Abstract:

2020 will be remembered as the year where a viral pandemic (covid-19) generated high uncertainty in the educational community. In a complicated context, the Spanish university system is forced to make determinations in record time to minimise the impact of the pandemic on almost one and a half million Spanish students. Among other measures, new multimedia resources, online assessments and telematics relationships between professors and students are created or intensified to ensure the quality of teaching in a non-attendance scenario.

The work presented below introduces different comparisons taken at different time horizons: before, during and after the pandemic. The main objective is to analyse the adaptation and behaviour of incoming freshmen and their ability to face the different settings mentioned above, as well as to monitor their progress. The case study focuses on subjects of a certain complexity, subjects where the student requires, a priori, high attendance and continued support from the university professors.

The case study also analyses relevant issues such as student involvement with multimedia tools and resources, their skills to put up with partial and final online quizzes in face-to-face, non-face-to-face and blended learning modes. Ultimately, this paper also wants to answer questions as: Has the educational community really been prepared for the technological change? Have the current tools been sufficient and functional according to its objective? And finally, does the model work for all types of subjects or does it need more reinforcement with quantitative subjects?

Keywords:

Pandemic, multimedia resources, quantitative methods, quality in university education, adaptability.