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Research Articles

Online learning, perceived difficulty and the role of feedback in COVID-19 times

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ABSTRACT

The closure of higher education institutions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a sudden and unexpected transition from face-to-face to online teaching and learning. This paper draws on data from a broader study focusing on higher education students’ perceptions and experiences of online learning during the first lockdown in 2020. In total, 2,718 students from different Portuguese institutions participated in the study. Findings indicate that students who felt they had been provided with more feedback reported less difficulty in online teaching and learning. Students reported more perceived difficulty than perceived feedback in online teaching and learning. Findings point to the importance of feedback in fostering self-regulation of learning, thereby helping students better adapt to online teaching and learning.

Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by Portuguese national funds through the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) within the framework of the CIEC (Research Centre on Child Studies of the University of Minho) projects under the references UIDB/00317/2020 and UIDP/00317/2020.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

The research project was carried out according to the ethical principles of international educational research, namely data confidentiality, informed consent, voluntary participation, and the use of data collected only for research purposes.