Online and face‐to‐face learning: Evidence from students’ performance during the Covid‐19 pandemic

Abstract

This study investigates the factors that predict students' performance after transitioning from face‐to‐face to online learning as a result of the Covid‐19 pandemic. It uses students' responses from survey questions and the difference in the average assessment grades between pre‐lockdown and post‐lockdown at a South African university. We find that students' performance was positively associated with good wifi access, relative to using mobile internet data. We also observe lower academic performance for students who found transitioning to online difficult and who expressed a preference for self‐study (i.e. reading through class slides and notes) over assisted study (i.e. joining live lectures or watching recorded lectures). The findings suggest that improving digital infrastructure and reducing the cost of internet access may be necessary for mitigating the impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic on education outcomes.

Sustainable Math Education of Female Students during a Pandemic: Online versus Face-to-Face Instruction

“…During the pandemic, adjustments by instructors and students to new online formats, technical constraints, and institutional weaknesses may have created obstacles in the online delivery mode, for some, but not all users [40,41]. Our results along with others [26,37,39] seem to support the idea that the mode of instructional delivery, per se, is not a significant factor in students' learning outcomes if the set-up of courses promotes high levels of cognitive engagement and technical difficulties are not a matter of concern [42]. Since before the pandemic, suitable platforms for online instruction have been available to assist students in their educational pursuits.…”

Cognitive and Affective Brain–Computer Interfaces for Improving Learning Strategies and Enhancing Student Capabilities: A Systematic Literature Review

“…These decisions have had a significant impact in the areas of education, interpersonal interactions, and student wellbeing, and mental health [155]. Consequently, the BCI system can be utilized to enhance the distance learning performance [156] and examine the students' performance and mental health when the learning process transitions from face-to-face to online learning [157]. With the changing of technology to online learning, different skills are needed, especially for teachers and educators.…”

Learning Mathematics of Financial Operations during the COVID-19 Era: An Assessment with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling

“…This factor may result from students not being entirely satisfied with the video tutorials prepared by several professors, instead of a single one, or even by the same professor who previously taught the subject in the classroom mode. It might also be due to the existence of students who still miss the face-to-face mode or who have not been able to assimilate the transition from the traditional classroom to the online mode [19].…”

“…In fact, compared to very recent times in which the evaluation of mathematics learning support could only take the face-to-face mode into account in daily teaching [11], the difficulties caused by the pandemic have represented a disruptive phenomenon with respect to traditional teaching, and, even more so in the teaching of mathematics, since it has resulted not only in the quasi-obligatory decision to opt for online teaching but also in the implementation of practically any element of support coming from the new technologies [12]. In this sense, online teaching of mathematics has been successfully introduced in all educational stages or cycles such as primary school [13], secondary education [10,12,[14][15][16], or at the university level, where these types of initiatives can be found around the world at university systems of countries that are geographically distant and sociocultural heterogeneous, such as the United States [17], Indonesia [18], South Africa [19], or Slovakia [20]. It follows from these facts that the teaching of mathematics from the advent of the COVID-19 onwards is likely to be restricted to automated teaching such that humans will have to limit themselves to interacting with all kinds of technological means [21].…”