fairs and parades [ 18 ]). Also, actively encouraging activities, programs and interventions which enhance connectedness and SC have been reported to be desirable to increase CR [ 68 ]. This suggestion is supported by a recent scoping review of literature [ 67 ] examined community champion approaches for the COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery and established that creating and promoting SC focused initiatives within the community during pandemic response is highly beneficial [ 67 ]. In terms of preparedness, research states that it may be beneficial for levels of SC and CR in communities at risk to be assessed, to allow targeted interventions where the population may be at most risk following an incident [ 42 , 44 ]. Additionally, from a more critical perspective, we acknowledge that ‘resilience’ can often be perceived as a focus on individual capacity to adapt to adversity rather than changing or mitigating the causes of adverse conditions [ 69 , 70 ]. Therefore, CR requires an integrated system approach across individual, community and structural levels [ 17 ]. Also, it is important that community members are engaged in defining and agreeing how community resilience is measured [ 27 ] rather than it being imposed by system leads or decision-makers.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, is it expected that there will be long-term repercussions both from an economic [ 8 ] and a mental health perspective [ 71 ]. Furthermore, the findings from this review suggest that although those in areas with high levels of SC may be negatively affected in the acute stage, as time passes, they have potential to rebound at a faster rate than those with lower levels of SC. Ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of current initiatives as the COVID-19 pandemic progresses into a recovery phase will be invaluable for supplementing the evidence base identified through this review.

• Recommendations

As a result of this review, a number of recommendations are suggested for policy and practice during public health emergencies and recovery.

Future research should seek to establish a standardised and validated approach to measuring and defining CR and SC within communities. There are ongoing efforts in this area, for example [ 72 ]. Additionally, community members should be involved in the process of defining how CR is measured.

There should be an enhanced effort to improve preparedness for public health emergencies and disasters in local communities by gauging current levels of SC and CR within communities using a standardised measure. This approach could support specific targeting of populations with low levels of CR/SC in case of a disaster or public health emergency, whilst also allowing for consideration of support for those with high levels of CR (as these populations can be heavily impacted initially following a disaster). By distinguishing levels of SC and CR, tailored community-centred approaches could be implemented, such as those listed in a guide released by PHE in 2015 [ 73 ].

CR and SC (specifically cognitive SC) should be bolstered if communities are at risk of experiencing a disaster or public health emergency. This can be achieved by using interventions which aim to increase a sense of community and create new social ties (e.g., recreational group activities, volunteering). Additionally, when aiming to achieve this, it is important to be mindful of the risk of increased levels of CR/SC to backfire, as well as seeking to advocate an integrated system approach across individual, community and structural levels.

It is necessary to be aware that although communities with high existing levels of resilience / SC may experience short-term negative consequences following a disaster, over time these communities might be able to recover at a faster rate. It is therefore important to ensure that suitable short-term support is provided to these communities in the immediate aftermath of a public health emergency or disaster.

Robust evaluation of the community resilience initiatives deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic response is essential to inform the evidence base concerning the effectiveness of CR/ SC. These evaluations should continue through the response phase and into the recovery phase to help develop our understanding of the long-term consequences of such interventions.

Limitations

Despite this review being the first in this specific topic area, there are limitations that must be considered. Firstly, it is necessary to note that communities are generally highly diverse and the term ‘community’ in academic literature is a subject of much debate (see: [ 74 ]), therefore this must be considered when comparing and collating research involving communities. Additionally, the measures of CR and SC differ substantially across research, including across the 26 retained papers used in the current review. This makes the act of comparing and collating research findings very difficult. This issue is highlighted as a key outcome from this review, and suggestions for how to overcome this in future research are provided. Additionally, we acknowledge that there will be a relationship between CR & SC even where studies measure only at individual or community level. A review [ 75 ] on articulating a hypothesis of the link to health inequalities suggests that wider structural determinants of health need to be accounted for. Secondly, despite the final search strategy encompassing terms for both CR and SC, only one retained paper directly measured CR; thus, making the research findings more relevant to SC. Future research could seek to focus on CR to allow for a comparison of findings. Thirdly, the review was conducted early in the COVID-19 pandemic and so does not include more recent publications focusing on resilience specifically in the context of COVID-19. Regardless of this fact, the synthesis of, and recommendations drawn from, the reviewed studies are agnostic to time and specific incident and contain critical elements necessary to address as the pandemic moves from response to recovery. Further research should review the effectiveness of specific interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic for collation in a subsequent update to this current paper. Fourthly, the current review synthesises findings from countries with individualistic and collectivistic cultures, which may account for some variation in the findings. Lastly, despite choosing a scoping review method for ease of synthesising a wide literature base for use by public health emergency researchers in a relatively tight timeframe, there are disadvantages of a scoping review approach to consider: (1) quality appraisal of retained studies was not carried out; (2) due to the broad nature of a scoping review, more refined and targeted reviews of literature (e.g., systematic reviews) may be able to provide more detailed research outcomes. Therefore, future research should seek to use alternative methods (e.g., empirical research, systematic reviews of literature) to add to the evidence base on CR and SC impact and use in public health practice.

This review sought to establish: (1) How CR and SC are quantified in research?; (2) The impact of community resilience on mental wellbeing?; (3) The impact of infectious disease outbreaks, disasters and emergencies on community resilience and social capital?; and, (4) What types of interventions enhance community resilience and social capital?. The chosen search strategy yielded 26 relevant papers from which we were able extract information relating to the aims of this review.

Results from the review revealed that CR and SC are not measured consistently across research. The impact of CR / SC on mental health and wellbeing during emergencies and disasters is mixed (with some potential for backlash), however the literature does identify cognitive SC as particularly protective. Although only a small number of papers compared CR or SC before and after a disaster, the findings were relatively consistent: SC or CR is negatively impacted by a disaster. Methods suggested to bolster SC in communities were centred around social activities, such as recreational group activities and volunteering. Recommendations for both research and practice (with a particular focus on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic) are also presented.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Social Capital

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This study was supported by the National Institute for Health Research Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Emergency Preparedness and Response, a partnership between Public Health England, King’s College London and the University of East Anglia. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR, Public Health England, the UK Health Security Agency or the Department of Health and Social Care [Grant number: NIHR20008900]. Part of this work has been funded by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Department of Health and Social Care, as part of a Collaborative Agreement with Leeds Beckett University.

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Hall, C.E., Wehling, H., Stansfield, J. et al. Examining the role of community resilience and social capital on mental health in public health emergency and disaster response: a scoping review. BMC Public Health 23 , 2482 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-17242-x

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• COVID-19 and your mental health

Worries and anxiety about COVID-19 can be overwhelming. Learn ways to cope as COVID-19 spreads.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, life for many people changed very quickly. Worry and concern were natural partners of all that change — getting used to new routines, loneliness and financial pressure, among other issues. Information overload, rumor and misinformation didn't help.

Worldwide surveys done in 2020 and 2021 found higher than typical levels of stress, insomnia, anxiety and depression. By 2022, levels had lowered but were still higher than before 2020.

Though feelings of distress about COVID-19 may come and go, they are still an issue for many people. You aren't alone if you feel distress due to COVID-19. And you're not alone if you've coped with the stress in less than healthy ways, such as substance use.

But healthier self-care choices can help you cope with COVID-19 or any other challenge you may face.

And knowing when to get help can be the most essential self-care action of all.

Recognize what's typical and what's not

Stress and worry are common during a crisis. But something like the COVID-19 pandemic can push people beyond their ability to cope.

In surveys, the most common symptoms reported were trouble sleeping and feeling anxiety or nervous. The number of people noting those symptoms went up and down in surveys given over time. Depression and loneliness were less common than nervousness or sleep problems, but more consistent across surveys given over time. Among adults, use of drugs, alcohol and other intoxicating substances has increased over time as well.

The first step is to notice how often you feel helpless, sad, angry, irritable, hopeless, anxious or afraid. Some people may feel numb.

Keep track of how often you have trouble focusing on daily tasks or doing routine chores. Are there things that you used to enjoy doing that you stopped doing because of how you feel? Note any big changes in appetite, any substance use, body aches and pains, and problems with sleep.

These feelings may come and go over time. But if these feelings don't go away or make it hard to do your daily tasks, it's time to ask for help.

Get help when you need it

If you're feeling suicidal or thinking of hurting yourself, seek help.

• Contact your healthcare professional or a mental health professional.
• Contact a suicide hotline. In the U.S., call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline , available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Or use the Lifeline Chat . Services are free and confidential.

If you are worried about yourself or someone else, contact your healthcare professional or mental health professional. Some may be able to see you in person or talk over the phone or online.

You also can reach out to a friend or loved one. Someone in your faith community also could help.

And you may be able to get counseling or a mental health appointment through an employer's employee assistance program.

Another option is information and treatment options from groups such as:

• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
• Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Self-care tips

Some people may use unhealthy ways to cope with anxiety around COVID-19. These unhealthy choices may include things such as misuse of medicines or legal drugs and use of illegal drugs. Unhealthy coping choices also can be things such as sleeping too much or too little, or overeating. It also can include avoiding other people and focusing on only one soothing thing, such as work, television or gaming.

Unhealthy coping methods can worsen mental and physical health. And that is particularly true if you're trying to manage or recover from COVID-19.

Self-care actions can help you restore a healthy balance in your life. They can lessen everyday stress or significant anxiety linked to events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-care actions give your body and mind a chance to heal from the problems long-term stress can cause.

Take care of your body

Healthy self-care tips start with the basics. Give your body what it needs and avoid what it doesn't need. Some tips are:

• Get the right amount of sleep for you. A regular sleep schedule, when you go to bed and get up at similar times each day, can help avoid sleep problems.
• Move your body. Regular physical activity and exercise can help reduce anxiety and improve mood. Any activity you can do regularly is a good choice. That may be a scheduled workout, a walk or even dancing to your favorite music.
• Choose healthy food and drinks. Foods that are high in nutrients, such as protein, vitamins and minerals are healthy choices. Avoid food or drink with added sugar, fat or salt.
• Avoid tobacco, alcohol and drugs. If you smoke tobacco or if you vape, you're already at higher risk of lung disease. Because COVID-19 affects the lungs, your risk increases even more. Using alcohol to manage how you feel can make matters worse and reduce your coping skills. Avoid taking illegal drugs or misusing prescriptions to manage your feelings.

Take care of your mind

Healthy coping actions for your brain start with deciding how much news and social media is right for you. Staying informed, especially during a pandemic, helps you make the best choices but do it carefully.

Set aside a specific amount of time to find information in the news or on social media, stay limited to that time, and choose reliable sources. For example, give yourself up to 20 or 30 minutes a day of news and social media. That amount keeps people informed but not overwhelmed.

For COVID-19, consider reliable health sources. Examples are the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Other healthy self-care tips are:

• Relax and recharge. Many people benefit from relaxation exercises such as mindfulness, deep breathing, meditation and yoga. Find an activity that helps you relax and try to do it every day at least for a short time. Fitting time in for hobbies or activities you enjoy can help manage feelings of stress too.
• Stick to your health routine. If you see a healthcare professional for mental health services, keep up with your appointments. And stay up to date with all your wellness tests and screenings.
• Stay in touch and connect with others. Family, friends and your community are part of a healthy mental outlook. Together, you form a healthy support network for concerns or challenges. Social interactions, over time, are linked to a healthier and longer life.

Avoid stigma and discrimination

Stigma can make people feel isolated and even abandoned. They may feel sad, hurt and angry when people in their community avoid them for fear of getting COVID-19. People who have experienced stigma related to COVID-19 include people of Asian descent, health care workers and people with COVID-19.

Treating people differently because of their medical condition, called medical discrimination, isn't new to the COVID-19 pandemic. Stigma has long been a problem for people with various conditions such as Hansen's disease (leprosy), HIV, diabetes and many mental illnesses.

People who experience stigma may be left out or shunned, treated differently, or denied job and school options. They also may be targets of verbal, emotional and physical abuse.

Communication can help end stigma or discrimination. You can address stigma when you:

• Get to know people as more than just an illness. Using respectful language can go a long way toward making people comfortable talking about a health issue.
• Get the facts about COVID-19 or other medical issues from reputable sources such as the CDC and WHO.
• Speak up if you hear or see myths about an illness or people with an illness.

COVID-19 and health

The virus that causes COVID-19 is still a concern for many people. By recognizing when to get help and taking time for your health, life challenges such as COVID-19 can be managed.

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• Mental Health and COVID-19: Early evidence of the pandemic's impact: Scientific brief, 2 March 2022. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Sci_Brief-Mental_health-2022.1. Accessed March 12, 2024.
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• Negative coping and PTSD. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/gethelp/negative_coping.asp. Accessed March 15, 2024.
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• Your healthiest self: Emotional wellness toolkit. National Institutes of Health. https://www.nih.gov/health-information/emotional-wellness-toolkit. Accessed March 15, 2024.
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• HIV stigma and discrimination. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/hiv-stigma/. Accessed March 15, 2024.
• Diabetes stigma: Learn about it, recognize it, reduce it. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/library/features/diabetes_stigma.html. Accessed March 15, 2024.
• Phelan SM, et al. Patient and health care professional perspectives on stigma in integrated behavioral health: Barriers and recommendations. Annals of Family Medicine. 2023; doi:10.1370/afm.2924.
• Stigma reduction. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/od2a/case-studies/stigma-reduction.html. Accessed March 15, 2024.
• Nyblade L, et al. Stigma in health facilities: Why it matters and how we can change it. BMC Medicine. 2019; doi:10.1186/s12916-019-1256-2.
• Combating bias and stigma related to COVID-19. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/covid-19-bias. Accessed March 15, 2024.
• Yashadhana A, et al. Pandemic-related racial discrimination and its health impact among non-Indigenous racially minoritized peoples in high-income contexts: A systematic review. Health Promotion International. 2021; doi:10.1093/heapro/daab144.
• Sawchuk CN (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic. March 25, 2024.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

An observational study of engineering online education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Biomedical Engineering, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America, Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Engineering Management, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Chemical Engineering, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Department of Civil Engineering and Construction Engineering Management, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America, College of Engineering, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States of America

• Shadnaz Asgari, 
• Jelena Trajkovic, 
• Mehran Rahmani, 
• Wenlu Zhang, 
• Roger C. Lo, 
• Antonella Sciortino

• Published: April 15, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041
• Reader Comments

The COVID-19 pandemic compelled the global and abrupt conversion of conventional face-to-face instruction to the online format in many educational institutions. Urgent and careful planning is needed to mitigate negative effects of pandemic on engineering education that has been traditionally content-centered, hands-on and design-oriented. To enhance engineering online education during the pandemic, we conducted an observational study at California State University, Long Beach (one of the largest and most diverse four-year university in the U.S.). A total of 110 faculty members and 627 students from six engineering departments participated in surveys and answered quantitative and qualitative questions to highlight the challenges they experienced during the online instruction in Spring 2020. Our results identified various issues that negatively influenced the online engineering education including logistical/technical problems, learning/teaching challenges, privacy and security concerns and lack of sufficient hands-on training. For example, more than half of the students indicated lack of engagement in class, difficulty in maintaining their focus and Zoom fatigue after attending multiple online sessions. A correlation analysis showed that while semi-online asynchronous exams were associated with an increase in the perceived cheating by the instructors, a fully online or open-book/open-note exams had an association with a decrease in instructor’s perception of cheating. To address various identified challenges, we recommended strategies for educational stakeholders (students, faculty and administration) to fill the tools and technology gap and improve online engineering education. These recommendations are practical approaches for many similar institutions around the world and would help improve the learning outcomes of online educations in various engineering subfields. As the pandemic continues, sharing the results of this study with other educators can help with more effective planning and choice of best practices to enhance the efficacy of online engineering education during COVID-19 and post-pandemic.

Citation: Asgari S, Trajkovic J, Rahmani M, Zhang W, Lo RC, Sciortino A (2021) An observational study of engineering online education during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0250041. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041

Editor: Mohammed Saqr, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SWEDEN

Received: November 22, 2020; Accepted: March 30, 2021; Published: April 15, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Asgari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: This research is partially supported by CSULB Champions program through Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1. Introduction

Engineering education has been traditionally content-centered, hands-on, design-oriented, and focused on the development of critical thinking or problem-solving skills [ 1 ]. Various pedagogical methodologies have shown efficacy in enhancement of engineering education including active learning [ 2 ], flipped classroom [ 3 ] and project-based learning [ 4 – 6 ]. Over the last decade, online education has become a viable component of higher education in engineering subfields such as electrical and computer engineering, computer science and information technology especially at the master’s or post-graduate level [ 7 ].

Although the online education has not been a new concept to educators in general, the COVID-19 pandemic introduced an unprecedented and global need to explore online teaching/learning opportunities within the entire spectrum of educational levels and majors. According to the UNESCO, since the onset of pandemic, more than 1.5 billion students worldwide (90.1% of total enrolled learners) have been affected by the COVID-19 closures and subsequent educational changes [ 8 ]. The sudden closure of most educational institutions around the world compelled the conversion of the face-to-face instruction into a fully online (or blended/hybrid) format in a short transitional time. As a result, academic institutions that were mainly focused on traditional face-to-face instructions encountered various challenges in this transition [ 9 ].

Urgent, careful and evidence-based planning is needed to mitigate the impact of pandemic on engineering education especially for vulnerable, disadvantaged and underrepresented students facing substantial challenges beyond their academic responsibilities, including family obligations, financial burden and additional employments [ 10 – 12 ]. Additional efforts need to be taken to guarantee that the online instruction of engineering courses still meets the rigorous requirements of the program accreditations such as Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

Despite the existing literature on online engineering education, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no thorough (quantitative and qualitive) analysis of challenges and factors affecting the pandemic online engineering education in the universities that were mainly offering face-to-face classes pre-pandemic. This work is aimed for addressing this gap by considering the following two questions:

• What are the main challenges influencing online engineering education during COVID-19 pandemic for institutions that were mainly focused on traditional face-to-face instruction pre-COVID?
• What are the empirical insight and recommendations to address these challenges?

Sloan’s online learning consortium has defined the five pillars of high-quality online education as: learning effectiveness, student satisfaction, faculty satisfaction, access, scale, and cost [ 1 ]. Given these factors, we designed and conducted surveys among engineering faculty members and students at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) to systematically investigate the challenges encountered during the abrupt transition from face-to-face to the online mode of instruction in Spring 2020. This paper presents the results of the conducted surveys and propose solutions for the improvement of online engineering education. Sharing the results of this observational study with other educators can facilitate a more robust continuity of engineering education during ongoing pandemic. It can also aid with overall improvement and consequently further promotion of online engineering education in the post-pandemic era especially for universities that were previously focused on traditional face-to-face instruction. CSULB is one of the most diverse universities in the U.S. in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, financial and cultural characteristics (e.g. with a large percentage of first-generation or low-income students). Thus, the results of this study can especially help the institutions with similar demographics to enhance their online engineering education during and post-pandemic.

1.1. Related work

The existing literature has identified several challenges that need to be considered for the effective design and offering of online courses:

• Converting a course from conventional face-to-face to the online format is time consuming and requires the instructor’s familiarity with (or willingness to learn about) online learning pedagogy and instructional tools, including the learning management system (LMS) [ 13 ].
• Some students prefer to learn difficult concepts face-to-face [ 14 ] and believe that face-to-face instructions provide deeper level of learning compared to the online [ 15 ].
• Designing a fair, equitable, and rigorous assessment to minimize cheating and plagiarism is difficult in online environment [ 16 ].
• A successful education requires creating and maintaining a reliable and robust infrastructure that supports both faculty and students [ 7 , 17 – 19 ].
• Hands-on training to work with equipment, instruments, and materials in a controlled laboratory setting is an inherent and necessary aspect of a successful engineering education [ 1 , 10 ]. Addressing this essential aspect within a fully online teaching platform is challenging particularly at the undergraduate level.

Recently, several studies have tried to identify the major factors and best practices that contribute to the acceptance, assimilation and success of online education including course design, course content support, instructor’s personal characteristics and students’ familiarity with and access to technical resources [ 20 – 22 ]. Due to sudden conversion to online instructions, caused be COVID-19, faculty and students at academic institutions, mainly focused on traditional face-to-face instruction, encountered various challenges. As the pandemic continues, a small body of literature on educational impact of COVID-19 is starting to emerge. A group of investigators conducted a U.S. nationwide survey study among faculty and students of STEM fields in June 2020. Their results highlighted the gender disparities in online learning during pandemic: female faculty and students reported more challenges in technological issues and adapting to remote learning compared with their male peers [ 12 ].They also found out that 35.5% of doctoral students, 18.0% of master’s students and 7.6% of undergraduate students would have a delayed graduation due to pandemic [ 11 ]. Hispanic and Black undergraduates were two times and 1.7 times more likely, respectively, to delay graduation relative to Whites.

Dhawan presented a comprehensive literature review on the existing pedagogical approaches for the online instruction while identifying the strengths, weaknesses and challenges of adopting each approach for the online education during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 9 ].

Vielma and Brey conducted a qualitative surveying from 170 students who took asynchronous classes within two engineering departments (biomedical engineering and chemical engineering) at a U.S. Hispanic-serving institution [ 10 ]. The goal was to assess the effectiveness of their online education during pandemic. Their results indicated the students’ need in having synchronous instructional content (in addition to asynchronous content) to enhance the social component of learning.

Almaiah et al. conducted a semi-structured interview (using a list of general topics as interview guideline instead of a structured list of questions) with 30 students and 31 experts in the field of information technology from six universities in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Their goal was to identify the challenges that impede the successful employment of online education during pandemic in developing countries and provide educational stakeholders with useful guidelines to enhance education efficacy.

Our work conducts a thorough ( quantitative and qualitive ) analysis of challenges and factors affecting the online education of engineering courses by conducting surveys among students and faculty members from various engineering subfields at one of the largest and most diverse four-year U.S universities (CSULB). Thus, the presented work has several unique aspects that distinguish it from the few existing studies focused on online education during pandemic, such as the use of both quantitative and qualitative survey questions, and participation of large number of engineering students and faculty from various subfields and diverse backgrounds. Our observational study provides empirical evidence for various solutions we propose to enhance online engineering education during and post-pandemic, especially for those universities with limited resources, or with a large population of minority, first-generation and low-income students.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. engineering education at csulb.

California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is one of the largest and most diverse four-year universities in the U.S. Approximately 52% of CSULB student body are NSF-defined underrepresented minority including 59.2% female, 46.9% Hispanic, 4.5% African American and 1% Native American [ 23 ]. As a result, CSULB is recognized as a minority serving institution: namely Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander-Serving Institution. Also, more than half of our students are low-income or first-generation college students. CSULB College of Engineering (COE) currently has more than 250 faculty and 5000 students (undergraduate and graduate). COE offers a total of 11 programs that are hosted by six departments: Biomedical Engineering (BME), Chemical Engineering (CHE), Civil Engineering & Construction Engineering Management (CECEM), Computer Engineering & Computer Science (CECS), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (MAE). The majority of the courses in COE were offered face-to-face prior to pandemic. Since 2010, CSULB has been using an LMS called BeachBoard (BB) – a customized version of "Brightspace" platform developed and supported by "Desire 2 Learn" company. BB provides various features to facilitate the course instruction, including a robust platform for communication between the instructor and students, sharing course materials and recorded lectures with students, discussion forums, design and management of assessments, assignments and grades. Prior to pandemic, while some CSULB faculty members had been employing (at least some of) BB features (e.g. gradebook) for their instruction on a regular basis, many others had opted out as its usage has not been mandatory.

The unprecedented circumstances of global COVID-19 pandemic forced the swift conversion of the mode of instruction from face-to-face to fully online for all CSULB engineering programs (including 349 courses for a total of 1004 sections) within a transitional period of 10 days in March 2020. Hence, the teaching materials and assessment methods had to be developed “on the fly”. CSULB advised instructors to mainly focus on learning/using BB (and Zoom videoconferencing) to convert their instructions to the online format. This recommendation seemed reasonable given the availability and practicality of BB features. However, both our students and faculty encountered various challenges during the online instruction in Spring 2020. By the end of the semester in May 2020, CSULB announced that Fall 2020 semester was also going to be in the alternative mode of instructions. Thus, 313 engineering courses were scheduled to be offered in synchronous fully online format. 18 additional classes were exempted and offered in hybrid/blended format. These were the classes where the face-to-face component is considered essential to meet the course learning outcomes and therefore could not be conducted fully online, (e.g. laboratories and senior design capstone projects).

2.2. Surveys

Our goal was to identify and study the magnitude of various issues that our faculty and students encountered during the six weeks of online instruction in Spring 2020 (March 23-May 8) and plan for an enhanced online instruction in Fall 2020. The faculty and student surveys were designed holistically considering the overall verbal feedback received from stakeholders during the Spring 2020 online instruction. The faculty survey consisted of 10 multiple-choice and 2 free-response questions, while student survey included 8 multiple-choice questions with fill-in or additional comment options for each question.

The faculty survey questions covered a variety of online teaching issues including, but not limited to, the lack of access to necessary hardware (e.g. computer/tablet, stylus, scanner/printer, microphone/headset, camera), software and reliable internet connection. Some questions focused on various learning assessment methods that instructors used in Spring 2020 (or the ones they were planning to use in Fall 2020) including open-book or closed-book exams, synchronous or asynchronous exams, fully-online exam (using randomized questions on BB) or semi-online exams (where students solve the assigned problems on a paper, then scan and upload their solutions on BB). Some questions focused on proctoring exams and the instructors’ perceived prevalence of cheating/plagiarism. Faculty were also asked to indicate the topics that they were interested to enhance their skills on, e.g., basic or advanced BB features, Zoom features, automatic grading, etc. The two open-ended questions provided instructors additional opportunities to comment about their online teaching experience and make any suggestion or request to COE that could help with improvement of online instruction in Fall 2020.

The student survey was designed to identify the challenges students confronted during online instruction in Spring 2020, including lack of access to hardware, software, reliable internet connection, quiet/private space to study, potential issues of balancing study with work and family duties, and stress management. The students were also asked about the difficulties they had during the synchronous classes on Zoom (e.g., lack of focus or engagement, instructor’s lack of familiarity with technology) or during the online exams (e.g., time management, issues with methods of proctoring using camera). Copies of faculty and student surveys are enclosed in the S1 Appendix for the readers’ further reference.

The faculty survey was conducted using Qualtrics over a three-week period (June 20-July 10). Similarly, the student survey was designed and conducted in Qualtrics afterwards (July 27-August 12). This later timeframe was decided based on the assumption that more students (including the incoming students) might be available to participate in the survey closer to the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester (August 21). Participation in both surveys were anonymous.

A total of 110 instructors took the survey where 43% of them were full-time including tenured/tenure track faculties and the rest were part-time lecturers. Also, 627 students participated in the survey: First-year students (4%), Sophomore (14%), Junior (30%), Seniors (35%) and graduate students (17%). Fig 1 shows the distribution of survey participants among various departments within the COE (question #1 on both surveys). We observe that all departments have relatively similar representations in terms of percentage of faculty and student participants in respective surveys (9% BME, 5–10% CHE, 15–23% CECEM, 19–22% CECS, 18–22% EE, and 21–26% MAE).

• PPT PowerPoint slide
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Distribution of the survey participants among various departments within the college of Engineering: (A) Faculty participants; (B) Student participants.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.g001

These percentages are consistent with the size of our departments in terms of total number of faculty and students. Therefore, our survey sample population could be a good representative of the general COE populations in terms of existing majors.

3.1. Logistical challenges for both students and faculty

Fig 2 shows the percentages of survey respondents who indicated various logistical challenges they had during the online instruction period of Spring 2020 (question #3 on the faculty survey and question #3 on the student survey). Close to 15% of the faculty had issues with software license or no access to personal computer/tablet. About 20% of the faculty did not have access to microphone/headset or printer/scanner. 23% of faculty had no reliable internet connection, while 32% had no access to webcam or camera for the online instruction. Finally, 47% of the faculty indicated that they had no access to or had technical difficulties with online writing tools. Among the student respondents, 1% had no access to any computer/tablet, while close to 5% had only access to a shared computer at home. 3% had no internet connection, while 26% had issues with reliability of their internet. 28% indicated having issues with software access, while 26% had no printer/scanner at home.

The horizontal access represents the percentage of survey participants who indicated the corresponding challenge. (A) Faculty respondents; (B) Student respondents.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.g002

3.2. Students challenges with online instruction

Fig 3 summarizes the prevalence of challenges students had with online instruction during Spring 2020 (questions # 3–6 on the student survey). About 70% of students indicated difficulty in maintaining their focus or experiencing Zoom fatigue after attending multiple online sessions. 55% of students felt social disconnection from their classmates/peers, while 64% did not feel engaged during the online classes. 60% of the students felt there was a lack of clear guidance or communication from the instructors. Also, a quarter of students had issues with online submission of assignments and exams, mainly due to the lack of access to printer/scanner as we learned from students’ optional comments. About 40% of students had technical difficulty and ineptness issues with using or navigating through Zoom or BB. 48% of the students experienced time management issues during the online exams. In optional comments, some students expressed their frustration with not being able to go back to previous questions (a BB feature for the instructors to limit cheating). 23% of the students indicated that the unavailability of the instructor during the online exam (in contrast to in-person exam) caused challenges.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.g003

48% of the students specified that they either do not have camera or feel uncomfortable turning the camera/microphone on during the class or online exams (question #7 on the student survey). Optional comments revealed that many participants have privacy concerns with usage of camera/microphone or being recorded, especially if they were living in a crowded home or shared space. Furthermore, some students experienced an increased level of anxiety being watched on camera that hindered their focus and lowered their performance during the online exams. 28% of the students indicated that they had difficulty with balancing work and study. From the optional comments, we understood that the latter issue has been escalated for many during pandemic. Some parents had lost their jobs and consequently the whole family was relying on the part-time jobs of the younger adults (students) to survive financially.

Our survey also indicated that more than 50% of our students did not have access to a private or quiet space to attend the online classes or to study. 55% of students also lacked motivation to study (question #3 on the student survey). The optional comments shed further light onto the lack of motivation: the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and loss of peer interaction/support were identified as the major contributing factors. Finally, 24% of the students rated their overall experience of online instruction (question #8 on the student survey) as satisfying, 37% found it dissatisfying, while the rest (39%) were neutral.

3.3. Assessment methods used during emergency online instruction

Table 1 shows the prevalence of various methods that the faculty used to assess students’ learning during the online instruction of Spring 2020. Semi-online refers to an exam where students solve the assigned problems on a paper, then scan and upload their solutions. Asynchronous exam refers to a take-home exam while a synchronous exam is the one conducted during the scheduled class or exam time. The survey allowed respondents to choose more than one assessment method per question (because faculty might have taught multiple classes, held more than one exam during the semester or applied multiple assessment methods in the same class), thus the sum of the percentages would not equal to 100.

The respondents could choose more than one option for each question depending on the number of exams administered during the semester.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.t001

We observe that the fully online exams such as the BB quizzes were used by 63% of the faculty. BB quizzes provides the faculty with the convenient option of randomizing the order and/or the parameter values of the questions. The instructor can also limit the view to one question per page for students and prevent them from going back to previous questions. The effectiveness of these options in limiting cheating/ plagiarism, and consequently the reduced need for further proctoring, might have contributed to the high popularity of this assessment method among the faculty.

The remaining assessment methods in the decreasing order of their prevalence were project/term paper (50%), semi-online synchronous exam (40%), oral presentation/exam (33%), and semi-online asynchronous exam (28%). Our survey also revealed that 70% of the faculty used the open-book/open-note exam while 33% tried closed-book/closed note exams. The preference of open-book/open-note exam among faculty could be also justified by the decreased need for proctoring tools. In fact, our data (faculty survey question #7) revealed that among those faculty who employed open-book/open-note exam, only 27% used Zoom camera and microphone for proctoring of the exam. 21% used lockdown browsers (e.g. respondus), while 61% did not have any proctoring. However, when the exams were closed-book/closed-note, 56% of the faculty decided to proctor the exam using Zoom camera and microphone, 18% chose to use the lockdown browsers and 35% did not proctor. We also evaluated the association of instructors’ perception of cheating/plagiarism with various assessment methods by calculating the Pearson correlation of faculty’s assessment methods with their trichotomized perception of online cheating (less cheating, the same, more cheating) relative to that of face-to-face (faculty survey question #9). The results revealed no statistically significant correlation between perception of cheating and assessment methods except for the following: Semi-online asynchronous exam (correlation = 0.23, p-value = 0.01) and Closed-note/Closed-book (correlation = 0.21, p-value = 0.03). This data analysis shows that semi-online asynchronous and closed-book exams were associated with an increase in the perceived cheating,

3.4. Perceived faculty skills that needed enhancement

Faculty indicated various topics that they were interested to enhance their skills in, as summarized in Table 2 .

Respondents could choose as many topics as they were interested to learn.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.t002

About 60% of the faculty needed to learn about the advanced features of BB (e.g. how to create online surveys or make quizzes with randomized questions or personalized parameter values). Also, more than half of the faculty were interested in learning about semi-automatic grading tools (e.g. Gradescope). Close to 40% of the faculty needed to learn how to create a syllabus for an online class or become more competent with using Zoom features. A similar percentage of participants indicated interest in enhancing their multimedia skills (e.g. working with Kaltura Capture, Camtasia or Snagit). Finally, 26% of the faculty needed more training to become familiar with basic features of BB. In the optional comments (faculty survey questions #11–12), some faculty members expressed their concerns about the delivery of the hands-on components of their courses and requested some general guideline on how to address this issue for an online instruction.

4. Discussion

In this section, we will discuss the challenges we identified and propose relevant interventions to improve the online delivery of engineering courses during pandemic.

4.1. Student challenges

Our results revealed that a quarter of our students did not have access to reliable internet connection, triggering a concern about widening of the digital equity gap among students due to COVID-19 pandemic. With COVID-19 and the abrupt transition to online teaching, access to reliable internet connection and personal computer/tablet have become major factors affecting the learning outcomes for students. To address this issue, institution can provide WiFi access on campus’s open areas and well-ventilated buildings while monitoring for social distancing and sanitizing the surfaces frequently. For those who require computing devices, a loaner program can be implemented where students can borrow laptops for a certain period of time to access the course materials and complete the course requirements. The institution can also provide a virtual desktop environment for students to access all necessary software. Using free scanning applications on smartphones or tablets can address the lack of access to scanners.

Our survey also indicated that about 30% of engineering students had work-life balance issues, while 55% of students lacked motivation, and 50% did not have access to a private space to attend classes. These results are consistent with those reported in a recent study conducted at Biomedical and Chemical Engineering departments of a Hispanic-serving institution [ 10 ]. While the percentage of our students who had issues with lack of motivation or private space seemed to be higher, both studies highlight the necessity of providing more socio-emotional support for students during the difficult times of pandemic.

Students identified various challenges they experienced in online synchronous instruction of courses through Zoom including lack of peer-support/interaction, focus, engagement, and clear guideline from instructors. They also indicated difficulties with time management and Zoom fatigue. Peer-support/interaction has shown to improve the success rate of students especially those from underrepresented groups [ 24 ]. Lack of peer-support during the online instruction in the COVID-19 era negatively affects the motivation of the students. However, the remaining raised issues could be addressed in part by employing appropriate teaching techniques by faculty as follows: breaking down a long lecture into shorter segments with more frequent breaks, encouraging group discussion among students, making themselves available during the exams, providing students with a clear roadmap for the online course, making the recordings of the live lectures available after the lecture is over. The latest would help struggling students to learn at their own pace [ 10 ]. To assist with the time management issue during the exams, faculty can design practice exams to allow students to familiarize themselves with the questions’ setup and adapt with the exam’s style before the actual exam.

Pandemic has caused educational loss, delayed graduations, cancelled internships and lost job offers. The new generation of students who have been away from face-to-face instructions may lack certain learning experiences. For example, there might be a generation of engineering students who performed the majority of their lab activities virtually and thus, lacks true hands-on skills. While the pandemic educational gap will affect everyone, it is likely to impact under-privileged students (e.g. first generation, low income or care givers) more profoundly [ 25 ]. As a result, the socioeconomic factors would constitute key mediators in explaining the potentially large and heterogeneous educational gap. This gap may have long-lasting implications for income inequality and health disparities [ 26 ].

To reduce the educational gap, universities could adopt the practice of developing and implementing diagnostic tools to learn where and how large the deficiencies are. Based on the acquired knowledge, they could offer short remediation programs with long-term reorientation of curriculum to align with student’s learning levels [ 27 ]. For example, a summer session that deals with hands-on aspects of lab safety or experimentations could be implemented. In some cases, close coordination between the instructors who teach the courses in a sequence may be required, so they can develop extracurricular materials or propose activities that would help students bridge a gap in a specific topic. As the pandemic progresses, the flexibility of university policies could also help with narrowing down the educational gap especially for those students with lower socioeconomical status. Allowing students to adjust their course load, timing of assignments and tuition payment schedule would enable them to make reactive decisions to mitigate the educational loss [ 25 ]. A need for further research on this top is undeniable.

4.2. Faculty challenges

Establishment of institutional quality standards related to online education is of paramount importance in online education. Effective communication is the key factor in bridging the divide and reconciling administrator and faculty for an enhanced online education [ 28 ]. A considerable number of our faculty reported lack of access to hardware, software and necessary tools for online instruction. Especially, in the absence of traditional in-class whiteboard, many faculty members indicated lacking an online writing tool. This issue can be addressed by institution’s budget allocation to acquire necessary hardware and tools (e.g. personal computer/tablet with web camera, digital pen for touch screen devices, digital clipboard, document camera).

Development of online learning assessment methods as rigorous as in conventional face-to-face setting to prevent cheating/plagiarism is not straightforward [ 16 , 29 ]. While one cannot propose a single assessment method that would work ideally for all engineering courses and classroom sizes, it would still be interesting to study how various online exams and assessment methods (e.g. online quiz tools within the LMS, open-book or take-home examinations, student presentations, peer-reviewed activities, cooperative quizzes [ 30 ], oral assessments [ 31 ], course summary papers or online portfolios) stack up against each other. Since the onset of pandemic, a limited number of studies (mainly within the fields outside the engineering) have been conducted to evaluate the successes and challenges of the online assessments. The study in [ 32 ] revealed that although the majority of undergraduate Management students required more time and effort to prepare for the online exams (compared to the traditional exams), they regarded the clarity and prompt grading and feedback features of the online exams substantially advantageous. Another recent study revealed that cheating remains one of the major concerns for the online examinations and needs to be addressed using available techniques including online proctoring and randomizations of the exam questions [ 33 ]. Few other studies showed that the online examinations increased the level of stress and anxiety among medical students [ 34 , 35 ]. The added stress was in part caused by the lack of a robust examination platform (i.e., reliable LMS) as well as not providing students with sample online practice exams. Finally, a survey conducted among civil engineering students showed that high-achieving students performed significantly better than low-achieving students in online examinations and there was a significant increase in the students’ dropout rate in the 2020–2021 academic year relative to the previous ones [ 36 ].

Our student survey results indicated that the use of camera/microphone to proctor the online exams can raise equity concerns (for those who do not have access to camera and cannot afford it) and privacy concern (for monitoring students’ private space). To address these valid concerns, faculty are advised to choose alternative methods for reducing cheating during online exams. Randomizing the exam questions by shuffling both the problem statements and the multiple choices, and randomly selecting a subset of questions from a question library with individualized/randomized input variables are viable practical solutions. Fortunately, most LMS provide these options. However, although 99% of postsecondary US institutions have an LMS in use, only approximately half of faculty at those institutions have been using it on a regular basis [ 37 ]. As a result, many faculty members were not familiar with the basic or advances features of the LMS or other tools for effective online instruction. Our survey result confirmed this observation. In fact, our faculty identified a broad range of topics related to BB or other online teaching tools that they felt the need to enhance their skills in. Institutions could address this issue by organizing training workshops, webinars, short-courses, and discussion panels for the faculty to enhance their online teaching skills. At CSULB, stipends were offered in summer 2020 to further incentivize faculty participation in these professional development programs.

Hands-on training is an integral component of engineering education. Following the abrupt conversion of classes to the online format in Spring 2020, many instructors adopted simulations or processing of already acquired data for engineering students to complete their course projects. Our survey indicated the faculty’s need to learn about additional effective ways for providing hands-on training/experience. Depending on the content of the course, employment of “home lab kits” and recording of the lab experiments could partially help. However, design, preparation, distribution/collection of the lab kits or recording of the experiments can be extremely time consuming for faculty especially given all the access restrictions to on-campus labs and additional safety precautions imposed by COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual labs might be a more effective solution. Additionally, remotely accessible labs where the experiment setup is on campus and students use tools for remote control and managing of the setup can be employed, whenever possible [ 10 ].

4.3. Summary of proposed interventions

From the analysis of the survey results we propose several intervention strategies that can be employed by stakeholders at different levels to improve the online instruction of engineering courses. The proposed strategies (the targeted issues and the survey questions that identified them) are summarized as follows:

• Budget allocation to provide basic equipment for the online instruction to both faculty and students in need. Examples of such equipment include personal computer/tablet preferably with webcam/camera, online writing tool, reliable internet connection (to address the logistical challenges indicated by students and faculty in response to question # 3 of both surveys)
• Creating a virtual desktop environment and allowing faculty and students to access necessary software (addressing technical access challenges of online instruction indicated in response to questions # 3, #7 and # 11 from the faculty survey, and question #5 from the student survey)
• Organizing training workshops for faculty/students to further familiarize with online teaching/learning technology and tools (addressing technical skills that were indicated in response to question #10 of the faculty survey and question #5 of the student survey)
• Providing a syllabus template for online courses including all the important information needed for ABET accreditation (addressing lack of clear communication or instruction indicated in response to question #10 of the faculty survey and question #5 of the student survey)
• Development and organization of systematic repository of resources pertinent to engineering online instruction (to enhance the faculty’s online teaching skills as the need was indicated in response to questions #10–12 of the faculty survey)
• Leveraging on the institution’s LMS to manage the course, grades, forum discussions and exams (to enhance the faculty’s online teaching skills as the need was indicated in response to questions #10–12 of the faculty survey)
• Breaking down a long lecture into shorter segments with more frequent breaks (addressing Zoom fatigue indicated in response to question #4 of the student survey)
• Encouraging group discussion or problem-solving activities among students such as Zoom breakout rooms (addressing the lack of social interactions with peers as indicated in response to question # 4 of the student survey).
• Being available during the exams (e.g. on Zoom) to answer students’ questions (addressing the lack of access to the instructors during exams as indicated in response to question # 4 of the student survey).
• Providing students with a clear roadmap and instruction for the online course (addressing lack of clear communication or instruction indicated in response to question #5 of the student survey)
• Making the recordings of the live lectures available after the lecture (addressing online instruction challenges and lack of access to reliable internet indicated in response to question #4 and question #3 of the student surveys, respectively)
• Administering practice exams for students (addressing issues with the online exams indicated in response to question #6 of the student survey)
• Using open-book/open-note and synchronous assessment methods that support academic integrity. Examples include randomized questions/ restricted time/ question pools on LMS. (addressing the challenges with online assessment methods indicated in response to questions # 4, #7–9 of the faculty survey)
• Avoiding using camera/microphone to proctor exams (addressing privacy issues with the indicated in response to question #7 of the student survey)
• Employment of “home lab kits”, recording of the hands-on experiments and virtual labs to partially address the hands-on training aspect of the course (enhancing online instruction as indicated in response to questions # 11–12 of the faculty survey)
• Using free scanning applications on their smartphones (addressing lack of access to scanner as indicated in response to questions # 6 of the student survey).

Most of the proposed solutions were implemented at the CSULB college of Engineering in preparation for Fall 2020 semester. Our future work will include evaluation of the efficacy of the implemented interventions by conducting a post-intervention survey at the end of Spring 2021 semester.

This work contributes to the developing body of knowledge about the effect of pandemic on engineering education by investigating the challenges and obstacles faced by a large group of engineering students and faculty at CSULB which exemplifies an institution that previously taught face-to-face engineering classes (predominantly), with a large minority population and socio-economic gap. The recommended strategies for various educational stakeholders (including students, faculty and administration) aims to fill the tools and technology gap, enhance faculty skills in teaching online courses by taking full advantage of online learning management tools, and finally, propose effective assessment methods for online courses while considering the potential equity and privacy issues. These recommendations are practical approaches for many similar institutions around the world and would help improve the learning outcomes of online educations in all fields of engineering.

4.4. Potential limitations of the study

Some limitations should be addressed in this study. We investigated the challenges of engineering online education during Spring 2020 – when the pandemic started, and a global emergency occurred. Thus, the reported experiences and perceptions might have been affected by confounding factors related to the onset of pandemic. As the pandemic continues and various academic stakeholders explore and learn about new strategies to better adjust to the new normal , subsequent studies conducted in the near future might provide a more accurate picture of the online engineering education.

We advertised the surveys to all faculty and students of the CSULB college of Engineering by sending announcement emails to their university email accounts in summer 2020. While the faculty survey’s response rate was 44%, the student survey’s response rate was 12%. The low response rate of the students might have introduced some participation bias to the results.

Our main goal of conducting the surveys was to identify the urgent needs and challenges of the general body of our students and faculty without focusing on any specific underrepresented groups. Our assumption was that the demographics of survey participants are likely proportional to those of the college of Engineering. Further studies with inclusion of race, gender and socioeconomics demographics are needed to investigate the magnitude of educational challenges that underrepresented groups experienced during the pandemic in comparison with other groups. Consideration of some institutional data (e.g. grades, faculty/ student perception of learning, financial aid requests) from both pre- and during pandemic would enhance the study, as well.

The current work did not evaluate the degree of effectiveness and sustainability of each conducted intervention. It also did not compare the efficacy of various alternative assessment methods for engineering online education. A follow-up study is needed to address these limitations.

5. Conclusion

We conducted an observational study to identify challenges encountered due to abrupt transition to online instruction of engineering courses during COVID-19 pandemic by surveying (quantitively and qualitatively) students and faculty at our minority-serving institution. Various logistical, technical and learning/teaching issues were identified, and several interventions were proposed to address them. The results of this study add to the developing body of knowledge about the effect of pandemic on engineering education. This study also provides empirical evidence for the proposed strategies to enhance (and consequently further promote) the online engineering education during and post-pandemic. Our future work will include a thorough study on evaluating the efficacy and sustainability of each proposed intervention.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. questionnaire for both student and faculty surveys..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.s001

S1 Data. Students survey data in response to multiple choice questions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.s002

S2 Data. Faculty survey data in response to multiple choice questions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250041.s003

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Daniel Whisler, Dr. Shabnam Sodagari and Ms. Asieh Jalali-Farahani for their help with designing the surveys.

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Expectations and Experiences With Online Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic in University Students

Karla lobos.

1 Laboratorio de Investigación e Innovación educativa Dirección de Docencia, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

Rubia Cobo-Rendón

Javier mella-norambuena.

2 Programa de Doctorado Educación en Consorcio, Universidad de Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile

Alejandra Maldonado-Trapp

3 Departamento de Física, Facultad Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

Carolyn Fernández Branada

4 Departamento Currículum e Instrucción, Facultad de Educación, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

Carola Bruna Jofré

5 Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Due to COVID-19, university students continued their academic training remotely. To assess the effects of emergency remote teaching (ERT), we evaluated the expectations and, subsequently, the experiences of university students about online education. This study employed a simple prospective design as its method. We assessed the expectations of 1,904 students from different discipline areas (1,106 women and 798 men; age M = 21.56; SD = 3.07) during the beginning of the first semester, March 2020 (T1), and their experiences at the end of the same academic period, September 2020 (T2). We used convenience non-probability sampling. Participants responded to the questionnaire on Expectations toward virtual education in higher education for students and the questionnaire on virtual education experiences in higher education. The results showed that students’ responses reflected low expectations regarding peer relationships and comparison with face-to-face education (T1). This perception was maintained during the evaluation of experiences (T2). Students reported positive experiences regarding online teaching and learning, online assessment, and their self-efficacy beliefs at T2. Statistically significant differences between measurements were found, with the expertise presenting higher averages than expectations. Furthermore, differences by gender were identified, reporting a positive change in the scores of women. In addition, results reflected differences according to the disciplinary area, showing Social Sciences and Medical and Health Sciences students a more significant size effect. Findings regarding the empirical evidence and the implications for future teaching scenarios in Higher Education are discussed.

Introduction

Higher education institutions had to face the challenge of providing continuity to the educational process remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This scenario implied a drastic transformation without the possibility of preparation, having both teachers and students quickly develop online education competencies ( Hattar et al., 2021 ). Emergency remote teaching (ERT) is the name given to this instructional response ( Bustamante, 2020 ; Hodges et al., 2020 ). ERT applies to any unexpected and urgent transition to online instruction due to a disaster. Given its nature, one of the characteristics of ERT is the lack of time and skills of instructors to adequately prepare and implement their course syllabus in a virtual format ( Hodges et al., 2020 ). Thus, ERT differs significantly from online teaching, in which the focus is on delivering a quality learning experience following a predefined instructional design ( Miramontes Arteaga et al., 2019 ).

Currently, online courses are created using an instructional design, such as ADDIE, and implemented through Learning Management Systems (LMS), like Canvas. In these courses, designers and teachers apply technological and pedagogical innovations to obtain high-quality standards. In this teaching modality, educational experiences occur synchronously and asynchronously using multiple devices to access the internet. Therefore, students can interact with teachers, content, and peers from wherever they are ( Singh and Thurman, 2019 ). It requires stable digital infrastructure and platforms. Thus, its implementation demands many resources and a carefully designed plan to deliver a quality experience ( Mousa et al., 2020 ). As necessary and valuable as ERT is, its design does not necessarily consider the critical elements of quality online education ( Hodges et al., 2020 ). Despite the advances in online education in many higher education institutions worldwide, universities, in general, were not prepared for the necessary, mandatory, and abrupt change at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic ( Maier et al., 2020 ).

Quality online teaching considers evaluating course characteristics, including the design of learning materials, the virtual environment, and the alignment of curricular components with learning outcomes. It also considers aspects related to the interaction experience of students with their peers and teachers ( Rodrigues et al., 2019 ).

Literature Review

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students’ expectations about how their academic year would unfold were rapidly modified and adjusted. This is relevant due to empirical evidence that supports that student expectations are predictors of academic success ( Paechter et al., 2010 ; Alhabeeb and Rowley, 2018 ; Wei and Chou, 2020 ). Student expectations can be defined as the beliefs that students hold about successfully coping with academic responsibilities. From the perspective of the expectancy-value theory ( Wigfield and Eccles, 2000 ), students have beliefs about their ability and success in meeting academic demands. These beliefs can be impacted by the subjective perception of the value of the academic activity to the student ( Valle et al., 2015 ). The expectancy-value theory is widely used to understand how psychological and contextual factors enhance student engagement and learning outcomes ( Chiu et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, expectations also impact student attitudes about the ways of learning (Fernández Jiménez et al., 2017 ). It has been reported that students’ perceptions regarding online learning modalities are related to their learning success ( Nur Agung et al., 2020 ). Therefore, expectations and experiences of university students regarding online learning courses during the pandemic could translate into opportunities or obstacles in the sense of moving closer or further away from a practical online education experience in the future ( Rodrigues et al., 2019 ; Pham and Ho, 2020 ).

Several studies have reported a variety of results regarding the expectations and subsequent experience of university students. For example, descriptive research conducted with 1612 undergraduates from 59 on-site Spanish universities says that students consider that the institutions did not adapt adequately to the ERT scenario (84%), especially regarding teaching methods and the implementation of assessments (64.5%). Furthermore, they state that the adopted institutional measures were not sufficient, affecting their academic performance (88.5%) during this period. In terms of experience, in the same research, students were not satisfied with virtual education, especially regarding courses’ assessment ( Villa et al., 2020 ). These results relate to another study that reported that students would not repeat this experience due to the absence of interaction with teachers, excess of tasks, and the accelerated pace for learning ( Imsa-ard, 2020 ; Suárez et al., 2021 ).

Consistent with the above, another study indicates that students perceived an overload in their academic responsibilities due to excessive activities and assignments, which made the process more exhausting ( Rahiem, 2020 ). Moreover, another research from the pandemic experience indicates that young people reported a low perception of quality and quantity in their learning during ERT regarding the strategies implemented by their universities, which did not meet their expectations (31.3%) ( Almomani et al., 2021 ). Additionally, researchers found that, unlike men, women perceived greater satisfaction with the strategies implemented by universities (66%), were more committed to delivering their assignments (70.6%), and were more optimistic about the assessment process implemented by teachers in their courses (70.2%) ( Almomani et al., 2021 ). Another research concludes that online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic was only possible when online learning had a robust digital infrastructure and a learning system designed for that purpose; otherwise, it was an attempt to replicate face-to-face teaching in the virtual environment ( Abdulrahim and Mabrouk, 2020 ).

Despite the emergency scenario caused by the pandemic, not all studies reported negative experiences ( Abdulrahim and Mabrouk, 2020 ; Sepulveda-Escobar and Morrison, 2020 ). During ERT training, students from various institutions worldwide ( N = 30,383) claimed to be satisfied with the support provided by their instructors and institutions. In this case, specific sociodemographic characteristics such as gender, academic area, and other elements of the students favorably impacted these beliefs ( Aristovnik et al., 2020 ). Students positively assessed the actions implemented by the universities’ Information and Communication Technologies Departments ( Shehzadi et al., 2020 ). In addition, they thoroughly evaluated the online platforms used since they allowed them to perform their tasks efficiently and quickly, having fun while studying ( Maier et al., 2020 ). It is important to note that some authors report differences in experiences according to the scientific disciplines to which students belong ( Vladova et al., 2021a ).

Regarding social aspects, it seems that students were not satisfied with the preparation of teachers during the ERT modality due to difficulties in the interaction with their teachers and peers ( Alqurshi, 2020 ; Hamdan et al., 2021 ). This aspect is consistent with other research highlighting the importance of interaction between instructors and students in the online education experience ( Sun, 2016 ; Bao, 2020 ).

Due to ERT, a negative effect on students’ self-efficacy beliefs about online education has been reported at the individual level ( Aldhahi et al., 2021 ), while others found no changes ( Talsma et al., 2021 ). Self-efficacy is a relevant element regarding students’ academic satisfaction and performance ( Cervantes Arreola et al., 2018 ; Hamdan et al., 2021 ). When students believe in successfully facing the challenges of online education, they display a series of mechanisms to favor a more efficient and effective coping of their learning process. Consequently, beliefs conversion during the ERT may play an essential role in post-pandemic online learning.

In the context of the COVID-19, the academic, social, and individual experiences during ERT affect the perception of online education, which could impact the implementation of this modality in Higher Education in the future.

The Present Study

The empirical evidence described highlights the importance of assessing students’ experience during the ERT, especially the quality of the learning experience, the integration of teaching approaches, the design, the application of assessment tools, and how the relationship between students and their teachers is fostered ( Sun, 2016 ; Alqurshi, 2020 ; Aristovnik et al., 2020 ; Bao, 2020 ; Rahiem, 2020 ; Van Heuvelen et al., 2020 ; Villa et al., 2020 ; Almomani et al., 2021 ; Suárez et al., 2021 ). These aspects will provide vital information for the design and implementation of effective online learning processes that respond to the needs of students and universities in this context in the future.

This study focuses on the importance of learning about students’ expectations and experiences during the implementation of the ERT for the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we inquire on how students’ expectations and experiences can affect their academic, social, and personal aspects to provide evidence to support actions for the transition to face-to-face and blended learning. In this context, this research aims to analyze the expectations and experiences of students in a traditional university in the south of Chile at a general level and in consideration of the participants’ gender and disciplinary area.

Based on the above and the heterogeneity of students’ experiences reported in the literature, we describe the following hypotheses:

• H 1 . There will be changes in the experiences to the expectations of university students during ERT due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• H 2 . Differences will be found between men and women regarding university students’ expectations and experience scores during the ERT due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• H 3 . Differences in university students’ expectations and experience scores will be observed according to disciplinary areas during ERT due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Materials and Methods

A simple ex post facto longitudinal quantitative research design was used. Researchers find it impossible to manipulate the independent variable in ex post facto studies, describing the associations between variables. It is simply longitudinal since two measurements were performed, starting by measuring the expectation (March 2020; T1) and then the experience (September 2020; T2) of the students with online education during the ERT, to subsequently study the relationships found between the variables ( Montero and León, 2007 ).

Participants

A total of 1,904 students belonging to a traditional Chilean university participated, of which 1106 (58.1%) were women, and 798 (41.9%) were men, with mean age M = 21.56 ( SD = 3.07). On the other hand, 635 (33.35%) of the participants were in their first academic year. According to their undergraduate program, students’ classification according to the areas of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is presented in Table 1 .

Distribution of students by gender and disciplinary area.

Instruments

Expectations toward virtual education.

The Expectations toward Virtual Education in Higher Education for Students (CEEVESE) questionnaire aims to know higher education students’ expectations about virtual education during ERT. It consists of 28 items distributed in six dimensions about virtual education. The items were elaborated based on available scientific literature and evaluated employing expert judgment ( Lobos et al., 2022 ). Table 2 describes the dimensions that constitute the scale.

Description of the dimensions of the CEEVESE questionnaire.

A Likert scale with five response options (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) was employed. The average of each dimension and the full scale was analyzed, in which scores higher than 3 indicate positive expectations. Previous studies have examined the factorial structure of the scale, finding an adequate adjustment of the 6 factors [X 2 (335) = 5354.88, p < 0.001, CFI:0.961; TLI:0.956; SRMR:0.041; RMSEA:0.06]. The reliability analysis of the responses was: peer relationship α = 0.894, online learning α = 0.922; online teaching α = 0.907; self-efficacy for online learning α = 0.882, online assessment α = 0.787; comparison with face-to-face education α = 0.779; full scale: α = 0.954 ( Lobos et al., 2022 ).

Experience in Virtual Education

The Virtual Education Experiences in Higher Education for Students (EEEL) questionnaire adapts the CEEVESE (Lobos et al., under review 1 ). Its purpose is to learn about the experiences of higher education students with virtual education during ERT. It consists of the same 28 items of the CEEVESE but presented in the past tense, using again a Likert scale of 5 response options (1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree). For their interpretation, the averages of each dimension and the full scale were analyzed. In both cases, the presence of scores above 3 points reflects a positive student experience. The items’ distribution corresponds with the six original dimensions.

The factorial structure of this version confirmed an adequate adjustment of the 6 factors [ X 2 (333) = 3599.92, p < 0.001, CFI: 0.966; TLI: 0.961; SRMR: 0.036; RMSEA: 0.059]. Reliability analysis of the responses by dimensions was as follows: peer relationship α = 0.869, online learning α = 0.883; online teaching α = 0.876; self-efficacy for online learning α = 0.872, online assessment α = 0.753; comparison with face-to-face education α = 0.671; full scale: α = 0.931 (Lobos et al., under review, see text footnote 1).

This research was endorsed by the Ethics Committee of the participating university, corroborating the ethical criteria for research with human beings. The expectations and experience instruments were applied in digital format and sent to the students’ institutional emails on a single occasion. For the two measurement moments (T1 and T2), the questionnaires were available for 3 weeks at the beginning of March 2020 and at the end of September 2020. Students responded after reading and signing an informed consent form. A convenience non-probability sampling was used. The participants were students who were enrolled in a course during the first semester of 2020. To track the students, the enrollment number and e-mail address of each participant were compared. Only students presenting both measurements were included.

Analysis Plan

We performed a descriptive analysis of the variables. Verification of the assumption of normality for the dimensions and total scales in both measurements (T1 and T2) was made using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test with the Lilliefors modification ( Thode, 2002 ). Analyzed data did not have a normal distribution ( p < 0.001). Despite this, the Student’s t -test for paired samples was performed to evaluate the differences in the T1 and T2 scores due to the sample size.

The assumptions were verified using the mixed ANOVA tests to assess the effects between groups on gender and OECD areas versus the intra-group effect (changes between expectations and experience). No extreme outliers were found. Levene’s test was analyzed, finding no significant result ( p > 0.05). The homogeneity of covariance of the between-subjects factor (gender-OECD area) using Box’s M test was also evaluated, with a not statistically significant result ( p > 0.001). Therefore, no violation of the homogeneity of covariances assumption is assumed. Verification of the sphericity assumption was automatic since the Greenhouse-Geisser sphericity correction was applied to violating assumption factors during the ANOVA test calculation.

The size effect was analyzed considering the cutoffs by Cárdenas Castro and Arancibia Martini (2014) , in which scores >0.14 are considered large, 0.06 medium, and 0.01 small. The data analysis was performed with R Studio software version 4.0.3 (2020-10-10) ( R Core Team, 2020 ).

The present research aims to analyze the students’ expectations and experiences, considering the gender and disciplinary area of the participants. We presented the results in the context of the research hypotheses described in section “The Present Study.”

Differences Between University Students’ Expectations and Experiences During Emergency Remote Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Hypotheses H 1 sought to answer the existence of changes between the expectations and experiences of university students produced by ERT during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first measurement (T1), the general students’ expectations presented an average below 3 points, identifying them as low ( M = 2.92, SD = 0.65). The dimension that presented the highest score was self-efficacy for online education ( M = 3.42; SD = 0.84), whereas the dimensions that showed the lowest scores were peer relationship ( M = 2.1; SD = 0.83) and comparison with face-to-face teaching ( M = 1.91; SD = 1.07).

Regarding the measurement of the students’ experiences with the ERT after the academic semester (T2), the perception was positive since the score was higher than 3 points ( M = 3.18, SD = 0.66). Furthermore, the analysis by dimensions, identify that dimensions’ averages of the experiences (T2) were higher than its corresponding dimensions of the questionnaire of expectations (T1). However, despite having improved, the dimensions of peer relationship ( M = 2.26, SD = 0.95) and comparison with face-to-face education ( M = 2.71, SD = 1.24) remain as negative perceptions, since scores were still lower than 3. Table 3 shows dimensions’ averages and deviations of the scales applied and the assessment of the differences between them.

Descriptive and inferential statistics on students’ expectations and experiences during the ERT.

M = mean; SD = standard deviation; d = size effect; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

When performing the comparative analysis between the general expectations of the students (T1) and the experience after the end of the semester (T2), statistically significant differences [ t (1903) = 19, p < 0.001] were found. Hence, students’ experience with ERT at the end of the academic period exceeded their expectations. In this sense, results respond positively to the proposed hypothesis, identifying differences in the scores between T1 and T2.

Gender Differences in University Students’ Expectations and Experiences of Online Learning During Emergency Remote Teaching

To analyze differences between expectations and experiences considering gender and OECD area, the presence of statistically significant bidirectional interactions was assessed. Subsequently, we performed post hoc tests to determine the main effects of gender and OECD area, considering the Bonferroni adjusted p -value.

We examined each dimension independently to answer the hypothesis regarding the existence of differences between expectations and experiences related to undergraduate students’ gender during ERT (H 2 ). The results showed statistically significant bidirectional interactions among gender and the change in scores between expectations and experiences in the following five dimensions: online learning [ F (1,1902) = 19.09, p < 0.001, GES.002]; comparison with face-to-face education [ F (1,1902) = 25.23, p < 0.001, GES.004]; online teaching [ F (1,1902) = 5.31, p < 0.001, GES.0006]; peer relationship [ F (1,1902) = 6.79, p < 0.01]; and self-efficacy for online learning [ F (1,1902) = 4.836, p < 0.05, GES.0006]. In the case of the online assessment dimension, no statistically significant results were observed.

Regarding the main effect of gender, a significant effect for experience, but not for expectations in the following four dimensions was observed online learning: experience [ F (1,1902) = 10.64, p < 0.01, GES.006]. Online teaching: experience [ F (1,1902) = 8.54, p < 0.01, GES.004]. Peer relationship: experience [ F (1,1902) = 6.55, p < 0.05, GES = 0.003] and Self-efficacy for online learning: experience [ F (1,1902) = 5.37, p < 0.05, GES.003].

On the other hand, in the case of comparison with face-to-face education, the results were significant for expectation [ F (1,1902) = 13.06, p < 0.001, GES.007], but not for experience ( p = 0.06).

The simple main effect of the differences between expectations and experience were also analyzed, observing statistically significant results for women and men in four of the dimensions: online learning, women [ F (1,1106) = 203, p < 0.001 GES = 0.046] and men [ F (1,796) = 42.1, p < 0.001 GES = 0.011]. In the Comparison with face-to-face education, women [ F (1,1106) = 589.63, p < 0.001 GES = 0.15] and men [ F (1,796) = 169.09, p < 0.001 GES = 0.06]. In the Online teaching, women [ F (1,1106) = 264, p < 0.001 GES = 0.06] and the men [ F (1,796) = 117, p < 0.001 GES = 0.03]. In the peer relationship, women [ F (1,1106) = 57.5, p < 0.001 GES = 0.014] and men [ F (1,796) = 10.1, p < 0.01 GES = 0.003].

In the self-efficacy for online learning dimension, statistically significant results were identified only for women [ F (1,1106) = 13.4, p < 0.001 GES = 0.003]. Even though men and women presented higher scores at T2, women showed the most significant change reflecting a positive experience with online education (see Table 4 ).

Descriptive data on the expectations and experience of university students considering gender.

M and SD represent mean and standard deviation, respectively.

Figure 1 shows the size effect identified in the measurements considering gender. In the case of women, we found a large-size effect in the dimension of comparison with face-to-face education and a medium-size effect in the online teaching dimension. In the case of men, the analysis outcomes determine only a medium effect size in the dimension of comparison with face-to-face education and a small size effect in the rest of the dimensions.

The effect size of the change between expectations and experience according to the gender of the participating student.

Differences by Disciplinary Area in the Measurement of Undergraduate Students’ Expectations and Experiences of Online Learning During Emergency Remote Teaching

Regarding differences between the scores from expectations and experience of university students during ERT during the COVID-19 pandemic according to disciplinary areas (H 3 ), the results by dimension are presented below.

For all six dimensions a statistically significant bidirectional interactions among the OECD area and the differences between T1 and T2 scores was found. The results by dimensions are the following: Comparison to face-to-face education [ F (5,1898) = 3.54, p < 0.01, GES = 0.003], online teaching [ F (5,1898) = 6.053, p < 0.001, GES = 0.004], online assessment [ F (5,1898) = 7.33, p < 0.001, GES = 0.006], online learning [ F (5,1898) = 8.686, p < 0.001, GES = 0.006], peer relationship [ F (5,1898) = 3.86, p < 0.01, GES.003], and self-efficacy for online learning [ F (5,1898) = 6.99, p < 0.001, GES = 0.005].

Regarding the main effect of OECD area, a significant effect for experience and for expectations was observed in the following four dimensions: Comparison to face-to-face education: experience [ F (5,1898) = 4.43, p < 0.01, GES.012] and the expectations [ F (5,1898) = 9.26, p < 0.001, GES.024]: online assessment: experience [ F (5,1898) = 4.71, p < 0.001, GES.012] and expectations [ F (5,1898) = 3.52, p < 0.01, GES.01]; online learning: experience [ F (5,1898) = 7.4, p < 0.001, GES.02] and expectations [ F (5,1898) = 9.57, p < 0.001, GES.03]; self-efficacy for online learning: experience [ F (5,1898) = 6.22, p < 0.001, GES.02] and expectations [ F (5,1898) = 5.52, p < 0.001, GES.01].

Regarding online teaching, a significant effect was observed in expectation [ F (5,1898) = 4.65, p < 0.001, GES.01], but not in experience ( p = 1). On the other hand, for peer relationship, a significant effect was shown for experience [ F (5,1898) = 3.67, p < 0.01, GES.01] but not for expectations ( p = 1).

We performed Tukey’s test to assess the differences between OECD areas in expectations and experience. Concerning expectations, the following dimensions presented significant differences (see Table 5 ). Comparison to face-to-face: Engineering and Technology - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.01, Engineering and Technology - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.001, Engineering and Technology - Natural Sciences p < 0.05, Engineering and Technology - Social Sciences p < 0.001, and Engineering and Technology - Humanities p < 0.01. Online teaching: Engineering and Technology - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.01 and Engineering and Technology - Social Sciences p < 0.001. Online assessment: Engineering and Technology - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.05. Online learning: Engineering and Technology - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.01, Humanities - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.01, Humanities - Natural Sciences p < 0.05, Engineering and Technology - Natural Sciences p < 0.01, Engineering and Technology - Social Sciences p < 0.001, and Engineering and Technology - Humanities p < 0.001. Self-efficacy for online learning: Engineering and Technology - Social Sciences p < 0.001 and Engineering and Technology - Humanities p < 0.01.

Descriptive statistics on students’ expectations and experience during the ERT according to the disciplinary area.

Results presentation corresponds to mean and standard deviation, in the form Mean (SD).

In the case of experience, the dimensions that showed significant differences are listed below: Comparison to face-to-face education: Humanities - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.01, Humanities - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.01, Humanities - Natural Sciences p < 0.05, Humanities - Social Sciences p < 0.05, and Engineering and Technology - Humanities p < 0.001. Online assessment: Medical and Health Sciences - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.001 and Social Sciences - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.05. Online learning: Medical and Health Sciences - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.001, Social Sciences - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.01, Engineering and Technology - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.01, Natural Sciences - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.05 Humanities - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.001, Humanities - Social Sciences p < 0.05, and Engineering and Technology - Humanities p < 0.05. Peer relationship: Humanities - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.01 and Humanities - Social Sciences p < 0.05. Self-efficacy for online learning: Medical and Health Sciences - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.01, Social Sciences - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.01, Engineering and Technology - Agricultural Sciences p < 0.05, Humanities - Medical and Health Sciences p < 0.01, Humanities - Social Sciences p < 0.01, and Engineering and Technology - Humanities p < 0.01.

Finally, the simple main effect of the differences between expectations and experience for each dimension was analyzed, observing in some cases statistically significant effects for all six OECD areas, while in others only for one (see Table 5 ). The results reflected by the analysis are listed by dimension: Comparison to face-to-face education: Agricultural Sciences [ F (1,140) = 71.71, p < 0.001, GES = 0.16], Medical and Health Sciences [ F (1,415) = 227.33, p < 0.001, GES = 0.14], Natural Sciences [ F (1,311) = 93.81, p < 0.001, GES.08], Social Sciences [ F (1,508) = 247.639, p < 0.001, GES = 0.14], Humanities [ F (1,60) = 11.93, p < 0.01, GES = 0.06], and Engineering and Technology [ F (1,464) = 97.77, p < 0.001, GES = 0.06]. Online teaching: Agricultural Sciences [ F (1,140) = 8.14, p < 0.05, GES = 0.01], Medical and Health Sciences [ F (1,415) = 126, p < 0.001, GES = 0.07], Natural Sciences [ F (1,311) = 58.2, p < 0.001, GES.04], Social Sciences [ F (1,508) = 124, p < 0.001, GES = 0.06], Humanities [ F (1,60) = 23.8, p < 0.001, GES = 0.09], and Engineering and Technology [ F (1,464) = 51.6, p < 0.001, GES = 0.02].

The following differences in the dimension of online assessment between discipline areas were found: Medical and Health Sciences [ F (1,415) = 70.57, p < 0.001, GES = 0.05] and Social Sciences [ F (1,508) = 37.89, p < 0.001, GES = 0.02]. Online learning: Medical and Health Sciences [ F (1,415) = 86.1, p < 0.001, GES = 0.05], Natural Sciences [ F (1,311) = 26.4, p < 0.001, GES.02], Social Sciences [ F (1,508) = 131, p < 0.001, GES = 0.06], Humanities [ F (1,60) = 9.94, p < 0.05, GES = 0.5], and Engineering and Technology [ F (1,464) = 10.8, p < 0.01, GES = 0.006]. Peer relationship: Medical and Health Sciences [ F (1,415) = 42.1, p < 0.001, GES = 0.024], Social Sciences [ F (1,508) = 27, p < 0.001, GES = 0.014], and Engineering and Technology [ F (1,464) = 9.88, p < 0.05, GES = 0.005]. Self-efficacy for online learning: Social Sciences [ F (1,508) = 29.4, p < 0.001, GES = 0.02].

Figure 2 shows the size effect identified considering the OECD area. In Agricultural Sciences, we found a large-size effect in the dimension of comparison with face-to-face education and a small effect size in the dimensions of online learning, self-efficacy for online learning, online teaching, and the full scale. There were no effects detected in the rest of the dimensions. In Medical and Health Sciences, the analysis outcomes reflected a large-size effect in comparison with face-to-face education and a medium-size effect in the dimensions of online teaching and full scale. In addition, we found a small effect in the dimensions of peer relationship, online learning, and online assessment. In Natural Sciences, we found a medium-size effect in the size of comparison with face-to-face education and a small-size effect in online teaching, online learning, and full scale. No effects on the remaining dimensions were found. In the case of Social Sciences, we found a large-size effect for comparison with face-to-face education, a medium-size effect in the dimensions of online learning, online teaching, and the full scale, and a small-size effect in the rest of the dimensions. The Humanities area presented a medium-size effect in online teaching and comparison with face-to-face education dimensions and a small-size effect in online learning, peer relationship, online evaluation, and full scale. Finally, in Engineering and Technology, a medium-size effect in the dimension of comparison with face-to-face education and a small-size effect in the online teaching, online learning, peer relationship dimensions, and full scale were identified. In the rest of the dimensions, there were no effects detected.

Size effect regarding the change between expectations and experience according to the disciplinary area.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition to ERT impacted students’ expectations and experiences during their professional training. This research aimed to analyze students’ expectations and experiences considering the gender and disciplinary area of the participants. Findings are analyzed and discussed in terms of the hypotheses raised in section “The Present Study.”

Differences Among University Students’ Expectations and Experiences During the Emergency Remote Teaching Produced by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Changes between students’ expectations and experiences during ERT were found. Students’ expectations at T1 about online education were negative. However, at the end of the academic period, students indicated having a positive experience in most studied dimensions. They only showed a negative experience regarding the relationship with their peers and the comparison with face-to-face.

Several studies during the pandemic point out the lack of confidence toward the different educational actors and online education opportunities. This mistrust is associated with a lack of knowledge of the modality and its advantages ( Villa et al., 2020 ) and little awareness of the available virtual educational tools ( Rahiem, 2020 ; Almomani et al., 2021 ). In addition, the unexpectedness of the transition was a challenge for teachers and students, generating a problematic, improvised, and intuitive confrontation ( Barbour et al., 2020 ; Hodges et al., 2020 ).

Students’ perception of the limited opportunities virtual classrooms and other technological tools provided them to interact and work collaboratively with peers is particularly noteworthy. Several reports emphasize the benefits of cooperative work versus a competitive or individualistic methodology in higher education. The former generates better learning and significant commitment and involvement in academic tasks ( León del Barco et al., 2017 ; Guerra Santana et al., 2019 ; Hamdan et al., 2021 ). Also, collaborative work is closely related to desired competencies in the profession’s exercise, an aspect that is not present in this study. In this context, the literature describes technological mediation in education to provide significant possibilities of simultaneous sociability, of connection between communities and people, subscription, and asynchronous communication that generates network effects that tend to accelerate individuals and group learning ( De Haro, 2010 ; Anthony et al., 2019 ). Therefore, it is crucial to understand why peer interaction during ERT was negatively perceived, especially considering that the LMS had the functionalities for such activities. We believe that it is partly a product of the little knowledge of these tools by both teachers and students.

The observation that students face online education with a high sense of self-efficacy, believing that they have the skills to respond to the learning challenges that this modality presents, could be explained by the lack of knowledge and experience, as well as underestimating the necessary skills. Consequently, students perceive a lower complexity than the real one, as described by the “Durning Kruger effect” ( Dunning, 2011 ). It is possible that by the regular use of technology, social media, phones, and computers, they initially self-perceived as more competent.

The perception of a better experience concerning the initial expectation suggests that the implementation of ERT, although not devoid of difficulties, responded to students’ needs. Hence, higher education institutions’ response and the teachers’ and students’ adaptation adequately provided a well-perceived learning environment. Furthermore, the above is consistent with other research during the pandemic that reported positive experiences by teachers and students in terms of having been able to face the educational process despite the adversities of the confinement and its urgency ( Sepulveda-Escobar and Morrison, 2020 ).

We can conclude that the educational community and higher education authorities have learned greatly during ERT. Therefore, it will be interesting to study how to translate these lessons into explicit guidelines and practices when returning to normality post-pandemic.

When evaluating changes in expectation and experience scores considering the sex of the participants, at the beginning of ERT, men and women presented similar levels of expectations about online education. However, experiences showed differences according to gender. Although both perceived the educational experience as positive, women gave higher values than men, in the dimension with lower punctuation in the experience compared with a face-to-face modality and peer relationship.

These results are consistent with the study reported by Almomani et al. (2021) , conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and reports that women students were more optimistic, satisfied, and committed to the online learning experience than men students during this period. Furthermore, a 62-country study on the impact of the pandemic on higher education ( Aristovnik et al., 2020 ) reports a minor negative impact of confinement on women students’ learning, adaptation, and relationship with the teachers. In this study, a similar result was obtained regarding the perception of online teaching. Women students presented a higher value of the teacher’s commitment to ERT. Women considered that instructors were available and attentive to their learning needs, complied with the course syllabus, and made good use of the available virtual classroom tools.

In another study on online university education in the context of COVID-19 ( Shahzad et al., 2021 ), the authors were able to identify differences between men and women regarding the perception of usefulness, ease, and satisfaction with the use of the learning management systems provided by the institution. This finding suggests that adaptation processes to university life in electronic learning environments may be different for men and women. Therefore, this information could be valuable for university authorities to strengthen and improve the university system support.

Differences in Students’ Expectations and Experiences by Disciplinary Area of Online Learning During Emergency Remote Teaching

Research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of higher education has identified significant challenges for implementing online education, such as inequality, funding, and ways to develop learning in general ( Aristovnik et al., 2020 ; Funk, 2021 ). In this context, it is essential to identify if these challenges and opportunities are specific to a particular disciplinary area or apply to the general community. Thus, differences during ERT between disciplinary areas were analyzed.

Differences in the expectations and experiences of university students in the six disciplinary areas classified according to their undergraduate programs were found. Unfortunately, there is little literature on the influence of the disciplinary area to which students’ undergraduate programs belong regarding experience with online education in ERT. Knowing about students’ experience in each disciplinary area will allow teachers and educational authorities to identify weaknesses and good practices that will otherwise not be detected to design and develop monitoring plans and improve the quality of online education in the future.

We found differences within expectations in the online teaching dimension for all disciplinary areas. On the other hand, Students from Engineering and Technology and Medical and Health Sciences areas reported higher experience scores in this dimension, which implies that these students felt more confident about the actions performed by their instructors. This result could be related to the use of technology by Engineering and Technology teachers and the teacher training in the medical education area, often advanced.

Despite the improvement between student expectations and experiences of the online assessment dimension, changes presented null (Agricultural Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Engineering and Technology) or small (Social Sciences, Humanities, and Medical and Health Sciences) size effect. The assessment processes continue to be an area of concern. Other reports support this statement. For example, Jordanian university students perceived that assessment during the pandemic allowed them to obtain higher grades than face-to-face assessments. Nonetheless, most students perceived that the evaluative processes were unfair and learned more minor than the quality reflected ( Almomani et al., 2021 ). Consistently, a study conducted with 8265 Chilean university students ( Lobos et al., 2022 ) reported that students perceived a bad experience regarding the assessment process during the pandemic. Again, researchers observed a greater expectation of obtaining a good grade rather than of achieving learning. As a result, students considered that they failed to achieve good quality training. Despite these findings, a study carried out in Chile indicates that students’ academic performance improved compared to the previous academic period ( Franco et al., 2021 ). Therefore, the guidelines and strategies used by teachers regarding assessment continue to be an essential element to consider in the design of quality online education.

An interesting finding is a large-size effect obtained in the differences between the scores of expectations and experience of students of Agricultural Sciences and Medical and Health Sciences, for the comparison with face-to-face education dimension. Further research is required to identify good practices teachers and students implement in undergraduate programs classified in these two OCDE discipline areas.

We believe that the differences in the results of the students’ expectations and experience according to the disciplinary area are due to the different challenges encountered in the adaptation of the courses (efficient ones). Accordingly, strategies used, for example, in Health Sciences, can be used in realistic training scenarios that relate to people (Social Sciences and Humanities). One of these strategies can be using remote standardized patients who have meetings with students through the Internet. These activities allow teachers and standardized students to have spaces for evaluation and feedback ( Langenau et al., 2014 ; Bączek et al., 2021 ). This technique could be adapted to other teaching contexts using work situations in the training of other professionals.

Concerning the dimension of self-efficacy for online learning, no significant changes in four of the six knowledge evaluated areas were observed. Agricultural Sciences and Social Sciences displayed differences with small-size effect. Thus, ERT did not increase students’ confidence beliefs toward taking classes in the online teaching modality.

Despite valuable information that has been obtained for this study, some limitations are identified. First, the results presented correspond to university students’ responses from a single educational institution, so the interventions of university authorities could bias expectations and subsequent experiences in the context of ERT. Second, it was not part of this study to evaluate access gaps and other student variables that could affect the results. Finally, variables associated with the teacher or course characteristics that may influence the outcomes could not be controlled. Therefore, the results aim to study changes between students’ expectations and experience in an exploratory way. Other studies must consider the assessment of student (e.g., difficulties in accessing online classes), professor (e.g., profession), or course (e.g., type, time commitment) variables that may affect undergraduate expectations and experiences.

Study Implications

In this research, we found that students’ experiences with online education during the ERT were more optimistic than their expectations at the beginning of the semester. For this reason, the results found, together with other sources of institutional information such as learning analytics and institutional indicators, will allow authorities and teachers to develop guidelines to promote quality online education. It is also possible that university authorities could consider these preferences to design and create online courses for their students ( Zapata-Cuervo et al., 2021 ).

The relationship with peers and professors is still considered a weak point of online education. This is a crucial aspect to be addressed by university professors. In the context of virtuality, professors need to maintain communication channels that allow them to provide students with timely feedback from online video tutorials or email guides after class ( Bao, 2020 ; Vladova et al., 2021b ). We identified statistically significant differences in the experiences of men and women. This represents an opportunity to investigate how the characteristics of each student improve academic performance and decrease the probability of dropping out of college.

We found differences in the students’ experiences according to the scientific areas. These results translate into a challenge to identify the strategies and actions that facilitated a positive experience to replicate them in similar formative contexts. Further, studies can be performed to identify good practices applied in general contexts and those appropriate for each discipline. Higher education institutions are expected to accompany teachers and students in the different scientific areas during the post-pandemic academic continuity. Exceptional support is scheduled in aspects such as planning and prioritization of practical classes, promoting a combined approach of virtual and face-to-face education ( Pham and Ho, 2020 ; Vladova et al., 2021b ).

Future research could assess how students’ variables (e.g., internet access, type of device used to study), courses’ factors (e.g., number of hours of dedication, learning goals, instructional design, type of materials, or shared resources), teachers’ aspects (e.g., technological acceptance, use of strategies, training) or the institution’s elements (e.g., promotion of teaching through technology, support for students and teachers, use of online learning platforms, technological campuses) impact the expectations and subsequent experience of students during the development of online courses., especially regarding strength and weaknesses according to discipline areas.

The findings of this work contribute to identifying dimensions and areas that require special attention to establish preventive and corrective actions by university authorities for the near future and propose the opportunity of further studying good practices of better-perceived experiences of discipline areas.

The students’ experiences during ERT due to the COVID-19 pandemic exceeded expectations. Students reported high expectations about their self-efficacy to cope with this new scenario, even though low expectations regarding peer relationships, online teaching, and comparison with face-to-face education were observed concerning the experience after the semester. Students indicated positive experiences with online learning and teaching. They felt that the professor provided adequate support in terms of education, instruction, and assessment. Negative experiences persisted regarding peer relationships and the overall experience compared to face-to-face teaching. Additionally, men and women presented similar expectations at the beginning of the semester regardless of their discipline, while women were more optimistic about educational experiences during ERT. Finally, concerning the disciplinary area, differences in most of the assessed dimensions were observed, representing an opportunity to study further and identify good practices in those dimensions and disciplines that presented positive perception and effect.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Institutional Ethics Committee of University of Concepción. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

KL and RC-R: conceptualization. KL, RC-R, and CB: methodology. JM-N: formal analysis and visualization. KL, RC-R, and AM-T: research and writing—preparing the original draft. AM-T, CB, and CF: resources, project management, and fundraising. JM-N and RC-R: data curation. CB and CF: writing—revising and editing. KL, CB, and CF: monitoring.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

1 Lobos, K., Cobo-Rendon, R., Cisternas, N., Aslan, J., and López Angulo, Y. (under review). Experiences With Online Education of College Students During Emergency Remote Education Due to COVID-19 .

This research reported in this publication was supported by Unidad de Fortalecimiento Institucional of the Ministerio de Educación Chile, project InES 2018 UCO1808 Laboratorio de Innovación educativa basada en investigación para el fortalecimiento de los aprendizajes de ciencias básicas en la Universidad de Concepción.

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