University Students’ Perceptions and Emotions towards Online Teaching and Assessment during the Covid-19 lockdown and isolation

Abstract

The lockdown and global isolation imposed by health authorities to fight against the Covid-19 have unexpectedly and suddenly changed many aspects of our lives. Academic institutions and their agents have also seen their activities dramatically altered: teachers and students were, compulsorily and without previous training, moved to both online lessons and assessment. The main objective of this work is to identify how these unexpected and speedy academic changes, specially from face-to-face to distance online teaching and assessment, have affected university students’ attitudes, perceptions and emotions. To do so, a Google Forms questionnaire-based survey was distributed among English Studies students of the University of Alicante. The results show great students’ concerns and anxiety as regards technological problems, assessment complexity, validity and reliability of the exams as well as a profound and evident discomfort, anxiety and lack of enthusiasm with the remote virtual teaching and assessment systems. All those widespread negative emotions seem to be increased by the lack of socialization with colleagues. However, despite the clear negative impact of the Covid-19 university adaptations on students’ emotional state, which they have reported, the study does not allow us to definitely conclude that students prefer face-to-face teaching and assessment.