The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Quality of Educational Process: A Student Survey

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a students’ survey carried out at “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacau, Romania, on the quality of educational process on online platforms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was addressed to students from the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports. The results of survey highlighted that most of students were satisfied with the measures taken by the university during the lockdown period and the way the teaching—learning-assessment process took place. However, some negative aspects were reported as: lack of an adequate infrastructure for some students, less effective teacher-student communication and interaction, impossibility of performing practical applications, lack of socialization, lack of learning motivation, less objective examination (e.g., possibility of cheating), possibility of physical and mental health degradation (e.g., too much time spent in front of screens, installation of a sedentary lifestyle). Consequently, for the new academic year, effective, and efficient measures must be implemented by the management of the university to remove, as much as possible, these negative issues and to improve the performance of online educational process.

The impact of the universities closure on physical activity and academic performance in physical education in university students during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Tilga et al, highlight the facilitative role of autonomy-supportive behaviour in a PE context in young individuals PA participation outside of school [27]. Radu et al, state that most of Romanian university students were satisfied with the distance learning taken by the university during the lockdown period [35]. The findings highlight a significant (p≤0.05) decline in academic performance of all students regardless of gender and specialty of education in our research.…”

“…Ukrainian investigators state that PE teachers were not prepared to conduct PE classes in optimal physical conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic and were not able to provide alternative, interesting for students, forms and ways of organizing individual fitness training that would allow maintaining morphofunctional indicators of physical health [34]. Romanian investigators highlighted that most of students were satisfied with the measures taken by the university during the lockdown period and the way the teaching-learning-assessment process in PE took place [35]. Borodavko et al, concluded that neither teachers nor students were ready for the transformation that took place in the field of education.…”

Perceptions of Romanian Physicians on Lockdowns for COVID-19 Prevention

“…At the first release of the present survey, there were around 9000 cases, more than 40,000 people quarantined at home, and more than 500 deaths from COVID-19 [ 14 ]. Even if many distancing rules were maintained for almost the entire year, including schools closing [ 15 ], the social pressure made it impossible and unreasonable to reimpose strict measures as in the beginning of the pandemic. Therefore, moments of overload for the Romanian healthcare system along with exceeding the capacity of Intensive Care Unit beds were noted during the pandemic.…”

Uncovered User Engagement Pattern in LMS During COVID-19 Pandemic Using Temporal Visualization Matrix

“…Understanding how user engage in the online learning environment is not only important for instructor [20], but also critical for administrator [21] and institution to identify issues and opportunities for academic quality assurance [22]- [24]. There are many metrics can be used to measure user engagement in the online system.…”