Sociodemographic and Digital Education Factors Are Associated to General Health, Coping Strategies, and Academic Outcomes of Undergraduate Students during the Post-Pandemic Period

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic suddenly and forever changed the lives of many undergraduate students around the globe, forcing them to switch to online learning while undergoing social confinement within their homes. It is now well-established that this prolonged period of uncertainty impacted students’ well-being, health, and academic achievement. However, how student-related factors, such as coping strategies as well as sociodemographic, contextual, and technological variables, are linked to digital education factors is currently less understood. Using multiple regression analysis, this study investigates the results of an online questionnaire administered to students from two universities in southern Italy, differing in positioning and size, as well as policies and attitude towards digital learning. The results of this study show the positive effects of expertise with digital devices and university digital learning policies on students’ perceived general health. Conversely, isolation and lack of relational connectedness negatively impacted students’ health. Furthermore, this study highlights the role of different coping strategies, demonstrating that active forms of coping have a positive effect on students’ health, whereas avoidance strategies have the opposite effect. Taken together, this study provides crucial links between the many factors influencing students’ experience with online learning and health, and provides useful indications to promote the uptake of and adaptation to online learning.

Servant leadership, brand love, and work ethic: important predictors of general health in workers in the education sector

“…Currently, many companies have seen the great need to predict future changes in the management of human talent, therefore, one of their priority tasks is to redefine traditional roles and responsibilities, which allow increasing the internal health of the organization through the overall employee health (Pino et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020;Lunde et al, 2022;Tinella et al, 2022;Bezuidenhout et al, 2023); to achieve this end, organizations must have the ability to discover competent people with leadership qualities that promote better results in their work environment, as well as the use of strategies and mechanisms to develop more love (Tijjang et al, 2023), commitment (Grabowski et al, 2019;Tacadena and Muico, 2022;Mitonga-Monga et al, 2023) and ethics (Grabowski et al, 2019;Sakr et al, 2022;Tacadena and Muico, 2022), from employees to your organization.…”

“…Today, there are few studies carried out to predict the general health of employees within the workplace (Shi et al, 2022), in a post-COVID context where various jobs are carried out from the homes of employees; and it is here where there is a greater need to evaluate the changes in the general health of workers for the education sector. On the other hand, important scientific evidence shows that the practice of the leadership style of bosses/directors/managers has a significant impact on the health of workers (Sakr et al, 2022;Tinella et al, 2022;McKimm et al, 2023). Although it is true, the transformational leadership is an affective and high-profile leadership style, which is why many institutions disseminate and practice it (Miao and Cao, 2019), however, servant leadership has become one of the most studied, admired, disseminated and useful in various business sectors, due to the variety of benefits it produces (Kaltiainen and Hakanen, 2022).…”

“…And in this context, general health has an important meaning in the lives of workers in the education sector, where this construct has currently been linked to many others: such as coping strategies (Tinella et al, 2022), depression (Gladstone et al, 2018), job insecurity (Setati et al, 2015), psychological discomfort (Jakubiec et al, 2014), machine learning (Hoekstra et al, 2023), working capacity (Kisiel et al, 2023), quality of life (Bezuidenhout et al, 2023), among other. Understanding general health as the mental, emotional and physical wellbeing that allows us to face challenges (Lunde et al, 2022) and acquire greater concentration in the activities that are carried out (Chavez-Espinoza et al, 2022).…”

Investigating the Role of Second Chance Schools and COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health and Self-Image of Greek Adult Students

“…It seems that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities. Members of wealthier families as well as people already having digital expertise or access to specialized technological assistance had better outcomes in comparison to less privileged ones, in terms of their learning goals, well-being and mental health [ 33 , 34 , 35 ].…”

Threat Appraisal, Resilience, and Health Behaviors in Recovered COVID-19 Patients: The Serial Mediation of Coping and Meaning-Making

“…A series of meta-analyses [ 33 ] demonstrated that problem-focused coping is positively associated with health, indicating that efforts to solve the problem characterize individuals who report adaptive health behaviors. It has been found that active forms of coping have a positive effect on people’s health, whereas avoidance has the opposite effect [ 34 , 35 ]. Likewise, highly resilient people tend to engage in active solutions [ 36 ], and largely choose problem-focused coping [ 37 ].…”