HE Institutions Online learning survey on international students
As the pandemic still restricts learning all over the world, it is important that HE institutions listen to the students and how they see, adapt and experience learning in lockdown.
QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) presented findings from student surveys throughout 2020 and has been continuing this in 2021. The resent survey reports on the state of students experience of online learning and support during the pandemic and is part of a fuller picture that will be given in the International Student Survey in April 2021. The insights are based on a coronavirus survey of 2,342 currently enrolled international students and 23,731 prospective international students from 198 countries as part of its ongoing coronavirus survey over the period since August 2020.
The key and main method adopted by universities worldwide have been online delivery to their students. According to the survey, more institutions are moving to completely online teaching with 51% of students being taught completely online in September, compared to 76% in January. Seeing that online teaching is increasing, the students were asked to share their popular features and advantages of this way of learning.
When asked what the top three most important features of online lectures were, the most popular feature was the online chat function, which allows students to ask their lecturer questions. 63% of international students preferred the online chat function, 57% chose the option to take part in interactive exercises and a flexible timetabling option is the 3rd top three feature for 53% of the students.
A flexible timetable is naturally important to be considered by the universities as the travel and student mobility are restricted, many international students need to be able to study from different time zones.
To a question about the preference of pre-recorded or live streamed lessons the surveyed international students favoured most of the online lectures to be mostly live-streamed with some pre-recorded (34%), followed by all live-streamed lessons (23%) and the third option was mostly pre-recorded lecture with some live-streamed (20%).
Another question asked revealed that 14% of respondents would feel more comfortable asking questions to their lecturer in an online setting, while 62% chose a face-to-face setting and 24% had no preference.
Regarding the measures taken by the HE institutions to limit the spread of the coronavirus and ensure the safety of students and staff over time the respondents
reported an increase in their institutions making all classes available online which was 66% in September and rose to 80% in January.
Other measures that increased are wearing face coverings essential within communal areas (68%) and the offering of free COVID-19 testing (31%).
This report brings an insight into how students are experiencing education now and provides valuable information for HE institutions to reflect on the online learning practices, what works and what does not and how to improve them.
