Health and education concerns about returning to campus and online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic among US undergraduate STEM majors

Abstract

Objective: We examined undergraduates’ concerns about returning to campus and online learning from home. Participants: Undergraduates majoring in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) at US universities/colleges. Methods: Participants completed an online survey in July 2020. We content-analyzed responses to open-ended questions about concerns about fall 2020. Results: Students (N = 64) were 52% women, 47% low socioeconomic status (SES), and 27% non-Hispanic white. Concerns about returning to campus included student noncompliance with university COVID-19 prevention guidelines (28%), infection risk (28%), poor instructional quality (26%), inadequate university plans for preventing/handling outbreaks (25%), negative impacts on social interactions (11%), and transportation/commuting (11%). Concerns about learning from home included difficulty focusing on schoolwork (58%), lack of hands-on/experiential learning (24%), negative impacts on social interactions (19%), family/home environment (15%), concerns that online learning wastes time/money (10%), and inadequate technology/Internet access (5%). Conclusions: Universities should address student concerns and provide resources to overcome barriers to effective learning.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• education
• online learning
• undergraduate students

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States of America and received approval from the Penn State and University of Connecticut Institutional Review Boards.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (PI: Brown, NSF #2028344; PI: Pagoto, co-PI: Waring, NSF #2028341). Additional support for Dr. Pagoto was provided by National Institute of Health (NIH) grant K24HL124366.