Abstract:

The global pandemic caused by the SARS-COV2 virus abruptly and drastically changed the way in which education is delivered and received. The traditional face-to-face university education was replaced by various ways of distance teaching and learning. Neither teachers nor students were prepared for this, so it is interesting to note what impact it had on the university students’ achievement.

We analyze the students’ achievement expressed as full study cycle completion, average grade in both theoretical and practical subjects as well as timeliness of the thesis defense.
53 undergraduate students and 119 graduate students of pedagogy who graduated in June-September 2019 and respectively 70 and 122 who graduated in June-September of 2020 - a year fully affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the course of the study we found that undergraduate students find it harder to complete their studies and take their defense on time. There is no statistically significant difference between the two groups in averages obtained for theoretical courses for undergraduates, but there is a highly statistically significant difference for graduate students, who on average got better results in these subjects during the remote learning.

For the practicalities, i.e. courses preparing the students for working in educational institutions taking place at those institutions, the results go in the opposite direction. For both groups (undergraduates and graduates), the average results were better when the training was on-site, during the pre-pandemic period. This difference is highly statistically significant in both groups.

To sum up, the distance learning approach does not seem to have been conducive to learning the practical subjects and finishing the course of study on time, and there is evidence that some graduate students may have found it easier to learn theoretical subjects with the use of distance learning. These results may be of great importance for designing the course of studies as well as giving us a food for thought about the necessity for training both students and teachers in the use of remote learning technologies.

Keywords:

Covid-19, distance learning, academic achievements, university students, pedagogy.