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1. Compassionate Flexibility and Self-Discipline: Student Adaptation to Emergency Remote Teaching in an Integrated Engineering Energy Course during COVID-19

   https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10110304  

   Gelles, Laura A.; Lord, Susan M.; Hoople, Gordon D.; Chen, Diana A.; Mejia, Joel Alejandro (November 2020, Education Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   The global pandemic of COVID-19 brought about the transition to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) at higher education institutions across the United States, prompting both students and the faculty to rapidly adjust to a different modality of teaching and learning. Other crises have induced disruptions to academic continuity (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes), but not to the same extent as COVID-19, which has affected universities on a global scale. In this paper, we describe a qualitative case study where we interviewed 11 second-year Integrated Engineering students during the Spring 2020 semester to explore how they adapted to the transition to remote learning. Our results revealed several student challenges, how they used self-discipline strategies to overcome them, and how the faculty supported students in the classroom through a compassionate and flexible pedagogy. Faculty members showed compassion and flexibility by adjusting the curriculum and assessment and effectively communicating with students. This was especially important for the women participants in this study, who more frequently expressed utilizing pass/fail grading and the personal and gendered challenges they faced due to the pandemic. During this unprecedented crisis, we found that a key element for supporting students’ well-being and success is the faculty members communicating care and incorporating flexibility into their courses. 

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2. Learning from Universities’ Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for the New Normal.

   Beddoes, Kacey; Danowitz, Andrew (September 2021, European Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference 2021)

   The pandemic has negatively impacted many students’ ability to continue schooling, or to do so with the same level of success. What is not well understood is how universities’ responses to pandemic-induced changes helped or hindered students’ success during the spring 2020 transitions to online learning. To better understand campus closures and transitions to online and blended learning, this paper explores students’ perceptions of their universities’ handling of and responses to the pandemic and which actions and resources would better support their success in the new normal. It is important to understand the impacts of universities’ responses on students not only because some changes are likely here to stay, but also because pivots caused by pandemics may be required with increasing frequency in the future. The data came from an online survey conducted in the United States in spring and summer of 2020. The survey respondents were 669 undergraduate engineering students from 140 institutions. Student responses addressed several distinct groups of stakeholders with most related to individual instructors, followed by academic administrators, and counseling and disability service centres. Less prominent but still important themes related to other groups were also identified. Responses for each of these groups are presented in turn, and the paper concludes with recommendations for each group. 

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3. The impact of COVID-19 induced emergency remote instruction on students’ academic performance at an HBCU

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264947  

   Mostafa, Sayed; Cousins-Cooper, Kathy; Tankersley, Barbara; Burns, Shea; Tang, Guoqing (March 2022, PLOS ONE)

   Zhu, Rong (Ed.)

   The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic early in 2020 forced universities to shut down their campuses and transition to emergency remote instruction (ERI). Students had to quickly adapt to this new mode of instruction while dealing with all other distractions caused by the pandemic. This study integrates extensive data from students’ institutional records at a large Historically Black College and University (HBCU) institution with data from a students’ survey about the impact of COVID-19 on learning during the Spring 2020 semester to examine the impact of the transition to ERI on students’ performance and identify the main factors explaining variations in students’ performance. The main findings of our analysis are: (a) students’ university experience was positively correlated with performance (continuing students who spent at least one academic year at the university prior to the outbreak had better performance than freshman and new transfer students), (b) students’ perceived change in performance after the transition was positively associated with actual performance (students who perceived a decline in their performance after transition to ERI had significantly worse performance than other students), and (c) students’ prior online learning experiences and students’ emotional experiences with the COVID-19 disease were not significantly associated with performance. These results suggest that the approaches adopted by higher education institutions to support students during times of crisis should pay special attention to certain groups of students. 

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4. The concerns and perceived challenges students faced when traditional in-person engineering courses suddenly transitioned to remote learning

   Yu, Fan; Milord, Johanna; Orton, Sarah L.; Flores, Lisa. Y.; & Marra, Rose. M. (June 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference)

   This research evaluates the impact of switching college engineering courses from in-person instruction to emergency remote learning among engineering students at a university in the Midwest. The study aimed to answer the question: What were the concerns and perceived challenges students faced when traditional in-person engineering courses suddenly transitioned to remote learning? The goal of this study is to uncover the challenges students were facing in engineering online courses and to understand students’ concerns. Our findings can help improve teaching instruction to provide students with previously unavailable educational assistance for online engineering courses. We collected online survey responses during weeks 8 and 9 of the academic semester, shortly after the COVID-19 shutdown and emergency transition to remote learning in Spring 2020. The survey included two open-ended questions which inquired about students’ feedback about moving the class online, and one two-item scale which assessed students’ confidence in online engineering learning. Data analysis for the open-ended questions was guided by the theoretical framework - Social Cognitive Career Theory [1] that explores how context, person factors and social cognitions contribute to career goals, interests and actions. A phenomenological approach [2] was conducted to understand the experience of these students. Open coding and axial coding [2] methods were used to create initial categories then themes related to students' concerns and challenges. Data from the two-item scale was evaluated using descriptive statistics: means, standard deviations, and ranges. Four main themes with separate sub-categories emerged from the student responses: 1) Instructor’s ability to teach course online (Instructional limitations, Seeking help, Increased Workload), 2) Student’s ability to learn online (Time Management, Lower engagement and motivation, Harder to absorb material, Hard to focus, Worry about performance), 3) Difficulties outside of class (Technology issues), and 4) No concerns. Students seemed more concerned about their ability to learn the material (48% of responses) than the instructor’s ability to teach the material (36% of responses). The instructional limitations or lack of instructional support (22% of responses) and time management (12% of responses) were among the major concerns in the sub-categories. The results from two-item scale indicated participants' s confidence in their ability to master their classroom knowledge was at an intermediate level via online instruction (6/10), and participants' confidence in the instructor's ability to teach knowledge in online classes is moderate to high (7/10). The results align with the open-ended question response in which students were somewhat more concerned about their ability to learn than the instructor’s ability to teach. The themes and analysis will be a valuable tool to help institutions and instructors improve student learning experiences. 

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5. College from home during COVID-19: A mixed-methods study of heterogeneous experiences

   Morris, M. (January 2021, Journal of American college health)

   null (Ed.)

   This mixed-method study examined the experiences of college students during the COVID- 19 pandemic through surveys, experience sampling data collected over two academic quar- ters (Spring 2019 n1 = 253; Spring 2020 n2 = 147), and semi-structured interviews with 27 undergraduate students. There were no marked changes in mean levels of depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, or loneliness between 2019 and 2020, or over the course of the Spring 2020 term. Students in both the 2019 and 2020 cohort who indicated psychosocial vulnerability at the initial assessment showed worse psychosocial functioning throughout the entire Spring term relative to other students. However, rates of distress increased faster in 2020 than in 2019 for these individuals. Across individuals, homogeneity of variance tests and multi-level models revealed significant heterogeneity, suggesting the need to examine not just means but the variations in individuals’ experiences. Thematic analysis of interviews characterizes these varied experiences, describing the contexts for students’ challenges and strategies. This analysis highlights the interweaving of psychosocial and academic dis- tress: Challenges such as isolation from peers, lack of interactivity with instructors, and diffi- culty adjusting to family needs had both an emotional and academic toll. Strategies for adjusting to this new context included initiating remote study and hangout sessions with peers, as well as self-learning. In these and other strategies, students used technologies in different ways and for different purposes than they had previously. Supporting qualitative insight about adaptive responses were quantitative findings that students who used more problem-focused forms of coping reported fewer mental health symptoms over the course of the pandemic, even though they perceived their stress as more severe. These findings underline the need for interventions oriented towards problem-focused coping and suggest opportunities for peer role modeling. 

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