University education is beyond academic benefits. It gives students a chance to develop attitude and skills that give them courage, ability to work with others and a better understanding of himself and the entire world around them. It is during University years that a person gets to understand his/her identity, role, and dreams. To become what you want to be, you need not only formal education but also real-life experience and opportunities for self-development.
How much of this is missing in these cruel times of eLearning & social distancing?
Your comments are highly appreciated!
University students have been additionally affected by a sudden move to online learning, the closure of campuses and dramatic societal changes that have upended their experiences of higher education. and that is focused on the physical and mental health consequences of the pandemic for this population sector during 2020,
The new normal, that is COVID-19 related appears to have brought more learning gains than losses to learners in all education sectors or levels, that is, Early Childhood Development, primary school, secondary school, and higher and tertiary education sectors. The first benefit is that learners can learn from anywhere. The second benefit is that learners can use M-learning (Mobile learning) ICT gadgets during their travel. The third benefit is that learners can audio-video themselves during audiovisual conferencing sessions as they get peer and lecturer assessed during presentation of lecture-assigned topics and research proposals and viva voce. The fourth benefit is that the pandemic seems to have cut operation costs on the part of education providers since on-campus/school/college time sessions have been cut. This has savings on water, electricity, textbooks, exercise books, and furniture wear and tear. Learners appreciate how other learners in their level experience the learning situations and can even read their learning and personality development, the world over. The losses on the other hand, are physical interaction and play which usual have cardinal bearings on social, mental, moral, emotional and personality development of learners whenever they mix for fun and learning.
Distance learning has many limitations among of them one is there is no opportunity to guide students through direct monitoring like a physical classroom or seminar. We know a mentor don't only read the students they also inspire their beloved students to do their task properly and precisely. Due to the pandemic, students are not getting facility to meet their friends and hall mates and they also deprive from sport, debates and different extracurricular activities. Therefore, if we can back the campus and classroom as early as possible, it will carry the betterment of our beloved students.
Dear Ca Dr. Gaurav Bhambri . I agree with you that the new status quo the Pandemic has created has had the worst impact on University students, all over the world, who were denied much effective campus life that used to contribute to their social and emotional well-being. Many thanks to your contribution.
Thank you Tichaona Mapolisa for your comment. eLearning is the better of the two evils between "some education" & "no education at all". The discussion I am proposing is to highlight how much the denial of social life, of campus life and the exposure to real-life situation, has resulted in delaying the development of their personalities. This, I propose, should be of prime importance, in particular, to educationalists, like yourself. Best regards!
Dear Remi Chukwudi Okeke . Thank you for agreeing on the necessity to shed light on this added educational problem resulting from the inflicted measures taken in the attempt to confront the Pandemic. Best regards!
Dear Md. Abdur Razzak Choudhury . Thank you for your contribution. Indeed, students all over the world feel the loss of social life that used to contribute greatly to their emotional and social growth. Best regards!
Dear Hermann Gruenwald It has, indeed, become the new bitter inescapable reality. Still, it remains important to agree on what or how much can be done to lessen the effect of students' loss of university and campus life on personality-making! Best regards!
Dear Professor Ahmed T. Hussein
Thanks to share this interesting question.
Our shift online could take several forms. First, if bad-experience stories circulate and have influence, we could see participation and even enrollment decline. Second, given equity issues worsened by recession, open education resources and open-access publishing could triumph. We may also see inequality drive different technology uses, with wealthier communities using more demanding technologies (virtual and mixed reality, telepresence) while poorer ones turn to tools with lower infrastructure demands (asynchronous video, audio, images and text).
Third, as entirely online pedagogy continues, certain pedagogies and support structures should win widespread attention. Colleges and universities might compete for students (as well as faculty and staff) based on how well and prominently they carry out these teaching methods. Fourth, if the pandemic persists unevenly, coming and going in waves over a long period, we might get used to alternating between face-to-face (i.e., really blended) teaching and wholly online instruction.
https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2020/03/25/how-shift-remote-learning-might-affect-students-instructors-and
Thanking you and my best wishes,
Dr Sudhir Yadav
Thank you very much for this question. Indeed, university education has collapsed due to the Corona pandemic, and there has become a lot of negligence in completing tasks and students are using the pandemic as an excuse to get rid of their homework and are not overwhelmed by their scientific future, in my country whenever there are signs of a return to attendance work, electronic armies work to promote and intimidate the pandemic until it retreats Governmental agencies for the return of the official attendance hours. Accept my greetings
A reengineering of university education will take place (I do not mean corporate university, in this case). Computer-programmed instruction (programmed learning in electronic virtuality) can surely deliver the scientific facts, if the didactics is profound (I know that it is very hard work to realize this goal). But you Ahmed T. Hussein are right to point to the necessity of physical assembly for certain learning processes, which seems to be a socio-biological reality of human group evolution. Without these experiences, some important quality of being a human will be lost. I am even inclined to say that new pathologies can emerge from bad pedagogics going electronic.
Good morning
Good question, but is reality, we lost a lot.
Poor countries stopped for maybe 2 years, or more
We always believe that all people have computers, the internet and a good room to read. more that apples they have any food. But not, pandemic increase different between nations
Best regards
Ph.D. Ingrid del Valle García Carreño
Dear Ahmed,
The effect of the pandemic has been felt globally amongst university students, and in many cases quite profoundly especially amongst international students studying away from home during the waves of epidemic surges. Students reported as suffering from anxiety, depression, a sense of isolation, an inability to engage with their studies, screen fatigue, and a range of psycho-somatic illnesses in addition to some contracting the Coronavirus itself in residence halls. Medical students especially had a tough time dealing with the physical demands and psychological impact of working in stretched hospitals and for many of them their education was halted as demand for medics' time shifted to treatment rather than education.
See this below:
Article Impacts of the Covid‐19 pandemic on the health of university students
Article Psychological impacts from COVID-19 among university student...
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27392/w27392.pdf
Article The Impact of COVID-19 on Medical Education
Article The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on final year medical st...
Hope this helps.
Best,
Dima
Hermann Gruenwald . I agree with what you state that, unfortunately, some take COVID-19 as an alibi to cover several inefficiencies but the discussion is how much is denied of social and campus for our students and measure can be taken to compensate that loss.
Dear Dr. Sudhir Yadav . I'm always grateful to your detailed contribution. I concur with all of your ideas. COVID-19 has been one of the worst nightmares to all of humanity. Varieties in the degree of its effects do exist from rich nations to poorer ones, from one sector of society to another. The discussion, here, is about students suffer east & west, rich & poor. Character formation and personality development are two critical issues that campus life greatly contributes at.
Best regards!
Thank you Zeinab Ali Dashoor for your comment. In Iraq, as in several other countries, there may be signs for the resumption of conventional learning but these are mere signs any new surges in the Pandemic, God forbid, might dismiss them. Even, here, it is psychologically shattering for students to be in constant suspense. One day, they are informed that conventional teaching will resume back; on next day, they are told eLearning would continue for the time being. Nothing is certain; nothing sure! Fluctuation for students is traumatic!
Best regards!
Dear Stephen I. Ternyik . Thank you for your comment. I share your view and hope it would materialize; for educational psychologists to formulate some kind of "new pathologies" that could tackle and remedy "bad pedagogies" resulting from eLearning.
Best regards!
Dear Ingrid Del Valle García Carreño . Thank you for your comment. I, sincerely, hope that experts in educational psychology & social studies, like yourself, would join efforts to design some forms of "novel pathologies" that could tackle what is psychologically and socially lost due to COVID-19.
Best regards!
Dear Dima Khazem . I'm grateful for your comment & the sharing of the articles. True, students all over the world have suffered various problems, educational, social, and psychological due to the Pandemic; perhaps, things had been double-burden for overseas students as you pointed. The main objective of the discussion, however, is what or how much can be done by pedologists, like yourself, educational psychologists, and sociologists in filling the gap "the Pandemic batches" are facing which, I argue, greatly their character formation.
Best regards!
Hi Ahmed,
I would say character formation would have happened for university students before the pandemic though the enforced conditions may have affected their attitude to work. I think I would not be able to comment on this without supportive research. What I have done myself is combine asynchronous online work with synchronous "face to face" online seminars, and module group work and presentations have helped students stay connected and on task. I think it has been a tough year for all, staff and students in HE worldwide and hopefully things will ease for everyone next year.
Almost nothing, given that the "pandemic" has further demonstrated the scarce usefulness of university systems, which have long been short of breath (indeed very short).
There is issue particularly with medical students imposed by current COVID pandemic as clinical methods require practice on patients so online teaching cant the clinical teaching.
Dear Dima Khazem . I fear that there is some sort of misunderstanding with regard to what is meant by character formation. It is related to how a student could gain from university experience through intermingling with university life in and off campus. I don't see how this "happens before the pandemic". It has nothing to do with "the enforced conditions may have affected their attitude to work". The point is not related to students' attitudes', rather it is about the percentage university life usually plays in their lives, is now eliminated by the enforced measures!
Dear Gioacchino de Candia . Thank you for your comment. The topic of discussion, here, is not "the effectiveness of university systems"! The debate is students' social life on the campus. The (in)effective of university systems is a separate issue!
Hermann Gruenwald . Once again, besides teaching students something useful which enables them to earn a living, it is the task of all people involved in university teaching to highlight how restricted campus life would leave its psychological & sociological marks on their personalities. This far more important issue to be regarded as "childcare for adults"!
Dear Humberto Costa & Кhrystova Tеtіana Кhristovaya T.E. Христова .Thank you for taking interest in the discussion. Best regards!
I consider no effort was done to adapt the educational system to the current situation. It was effectively distance school and not e-learning. Only the USA took a different step from what I saw, abandoning memory learning and final exams for lots of different educational materials and continuous examination. Having followed neurology courses in Harvard this winter, I find this system much more efficient and adapted to the distance. I really wish this system could be enhanced worldwide because it could overcome social class predominance and fuel culture with new ideas.
With the rampant pandemic of COVID-19, an increasing number of people are acquiring knowledge through online learning approaches. A study investigated how to improve online learning effectiveness during this special time. Through a mixed design, the study revealed the effect of educational levels, gender, and personality traits on online learning outcomes. It was concluded that postgraduates (N = 599) outperformed undergraduates (N = 553) in online learning, learners (N = 1152) with strong personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to a new experience outperformed those with strong extraversion and neuroticism. https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-021-00252-3
Kindly follow this link
https://www.researchgate.net/deref/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F2071-1050%2F13%2F6%2F3471%2Fpdf
Dear Ahmed T. Hussein. It is an integral and indivisible part.
We may not need to look at it only from a negative angle. Despite the challenges, a big number of students have embraced e-learning and have learned to look at things in many dimensions. Online learning is very exciting to students, if well conducted and moderated. To me, the COVID -19 pandemic could have been a blessing in disguise to college students.
On the negative side of the coin, I think students have become more anxious than before, regarding the future of their studies.
Thank you dear Fred Romano for your contribution. The discussion is not about the methods deployed in distance learning or eLearning. It is about how the conventional old campus life used to offer students to mix and socialize and form their own miniature society that offer opportunities for students to form and develop their personalities.
Best regards!
Chinaza Godswill Awuchi Thank you for sharing the articles. The discussion is after the impact of the dramatic changes imposed on university education that denied their social life which used to constitute the biggest share of character traits.
Best regards!
Dear Ca Dr. Gaurav Bhambri . Thank you again for sharing the interesting article on how COVID-19 has affected students’ career awareness.
Dear Gioacchino de Candia Thank you for agreeing that it "is an integral and indivisible part".
Best regards!
Dear Aloysius Rukundo . Thank you for your contribution. There are thousands of articles written on students' attitudes towards eLearning during COVID-19. It is true that some students, academically, are adapting to the new systems more than before. The current discussion is, however, on the social aspect of campus closures and the impact of social distancing on their character-formation.
Best regards!
I think a lot is missing out there. Professors and instructors are unfortunately not sufficiently prepared to the current situation and they are partly to blame because once they finish their PhD s, and promotion papers, they hardly ever think to develop themselves unless obligated to. They also , most of them actually never think of building a mutual relationship with students in which students can improve their skills and get hands-on experience. Teachers should adapt quickly to the sudden circumstances and come up with new ideas that motivate their students and encourage them to go on with learning. We have real learning loss around the whole world, no matter developed or developing, it is the teacher who will mitigate the consequences.
The students are missing a lot, but are saving a lot of money in transportation and rent and probably learn a lot more about life when staying with family or relatives.
Dear Iman Elbahay . Thank you for your comment. What you state falls in the general losses that all involved in university education have suffered. The discussion, is however, rather focused on the particular aspect of students' social life compared with their situation before the measures imposed by the Pandemic!
Dear Dr. Lamia Mustafa Al-Naama . Thank you for sharing the important paper which explores the impact of COVID-19 on students' life and tries to come up with a conceptual model to reduce the impact of the Pandemic's challenges.
Best regards!
Thank you dear Michael Issigonis for your contribution. The loss students are suffering cannot be made up with some "money" savings because of the restriction on socializing and staying with family.
Dear Raed Rahim Khuder . Thank you for your contribution. It is indeed a very critical phase in a student's life.
This trying times, not only students are affected with the online distance learning. most of the teachers are adjusting as well with the new modality (modular and online learning). unfortunately, there are still teachers who had/have problems on online approach. with this new scheme, it requires intensive trainings among teachers to handle online distance learning. hopefully, this challenge will give new opportunity to those teachers (who were left behind by the technology).
Thank you Alvin Larida for your contribution. Some teachers do, indeed, need more training on online teaching. The misuse of some is causing further problems to distance learning. The discussion, here, is rather for the need for different training that which is needed to deal with students who lost their university social life.
Best regards!
The degree to which a person can be perceived as "real" is affected by the social distancing. Even the term 'social distancing' refers to being further away from something. The closer we are to others, the more real they become and the more we share of ourselves. Skills development is enhanced when we have intimate interactions with others while learning. Intimacy comes from closeness, eye contact, smiling, touch, sharing personal conversation. Total intimacy cannot take place online.
Social presence significantly affects student satisfaction (Gunawardena and Zittle, 1997) and the lack of social presence reduces learning achievement (Richardson and Swan, 2003). A home environment that picks up where a online school environment leaves off, may combat the loss of student achievement. But only if that home environment is part of a learning community and has the same goals and objectives.
Dear Sara Wechsler . Thank you for your valuable contribution. I agree with most of what you have stated. In my opinion, however, "home environment", no matter how ideal it might be, cannot offer a similar social community spirit used to be offered by university campus before COVID-19 imposed distancing measure.
Best regards!
Ahmed T. Hussein
Dear Professor,
Thank you for the very interesting topic of discussion.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, students in universities across the world are being deprived of the enjoyment of going through OJT (On-Job-Training). OJT teaches a student to handle problems amidst difficulties. Thus, it shapes the personality of the students. That is lost because of distance learning imposed by the pandemic.
So, in future, we may get professionals without the personality of a professional. There is a strong possibility that in future we will get professionals with the personality of an amateur.
Best regards,
Anamitra.
Although e-learning is an absolute necessity at the current stage to preserve the health of everyone... But it will generate many negative effects in the future on the young generation and children... For university students, gaining self-confidence, courage, and self-reliance will be lacking. It will certainly affect building a strong personality capable of taking responsibility and facing problems and difficulties... We all feel that the university student has become regressive and highly dependent on the professor, in addition to that he no longer feels the value of the success he is getting because simply he may have obtained it easily and without fatigue... Indeed, this will greatly affect the building of the students' personalities in the future and in all aspects... My sincere gratitude to all.
Dear Dr. Ahmed T. Hussein , thank you for this student centric & education centric question. I think both Dr. Manal Hadi Kanaan & Dr. Anamitra Roy have already highlighted the pros and cons of distance learning on students psychological development.
The observation of Dr. Anamitra Roy that "we may get professionals without the personality of a professional" and Dr. Manal Hadi Kanaan 's observation that the "student no longer feels the value of the success" - worth the attention of everyone considering the unpredictable nature of covid-19 pandemic end.
Thanks a lot.
Warm regards
Yoganandan
Dear Dr Anamitra Roy . Thank you for your contribution and your comment that focuses on senior students loss of job training which, I agree, helps a great deal in boosting their morale in handling "problems amidst difficulties".
The "loss" is, in my opinion, felt by all students of different stages. Campus social life contributes towards the same objectives that OJT does!
Best regards!
Thank you Dr. Manal Hadi Kanaan for your comment which focuses more on one of the cons of eLearning, namely that which concerns how students are unconsciously loosing because of the "less demanding" nature of success requirements compared with conditions prior to COVID-19. Much obliged!
Thank you Neil Dagnall for your comment. Forgive me, I learned from your RG page that you are interested in "factors predicting behavior change". From my perspective as a university professor and as a father of currently three university students, I could state with much confidence that university world (social side is item one) after COVID-19 has imposed "behaviour change" that can only be interpreted by the change not only in academic knowledge-gaining but also in personality formation!
Thank you Dr. Yoganandan G for your comment. The two aspects of the discussion add more on the necessity to find a formula, in my humble opinion, that could study and design possible solutions to this serious problem. Best regards!
Thank you Muhammad Ihsan . We all pray and wish that the world will see an near end to COVID-19 & its numerous agonies!
Ahmed T. Hussein
Dear Professor,
Thank you for your appreciation of my writing in this thread.
I studied my bachelor's degree in one of the best colleges of India. When I was a student there, going to the college was some sort of a fun. May be there was a seminar going on. I had the option of attending the seminar and listening to the views of some great thinkers. The Rector of that college, Father Felix Raj was a reputed professor of commerce and a very friendly man. As a student, I could at any point of time, walk into his room and have a chat about some latest development in business or management. I had the option of talking to the reputed and legendary professors like Dr. Rahman, Dr. Amitabh Mukherjee, Dr. Hanif, Dr. Amitabh Ghosh, Dr. Sanjeev Basu. I mean, there were people reading and studying books and notes written by these legends and I would go for a walk with them in the greens at the back side of the college. They would listen to my novice opinions as if I was a Nobel laureate. And then of course, I had the option of sitting somewhere in the college campus and getting lost in thoughts. I would spent time in those rooms where some of the greatest minds of India had once studied as a student. Our sporting legend, Saurav Ganguly studied in room number 31, which also was one of my favorite rooms in the college. I could play soccer in the field where probably the great scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose or the one of the greatest actors of all times, the great showman, Raj Kapoor would also have played. I could sit in the library, in that very chair where great industrialists and business tycoons like Laxmi Mittal, Aditya Birla, Sanjeev Goenka or someone else would have sat at one point of time.
And, of course I had the pleasure of walking to Flury's (a legendary cafe in Kolkata which is located at a walking distance from that college) to have some coffee with an award winning professor of English like Professor Kapadia. I could enjoy the sunset with the then President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. While walking down the corridors, I could meet the former Chief Ministers like Jyoti Basu or Siddhartha Shankar Roy.
Professor Hussein, that was college and education for me. All this is lost today. Today's generation cannot do what I did and its all because of the pandemic. I agree with you, campus social life contributes towards the same objectives that OJT does.
Best regards,
Anamitra.
Dear Dr. Anamitra Roy Thank you again for your beautifully-narrated added comment. Your experience of campus-life is shared by many of researchers here on RG members. Every experience shapes a side of students' character. These are facts confirmed by social psychologists. They can not be denied or minimized.
Best regards!
Just to add something similar to the situations stated by Dr. Anamitra Roy , in the good old day of my third B.A. years, I used to be keen on spending part of my university day in the company of my Professor J. B. Mishra of Banaras Hindu University who was a visiting professor to my university in Iraq. We enjoyed a lot to Inhale from his life teachings as much as his academic expertise. Till date, more 40 years ago, his impact left an indelible mark on the personalities of the whole batch, mine included!
How can eLearning offer such a thing?
Best regards!
Some have an effectiveness up to 90%, while others failed.
Tough of some failures; this is the first real mass usage of distance learning; and with later correction of mistakes that lead to failure it would turn into a successful practice.
Also combining distance learning with real learning would give greatest results.
Dear Dr. Muhammad Aledeh
. Thank you for your contribution. I would go with your proposal of conducting a "a cross-sectional study". The problem is that the number is quite limited of those who were forced to attend some Lab classes or special training sessions in other disciplines, compared to the ones who were denied campus life because of the COVID-19 measures! Much obliged!
As for your added comment, the study I'm proposing is not focused on how students were affected by the new measures per se. Rather, the emphasis is more on the campus factor. I do share your views that the pandemic had had devastating impact on students & their professors alike but I am proposing are more in-depth investigation to the factor of campus loss at this critical time of students' life! Thank you again!
Thank you dear Dr. Muhammad Arshad for your contribution. I concur with your idea!
Dear Dr Аабу Абед . . Yes, it is quite true that effectiveness of distance learning could reach 90%. What I suggest to measure now is how much is lost in our distance learning with regard to the impact of university campus life on personality formation of our students! Thank you for your contribution!
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