Abstract:

2020 was a year of sudden changes that required school and university systems to adapt to changed conditions by ensuring that teaching and learning processes did not stop. There are many researches that have been conducted following this event: if on the one hand the need for educational systems to be more and more flexible, resilient and ready for sudden and increasingly complex requests was underlined ([5]; [6]; [7]), on the other hand, much reflection was given to the teaching practices and the workload of students and teachers ([1]; [3]; [8]; [4]).

The aim of this paper is to explore the perceptions of university students with respect to distance learning (in Italy DaD, Didattica a Distanza) and emergency remote teaching ([2]) through a monitoring questionnaire administered through social channels in the Italian context after the first lockdown in spring 2020. Beginning from the students' backgrounds, the technological devices available to them and the distance learning developed by the universities that they attend, the goal is to deepen their starting conditions and their point of view on the experience of learning in a health and social emergency. At the level of tertiary education, the ability of universities to transfer teaching activities from presence to distance has often been fast. However, this has entailed both the increase in the workload perceived by all the actors involved in the pandemic and in some cases the inadequate preparation for digital infrastructures by academic professors ([9]; [10]; [6]).

References:
[1] Domenici, G. (2021) (ed.). Didattiche e didattica universitaria: teorie, culture, pratiche alla prova del lockdown da Covid 19. Roma: RomaTre Press.
[2] Hodges, C., Moore, S., Loocke, B., Trust, T. & Bond, A. (2020). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review, 27, 1-12.
[3] Lucisano, P., De Luca, A., & Zanazzi, S. (2021). Le risposte degli insegnanti all’emergenza COVID-19. In AA.VV., La DaD in emergenza: vissuti e valutazioni degli insegnanti italiani. Scelte metodologiche e primi risultati nazionali (pp. 13-51). Lecce-Brescia: Pensa MultiMedia.
[4] Mattarelli, E. (2021). University students and Distance Learning: resilience and perception of workload. Italian Journal of Educational Research, S.I., 87-94.
[5] Nirchi, S., & Bianchi, L. (2021). Analisi descrittiva delle domande aperte di una indagine esplorativa sulla Didattica a distanza: le risposte dei docenti universitari. FORMAZIONE & INSEGNAMENTO. Rivista internazionale di Scienze dell'educazione e della formazione, 19(3), 298-315.
[6] OECD (2020), Learning remotely when schools close: How well are students and schools prepared? Insights from PISA. URL: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/en/policy-responses.
[7] OECD (2021), The State of Global Education: 18 Months into the Pandemic, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1a23bb23-en.
[8] Vertecchi, B. (2021). A distanza: insegnare e apprendere. Roma: Anicia.
[9] Watermeyer, R., Crick, T., Knight, C. & Goodall, J. (2020). COVID-19 and digital distruption in UK in universities: afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration. Higher Education, 4, 1-19.
[10] Zimmerman, J. (2020). Coronavirus and the Great Online-Learning Experiment. The Chronicle of Higher Education. URL: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Coronavirusthe-Great/248216.

Keywords:

Students, higher education, distance learning, remote teaching, pandemic.