University Studies in a Changed World

 – Lessons from Covid-19

University Studies in a Changed World – Lessons from Covid-19

At the end of March 2020, the lives of hundreds of thousands of students were thrown into disarray, as South Africa instituted lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Universities and Private Higher Education institutions* scrambled to ensure learning could continue online - some more successfully so than others.

At the end of last year, The Independent Institute of Education (The IIE), the higher education division of Africa’s leading private education provider, ADvTECH, conducted an in-depth survey of students across South Africa, in both the public and private sectors, to gauge which factors played a role in ensuring successful continuation of the student journey, and student perceptions about their lockdown learning experiences.

The Independent Institute of Education’s leading educational brands include Vega, Rosebank College, IIE MSA, Varsity College and The IIE School of Hospitality and Service Management. The key objective of the research was to provide credible quantitative (measurables) and qualitative (descriptive) data that could support a roadmap for the future.

THE SURVEY

The survey tested the sentiment of a demographically representative sample of students from 22 institutions – 8 Privates and 14 Public Universities across South Africa – about their lockdown learning experience.  Private and Public institution experiences were very similar in some respects, but not in all.
The survey looked at student perceptions of the responsiveness of institutions to the COVID-19 crisis and the extent to which they felt they were being prepared for the working world. 
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Operational: 

How long did it take to get teaching and learning back in place?
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Quality: 

Is the standard of Teaching and Learning what was expected?

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Engagement:

To what degree did they participate in the online delivery?

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Support:

Has the level of support from lecturers or university been as expected?
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Preparedness:

Do students feel adequately prepared for assessments? 

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Employability:

Do they think this has impacted their future employability?

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Future:

How do they think teaching and learning will change in the future?
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Confidence:

Do they think their institution is capable of adapting to the future of learning? 

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KEY FINDINGS

KEY FINDINGS

MOTIVATION & ENGAGEMENT


Lack of peer contact and motivation emerged as two of the key challenges that faced higher education students last year after institutions took teaching online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

The number one issue, cited by more than 40% of respondents, was that students missed their peers and found it hard to adjust to online learning, ultimately leading to a loss of motivation on the part of many.

Going forward, higher education institutions that are not yet doing so, must make an extra effort to introduce measures that will support students and assist with maintaining their emotional wellbeing.  
 
The IIE approach to lockdown learning took into account that engagement is both a wellbeing and a learning issue as higher education is not just about mastering content – it is most importantly about learning to refine and develop your thinking by considering the thinking of others. Many students felt this gap when they went online, but The IIE sought to address this by instituting a wide range of support initiatives and non-academic online activities during lockdown.

QUALITY OF ONLINE TEACHING

There was a considerable difference in the perceived quality across the board. Although many respondents rated the standard of online teaching and engagement as “Good” or Excellent”, more than 25% of students cited lack of support as an issue. Even within faculties within the same institution, inconsistency was experienced as contained in student comments. “Some were good and some were bad,” said one Engineering student. “I don’t like how things are being done now,” said another, “I feel a lack of enthusiasm coming from everyone.”
It should be noted that students’ perceptions are limited by their own experiences. Where they might in the past not have experienced a great deal of support in a contact environment, they may have equally low expectations in an online environment.
IIE brands quickly adapted to the online platform, delivering a fit-for-purpose online learning experience rather than simply creating a paper-behind glass experience. 
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CONSISTENCY

When teaching face-to-face, there will usually be a measure of consistency of delivery across modules. At the very least the timetable and the structure of the lecture (lecturer in front, delivering to students with variable engagement opportunities) is one that is known and predictable and thus certainty is created. In the online space, there is far less that is familiar to the students which heightens anxiety and when that is then overlaid with great variability in the methods, tools and structures used by lecturers let alone their individual strategies to share knowledge and skills it is unsurprising that students found it overwhelming and cited lack of consistency as an issue. It is this varied nature that may have made students hold fewer positive perceptions, because of a lack of predictability and consistency.   
 
It is certainly clear that institutions need to put a great deal more effort in to ensuring that students find structures and conventions with which they are familiar throughout their online learning journey so that their energy is spent on navigating learning not the system.

WORK READINESS

Only 63% of students felt that their online learning experience was preparing them to be successful in the future workplace. Although many respondents believe that studying from home prepares students for a new age of working from home, others were despondent. “Online does not equal better,” said one respondent, with another adding: “I am just worried about how this mess will translate by the time we start working”. “It’s making me too anxious to even think about my future workplace,” said a commerce student.
 
At the beginning of the period, The IIE identified and foregrounded the ways in which online learning was giving students access to so-called 21st century skills by making them engage collaboratively online while using digital tools for research and the production of assessments. By explicitly linking this to work-readiness, feelings of anxiety were reduced. Taken together with the maintenance of work integrated learning modules (through simulation) and graduate preparedness programmes, deliberate efforts were made to ensure that the lockdown enhanced work-readiness rather than undermine it.
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ONLINE VS ON-CAMPUS IN THE FUTURE

It is difficult to understand this difference but given the concern of almost a third of public higher education students that more online learning would be negative and less engaging this may reflect wishes and hopes or concerns about the quality of online learning more than a reasoned assessment. 
The reality is that stability will not return soon and some form of hybrid with more online engagement is probably a feature for the foreseeable future, but also future lockdowns, requiring a cessation of contact for a period, may well happen again. Students needing and wanting consistency and support are best served opting for institutions that have already demonstrated that they can move between online and face-to-face effectively and efficiently, with the necessary support in place, as circumstances change. 


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(Former Academic Director) DR FELICITY COUGHLAN: DIRECTOR OF THE IIE & ADvTECH GROUP ACADEMIC DIRECTOR –

The focus for Higher Education Institutions this year must be on two fronts: Ensuring consistency and effectiveness of teaching and learning, as well as providing the crucial support students need. Students expressed a need for safety, consistency, security and predictability, and as we head into another uncertain academic year, effort must be made to address these concerns.

Additionally, while students want the transmission of knowledge by for instance coming to class and writing down what the lecturer says, they also need active learning where they are involved and engaged with learning materials.  So online platforms where lecturers try to mirror what is happening in class without active engagement will be less effective, because students are inclined to disengage more readily when they are not visible to the lecturer, who then is not in a position to respond to the disengagement.

The focus now must be on learning, but also crucially, on finding a combination of ways to promote student learning. The approach cannot be a single strand strategy.

As Private Higher Education institutions and Public Universities we need to ensure that we not only respond to our ongoing crisis as effectively and resiliently as possible on an academic front, but also that we provide the necessary support for students to prepare them to enter the workplace with confidence and equip them with the important non-academic skills they will need to thrive in a changing world.