Coronavirus: Remote learning given thumbs-down by tertiary students

Tertiary students disliked the online learning forced upon them during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The online learning forced upon tertiary students during the COVID-19 crisis lacked the human touch, among other complaints made to higher education providers.

Learning remotely online has been comprehensively rejected by tertiary students forced into it by the COVID-19 shutdown of campuses across the country.

“A very large proportion of ­respondents in the various surveys commented that they did not like the experience of online learning and did not wish to ever experience it again,” a new report from the sector’s quality regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, has found.

The report says that one “surprising and somewhat disturbing” issue raised in several surveys was a reluctance by some students to use the video in Zoom because “they did not wish to show their colleagues the interiors of their homes because they were concerned about the physical contents and appearance and also the presence of family members”.

Of 179 higher education providers the agency requested to ­report on routinely collected student satisfaction data, 118 ­responded. The agency then conducted a “thematic” analysis as a means of ascertaining the effectiveness of the sudden transition to online learning, what had worked and what had not.

In many cases, the proportions of disaffected students were between 33 per cent and 50 per cent of students who responded to ­internal surveys by institutions. “These are large numbers across the sector and present a problem if the transition to online study must remain well into 2021.”

The report says some institutions ran extra surveys “focused on what had not been successful or on what could be improved and so attracted a greater number of negative responses than positive comments and, in this way, the results of this analysis may have been biased towards trying to identify areas for improvement”.

The negative findings stood out despite what the TEQSA called “the overall positive response and appreciation by students of effort made to transition to remote learning”.

The most commonly reported aspects of online learning reported as working well were flexible access to materials (reported by 29 institutions), good access to academic help and advice online (29) and that technology made it easier to learn (24).

The agency’s chief commissioner, Professor Nick Saunders, said while “students were genuinely understanding and appreciative of efforts by providers and academics to rapidly switch to online learning”, they had a range of concerns.

These were topped by IT issues, which 41 per cent of institutions reported, reduced interactions with academics and peers (34 per cent), assessment changes (30 per cent), lack of engagement and insufficient peer interaction (29 per cent each), as well as feelings of isolation (15 per cent) and reduced motivation (14 per cent).

There was also a frequently ­expressed concern by students about the lack of access to libraries on campuses, both as quiet places to study and places to meet up with other students.

“Most providers have already acted upon the findings of these surveys at an institutional level and TEQSA will continue to share learnings and good practice resources around the online student experience with the sector,” Professor Saunders said.