Supporting College Students During Times of Transition: Pedagogical Recommendations Based on Pandemic Learning Data

Abstract

College students’ learning experiences were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the move to emergency remote teaching during March 2020. With the present availability of vaccines, many colleges and universities are now transitioning back to in-person learning. Students will need pedagogical support during this transition, but research identifying specific areas of support is currently absent. The present study sought to address this gap. Students (N = 143) were surveyed about their pandemic learning experiences and perceptions of the transition back to in-person learning. Several pandemic learning challenges and concerns about returning to in-person learning were reported, along with course policies and instructor behaviors students would like to see continued during the transition. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for pedagogical practices and instructor behaviors that will facilitate the transition to in-person teaching and learning, as well as for transition periods beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords:

• College student transitions
• COVID-19
• emergency remote teaching
• pandemic learning
• post-pandemic pedagogy

Data availability statement

The study was not pre-registered, but the measure and the cleaned and coded data are available on the Open Science Framework (https://bit.ly/3s4gJWL).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Some students provided multiple responses that counted as one theme, and some single responses were coded as containing multiple themes.