Abstract:

Abstract
To refrain from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, most countries have adopted temporary social isolation. Portugal was no exception. Consequently, educational institutions closed, and classroom teaching was suspended, impacting most students worldwide between March and June 2020. However, professors and students in Portugal continued in what is their mission: to teach and to learn, respectively.
The central role that higher education institutions (HEIs) play in society was reflected in the use of online platforms to replace face-to-face classrooms with online lessons from the beginning of the pandemic, even before the state of emergency has been declared.
The different levels of students' skills, characteristics, and means for technologies and remote learning in this context raised different questions and naturally led to their perceptions regarding the e-learning lessons, which can contribute to different levels of students’ performance and autonomy.
To understand how this unexpected experience was perceived by students of HEIs in Portugal, a questionnaire was developed and carried out. This research is based on 2107 valid responses from this survey, covering students from seven Portuguese HEIs. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used. The main purpose of this research is to identify the underlying factors through the students’ perspective as regards the e-learning lessons during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how these factors can contribute to the different levels of students’ performance and autonomy.
The findings indicate that all explanatory factors (quality of lessons, self-confidence and social issues, ways of participating in lessons, and Internet accessibility) have a significant relationship with students’ performance and autonomy. Except for self-confidence and social issues, that relationship is a positive one.
This research aims to contribute to the identification of the relevant aspects from the perspective of students of HEIs concerning the unforeseen experience of online classes, which can be useful to develop future actions that fill or improve remote teaching, even in difficult periods such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Keywords:

autonomy; Covid-19; efficacy; e-learning; HEI; students’ perception.