Abstract:

When Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) switched to emergency remote learning in March 2020, no one could have predicted that the situation would remain unstable for the subsequent semesters. In fact, many HEIs worldwide were obliged to incorporate hybrid or distant forms of education in the 2020-2021 school year. Over the past three semesters, one HEI in Switzerland created and conducted a targeted survey to gauge student responses to this exceptional learning mode. With an average survey response rate of 53.1% over the four surveys, what was found can be encompassed by one broad theme - self-efficacy. Students need self-efficacy to motivate themselves, to use technology, and to follow and successfully complete their courses. Through student comments, the encompassing theme of self-efficacy was divided into three essential areas: Motivation, Course Content, and Technology. Grounded in the literature and supported by our results, motivation is examined through emotion, time management, community building, and self-discipline. Course Content includes interaction, objectives and tasks, methods, and feedback. Technology is addressed through accessibility, knowledge, usability, and support. Previous literature has focused on the opportunities (i.e., more flexibility, autonomy, and active learning) and challenges (i.e., less interaction, lack of support, and technology issues) that remote learning has entailed. While many students have struggled in this new learning environment, others have thrived. For this reason, we decided to gauge student perceptions of their learning and the control over how and when they would learn as observed over the past three semesters. Further, we aimed to assess if their comfortability with and acceptance of remote learning has shifted over time. According to our findings, student perceptions of remote learning (hybrid followed by completely remote) showed steady progression in the first semester. The overall impression of remote learning rose from 53.8% in April to 67.8% in the June 2020 survey for ‘quite good’ and higher yet dipped to 62.8% in the December survey and to 54.5% in June 2021. This decline could be related to the ‘Corona fatigue’ or the impression that the situation is not improving and never-ending. In an open question, students were asked to name the emotions they were feeling with remote learning at the end of the spring semester. Words like demotivated, disappointed, tired, frustrated, and – most important – the missing social contact frequently appear in the student comments. Their words resulted in a 74.5% negative sentiment analysis.

This paper analyzes both the survey results and the student comments to provide a holistic image of student perceptions of learning in a remote environment as it evolved over the past three semesters. While the improving health situation and the COVID-19 vaccine have provided encouraging signs of a return to ‘normal’ education, the questions remain: What is normal? What will formal education look like moving forward? How can students be better equipped to cope with the uncertainty of these exceptional times? What support do they need? How can schools help students keeping their motivation? As the uncertainty reigns for the coming school year, HEIs need to create training programs and workshops to prepare students for the ‘new’ core skill they need to succeed, self-efficacy.

Keywords:

COVID-19, Higher Education, self-efficacy, motivation, technology, course content.