Student engagement and performance: evidence from the first wave of COVID-19 in Italy

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effects of student engagement and rapidity of completing exams on student performance before and during the first wave of COVID-19 in March 2020, examining the effect of the shift from face-to-face to online teaching and exams in a Master’s in Business Administration degree at a university in Italy. Prior literature mainly finds that student marks benefit from student engagement, but it has been unclear how COVID-19 affected this link. We find that COVID-19 reduced this benefit in the short term. Prior literature also finds that student performance benefits from passing the exam at the earliest opportunity but the effect of COVID-19-related changes on this remains unclear. We find that the link between higher exam marks and rapidity of completing exams was strengthened by COVID-19. The research contributes to the debate on costs and benefits of COVID-19 on accounting education quality. It confirms that there are disadvantages, in terms of the lower efficacy of student engagement, and advantages, in terms of higher marks from more rapid academic progress.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• online courses
• student performance
• universities
• face-to-face courses
• student engagement

Disclosure statement

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