Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruptions to higher education systems worldwide, forcing institutions to rapidly transition to online and remote learning modalities. This abrupt shift has had a significant impact on students, particularly those transitioning from high school to higher education. This study focused on understanding how students' learning styles and metacognitive skills can facilitate the transition to higher education during a pandemic. This research was based on a qualitative interpretivist paradigm to explore and understand the participant's experience of the transition from face-to-face schooling to online teaching in a private higher education institution. Through the use of metacognition as a theoretical framework study aimed to explore how students use their knowledge and awareness of their own thinking and learning processes to adapt to the changes and challenges brought about by the pandemic. The participants for this study were from a private higher education institution in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The sample selection of twenty students from the School of Humanities and Social Science and included population parameters
(i) must be a first-year School of Humanities and Social Science student,
(ii) not repeating their first year and
(iii) matriculated in 2020 and 2021.

A stratified random sample strategy was utilised to identify and select the 20 students that fit these characteristics and generated two sets of strata. This study thus considered stratum 1 as participants who have passed all their first semester modules and stratum 2 as the participants would have failed two or three first semester modules. Multiple sources through means of triangulation were considered in this study to ensure that findings are credible through focus group interviews, an online questionnaire, and an in-depth literature review to ensure the trustworthiness of this study. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data and the themes identified are discussed in the findings. The data revealed several challenges faced by students as they transitioned from high school where traditional teaching and learning were used and immediately needed to adapt to online teaching at a higher education institution. Challenges such as time management, managing the workload, loneliness, and coping mechanisms were identified. Successes revealed the participant's ability to adapt and use metacognitive skills to plan, monitor, and adjust as they evaluated their own learning journey amidst a pandemic. There was a difference in the strata identified as participants who passed all their modules from stratum 1 had a successful adaptation, positive learning experience, and ability to cope with online teaching and learning. Participants who failed modules from stratum 2 display a challenging adaptation, a difficult learning experience, and a great need for support to cope during difficult times and changing environments. This study may offer recommendations to higher education institutions to support students transitioning from school environments during uncertain times. The study's limitations are that its focus as it considered one specific higher education institution context. Recommendations for further cognisance of the impact of Covid-19 post-pandemic to inform the development of effective support mechanisms.

Keywords:

Learning Styles, Metacognition, High School, Higher Education, COVID-19, Pandemic.