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The paper presents the most comprehensive and large-scale study to date on how students perceive the impacts of the first wave of COVID-19 crisis in early 2020 on various aspects of their lives on a global level. With a sample of 30,383 students from 62 countries, the study reveals that amid the worldwide lockdown and transition to online learning students were most satisfied with the support provided by teaching sta� and their universities’ public relations. Still, deficient computer skills and the perception of a higher workload prevented them from perceiving their own improved performance in the new teaching environment. Students were mainly concerned about issues to do with their future professional career and studies, and experienced boredom, anxiety, and frustration. The pandemic has led to the adoption of particular hygienic behaviours (e.g., wearing masks, washing hands) and discouraged certain daily practices (e.g., leaving home, shaking hands). Students were also more satisfied with the role played by hospitals and universities during the epidemic compared to the governments and banks. The findings also show that students with certain socio-demographic characteristics (male, part-time, first-level, applied sciences, a lower living standard, from Africa or Asia) were significantly less satisfied with their academic work/life during the crisis, whereas female, full-time, first-level students and students faced with financial problems were generally a�ected more by the pandemic in terms of their emotional life and personal circumstances. Key factors influencing students’ satisfaction with the role of their university are also identified. Policymakers and higher education institutions around the world may benefit from these findings while formulating policy recommendations and strategies to support students during this and any future pandemics.
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... Online Learning Questionnaire: Survey questions on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected students' experiences with online learning were adapted from Aristovnik et al. (2020). The first section is comprised of 5 questions to determine the respondents' demographic characteristics. ...
... However, female students expressed more confidence in online collaboration and communication platforms than their male counterparts. In contrast, Aristovnik et al. (2020) found that male students had greater confidence in their computer skills than female students attested. ...
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... De esta forma se fueron identificando algunas problemáticas, tales como: falta de autoestima, problemas psicosomáticos, abuso de sustancias, suicidio, aumento del sedentarismo e incertidumbre con respecto a su futuro Carvalho et al., 2020;Hall et al., 2020;Mac-Ginty et al., 2021), estando todos estos efectos mediados por determinados factores protectores, como la estabilidad económica familiar y la convivencia con otros (Cao et al., 2020). También se observó que existía una relación entre la sintomatología ansiosa en los estudiantes y los desafíos asociados con los repentinos y nuevos procesos de aprendizaje (Álvarez et al., 2020;Mac-Ginty et al., 2021), incertidumbre sobre el éxito académico, preocupación por las relaciones interpersonales futuras (Aristovnik et al., 2020;Meda et al., 2020), preocupaciones tecnológicas de los cursos en línea y el distanciamiento de los seres queridos (Browning et al., 2021), lo que con el tiempo terminó reduciendo su capacidad para hacerle frente a las exigencias que se les imponía. ...
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