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ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in nearly all universities transitioning their in-person courses to online instruction. Recent work from our research team conducted in Spring 2020 established that the immediate transition to online learning presented novel challenges for students with disabilities: students were unable to access previously established accommodations and there was a lack of information from Disability Resource Centers (DRCs) about adapting accommodations to online environments. In this study, we aimed to determine the extent to which these issues still were present 1 year later. In Spring 2021, we conducted a survey of 114 students with disabilities who were registered with the DRC and taking online science courses at a public research-intensive institution. We used our previous interviews with students to develop closed- and open-ended questions to assess the extent to which students with disabilities were being properly accommodated in their courses, document any new accommodations they were using, and elicit any recommendations they had for improving their experiences in online science courses. We used logistic regression to analyze the closed-ended data and inductive coding to analyze the open-ended data. We found that more than half of students with disabilities reported not being properly accommodated, and this was more likely to be reported by students who experienced new challenges related to online learning. When students were asked what accommodations they would have wanted, students often described accommodations that were being offered to some students but were not universally implemented. This study summarizes recommendations for making online science learning environments more inclusive for students with disabilities.
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Strategies to Address Changes in Social Supports during the COVID-19 Pandemic
The pandemic of COVID-19 is disrupting engineering education globally, at all levels of education.While distance education is nothing new, the pandemic of COVID-19 forced instructors to rapidly move their courses online whether or not they had ever received prior training in online education. In particular, there is very little literature to guide instructors in supporting students in online engineering design or project-based courses. The purpose of this research is to examine engineering students’ report of social support in their project and design-based courses at a large research university during the move to online instruction due to COVID-19in the Spring 2020 semester and to provide recommendations for instructors teaching these types of courses online in the future.Our study is framed by social constructivism and social capital theory.We surveyed undergraduate engineering and engineering technology students(n=235) across undergraduate levels during the final week of the Spring 2019 semester.Survey questions included open-ended prompts about social supports and overall experience with the transition to online learning as well as name and resource generator questions focused on specific people and types of interactions that changed during the pandemic. We used qualitative content analysis of the open-ended responses along with comparisons of the name and resource generator to develop recommendations for instructors.Recommendations to increase students’ social supports include:facilitating informal conversations between students and between students and the instructional team, grouping students located in the same time zones in teams, facilitating co-working sessions for students, establishing weekly structure, and utilizing some synchronous components (e.g., virtual office hours).
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- Award ID(s):
- 2030083
- PAR ID:
- 10335046
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Society for Engineering Education 2021 Annual Conference and Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The purpose of our poster presentation is two-fold: 1) to provide an overview of our NSF project, Pandemic Impact: Undergraduates’ Social Capital and Engineering Professional Skills, and 2) to report our progress and preliminary quantitative findings. We hope to discuss our project and preliminary results with fellow engineering educators and receive feedback. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted engineering education in multiple ways that will continue to be felt for years to come. One of the less understood ways the pandemic has continued to leave a residue on engineering education is how social distancing and online courses altered students’ professional development. Of particular concern are students who were either new to the institution or started their college education during the pandemic. These students have potentially limited opportunities to establish social relationships at their educational institutions compared to students who already developed such relationships when the pandemic-induced online learning took place. The differences in students’ social relationships can have other, more profound impacts on their undergraduate engineering experiences. Research has shown that students’ social relationships provide them with connections to resources and supports essential for navigating an engineering program and help them obtain more opportunities to practice non-technical professional skills [1], [2]. Although social distancing measures diminished and students returned primarily to in-person, the pandemic has altered the development of engineering students in ways not understood. In particular, understanding the nature of students’ social interactions on campus and the types of opportunities for professional development is essential so that instructors and campus staff can respond to the developmental needs of students. As a result, the overarching research question for our project is: How do engineering undergraduates leverage relationships (operationalized as social capital) to gain opportunities to develop professional skills?more » « less
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Momsen, Jennifer (Ed.)The COVID-19 pandemic caused nearly all colleges and universities to transition in-person courses to an online format. In this study, we explored how the rapid transition to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic affected students with disabilities. We interviewed 66 science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) undergraduates with disabilities at seven large-enrollment institutions during Spring 2020. We probed to what extent students were able to access their existing accommodations, to what extent the online environment required novel accommodations, and what factors prevented students from being properly accommodated in STEM courses. Using inductive coding, we identified that students were unable to access previously established accommodations, such as reduced-distraction testing and note-takers. We also found that the online learning environment presented novel challenges for students with disabilities that may have been lessened with the implementation of accommodations. Finally, we found that instructors making decisions about what accommodations were appropriate for students and disability resource centers neglecting to contact students after the transition to online instruction prevented students from receiving the accommodations that they required in STEM courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study illuminates current gaps in the support of students with disabilities and pinpoints ways to make online STEM learning environments more inclusive for students with disabilities.more » « less
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Computational methods have gained importance and popularity in both academia and industry for materials research and development in recent years. Since 2014, our team at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has consistently worked on reforming our Materials Science and Engineering curriculum by incorporating computational modules into all mandatory undergraduate courses. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education as on-campus resources and activities became highly restricted. Here we seek to investigate the impact of the university moving online in Spring 2020 and resuming in-person instructions in Fall 2021 on the effectiveness of our computational curricular reform from the students' perspective. We track and compare feedback from students in a representative course MSE 182 for their computational learning experience before, during and after the pandemic lockdown from 2019 to 2021. Besides, we survey all undergraduate students, for their online learning experiences during the pandemic. We find that online learning enhances the students' belief in the importance and benefits of computation in materials science and engineering, while making them less comfortable and confident to acquire skills that are relatively difficult. In addition, early computational learners are likely to experience more difficulties with online learning compared to students at late stages of their undergraduate education, regardless of the computational workload. Multiple reasons are found to limit the students' online computational learning, such as insufficient support from instructors and TAs, limited chances of peer communication and harder access to computational resources. Therefore, it is advised to guarantee more resources to students with novice computational skills regarding such limiting reasons in the future when online learning is applied.more » « less
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ABSTRACT The article documents students’ experiences with the shift online at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides informed recommendations to STEM instructors regarding academic integrity and student stress. Over 500 students were surveyed on these topics, including an open-ended question. Students experienced more stress and perceived a greater workload in online courses and therefore preferred in-person courses overall. Personal awareness of cheating during online exams is positively correlated with the proportion of cheating a student perceives. Fear of getting caught is the best cheating deterrent while getting a better grade makes cheating most enticing. Randomization of questions and answer choices is perceived as a highly effective tool to reduce cheating and is reported as the least stress-inducing method. Inability to backtrack and time limits cause students the most stress. Students report that multiple choice questions are the least effective question type to discourage cheating and oral exam questions cause the most stress. Use of camera and lockdown browser or being video- and audio- recorded caused the majority of student stress. Yet, nearly 60% agree that the combination of camera and lockdown browser is an effective deterrent. Recommendations: (i) Be transparent regarding academic dishonesty detection methods and penalties. (ii) Use online invigilating tools. (iii) Synchronize exams and (iv) randomize exam questions. (v) Allow backtracking. (vi) Avoid converting in-person exams to online exams; instead, explore new ways of designing exams for the online environment.more » « less
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