An Italian Large Case Study on Emergency Remote Teaching: Factors and Predictors Which Affect Higher Education Students’ Attitude

Abstract

In the last few years many studies on concerns about Emergency Remote Teaching have been implemented, but few focused on the Italian academia. The present large case study involved 3,670 undergraduate and postgraduate learners enrolled on both Architecture and Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. It aimed to investigate their assessment of remote teaching through an online questionnaire, with reference to changes in their subjective perception of difficulties in the switch from in-presence to remote teaching. Students' opinion was expressed based on a five-point Likert scale. The overall questionnaire, consisting of 66 items which referred to 6 different constructs, was empirically validated through factor analysis and a positive reliability analysis was completed. Our results highlighted that the overall participants' perception of difficulties worsened. These findings did not depend on the students' educational level of degree, while the faculty which they were attending influenced the females' evaluation. While females enrolled on Architecture did not appear to suffer the change of educational approach, the subjective perception of the ones enrolled on Engineering was markedly worse. On the contrary, faculty did not seem to influence the males' opinion, which was negative but not as negative as the opinion expressed by the females enrolled on Engineering.