effect of covid 19 to students essay

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Covid-19’s Impact on Students’ Academic and Mental Well-Being

The pandemic has revealed—and exacerbated—inequities that hold many students back. Here’s how teachers can help.

The pandemic has shone a spotlight on inequality in America: School closures and social isolation have affected all students, but particularly those living in poverty. Adding to the damage to their learning, a mental health crisis is emerging as many students have lost access to services that were offered by schools.

No matter what form school takes when the new year begins—whether students and teachers are back in the school building together or still at home—teachers will face a pressing issue: How can they help students recover and stay on track throughout the year even as their lives are likely to continue to be disrupted by the pandemic?

New research provides insights about the scope of the problem—as well as potential solutions.

The Achievement Gap Is Likely to Widen

A new study suggests that the coronavirus will undo months of academic gains, leaving many students behind. The study authors project that students will start the new school year with an average of 66 percent of the learning gains in reading and 44 percent of the learning gains in math, relative to the gains for a typical school year. But the situation is worse on the reading front, as the researchers also predict that the top third of students will make gains, possibly because they’re likely to continue reading with their families while schools are closed, thus widening the achievement gap.

To make matters worse, “few school systems provide plans to support students who need accommodations or other special populations,” the researchers point out in the study, potentially impacting students with special needs and English language learners.

Of course, the idea that over the summer students forget some of what they learned in school isn’t new. But there’s a big difference between summer learning loss and pandemic-related learning loss: During the summer, formal schooling stops, and learning loss happens at roughly the same rate for all students, the researchers point out. But instruction has been uneven during the pandemic, as some students have been able to participate fully in online learning while others have faced obstacles—such as lack of internet access—that have hindered their progress.

In the study, researchers analyzed a national sample of 5 million students in grades 3–8 who took the MAP Growth test, a tool schools use to assess students’ reading and math growth throughout the school year. The researchers compared typical growth in a standard-length school year to projections based on students being out of school from mid-March on. To make those projections, they looked at research on the summer slide, weather- and disaster-related closures (such as New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), and absenteeism.

The researchers predict that, on average, students will experience substantial drops in reading and math, losing roughly three months’ worth of gains in reading and five months’ worth of gains in math. For Megan Kuhfeld, the lead author of the study, the biggest takeaway isn’t that learning loss will happen—that’s a given by this point—but that students will come back to school having declined at vastly different rates.

“We might be facing unprecedented levels of variability come fall,” Kuhfeld told me. “Especially in school districts that serve families with lots of different needs and resources. Instead of having students reading at a grade level above or below in their classroom, teachers might have kids who slipped back a lot versus kids who have moved forward.” 

Disproportionate Impact on Students Living in Poverty and Students of Color

Horace Mann once referred to schools as the “great equalizers,” yet the pandemic threatens to expose the underlying inequities of remote learning. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center analysis , 17 percent of teenagers have difficulty completing homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection. For Black students, the number spikes to 25 percent.

“There are many reasons to believe the Covid-19 impacts might be larger for children in poverty and children of color,” Kuhfeld wrote in the study. Their families suffer higher rates of infection, and the economic burden disproportionately falls on Black and Hispanic parents, who are less likely to be able to work from home during the pandemic.

Although children are less likely to become infected with Covid-19, the adult mortality rates, coupled with the devastating economic consequences of the pandemic, will likely have an indelible impact on their well-being.

Impacts on Students’ Mental Health

That impact on well-being may be magnified by another effect of school closures: Schools are “the de facto mental health system for many children and adolescents,” providing mental health services to 57 percent of adolescents who need care, according to the authors of a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics . School closures may be especially disruptive for children from lower-income families, who are disproportionately likely to receive mental health services exclusively from schools.

“The Covid-19 pandemic may worsen existing mental health problems and lead to more cases among children and adolescents because of the unique combination of the public health crisis, social isolation, and economic recession,” write the authors of that study.

A major concern the researchers point to: Since most mental health disorders begin in childhood, it is essential that any mental health issues be identified early and treated. Left untreated, they can lead to serious health and emotional problems. In the short term, video conferencing may be an effective way to deliver mental health services to children.

Mental health and academic achievement are linked, research shows. Chronic stress changes the chemical and physical structure of the brain, impairing cognitive skills like attention, concentration, memory, and creativity. “You see deficits in your ability to regulate emotions in adaptive ways as a result of stress,” said Cara Wellman, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University in a 2014 interview . In her research, Wellman discovered that chronic stress causes the connections between brain cells to shrink in mice, leading to cognitive deficiencies in the prefrontal cortex. 

While trauma-informed practices were widely used before the pandemic, they’re likely to be even more integral as students experience economic hardships and grieve the loss of family and friends. Teachers can look to schools like Fall-Hamilton Elementary in Nashville, Tennessee, as a model for trauma-informed practices . 

3 Ways Teachers Can Prepare

When schools reopen, many students may be behind, compared to a typical school year, so teachers will need to be very methodical about checking in on their students—not just academically but also emotionally. Some may feel prepared to tackle the new school year head-on, but others will still be recovering from the pandemic and may still be reeling from trauma, grief, and anxiety. 

Here are a few strategies teachers can prioritize when the new school year begins:

• Focus on relationships first. Fear and anxiety about the pandemic—coupled with uncertainty about the future—can be disruptive to a student’s ability to come to school ready to learn. Teachers can act as a powerful buffer against the adverse effects of trauma by helping to establish a safe and supportive environment for learning. From morning meetings to regular check-ins with students, strategies that center around relationship-building will be needed in the fall.
• Strengthen diagnostic testing. Educators should prepare for a greater range of variability in student learning than they would expect in a typical school year. Low-stakes assessments such as exit tickets and quizzes can help teachers gauge how much extra support students will need, how much time should be spent reviewing last year’s material, and what new topics can be covered.
• Differentiate instruction—particularly for vulnerable students. For the vast majority of schools, the abrupt transition to online learning left little time to plan a strategy that could adequately meet every student’s needs—in a recent survey by the Education Trust, only 24 percent of parents said that their child’s school was providing materials and other resources to support students with disabilities, and a quarter of non-English-speaking students were unable to obtain materials in their own language. Teachers can work to ensure that the students on the margins get the support they need by taking stock of students’ knowledge and skills, and differentiating instruction by giving them choices, connecting the curriculum to their interests, and providing them multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning.

The impact of COVID-19 on student achievement and what it may mean for educators

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, jim soland , jim soland assistant professor, school of education and human development - university of virginia, affiliated research fellow - nwea megan kuhfeld , megan kuhfeld senior research scientist - nwea beth tarasawa , bt beth tarasawa executive vice president of research - nwea angela johnson , aj angela johnson research scientist - nwea erik ruzek , and er erik ruzek research assistant professor, curry school of education - university of virginia jing liu jing liu assistant professor of education policy - university of maryland-college park.

May 27, 2020

This Chalkboard post from May 2020 draws on historical data and past research to forecast the possible impact of COVID-19 school closures on student achievement. With actual data from the 2020-21 school year now available, please see this December 2020 Chalkboard post for an updated analysis of this trend.

Virtually all K-12 students in the United States are currently missing face-to-face instruction due to COVID-19. Many parents and educators thus share a common worry: When the pandemic subsides, kids will return to school with lower achievement. There are also concerns that the gap between high- and low-achieving students will become larger. Given the need to address these concerns, we decided to use prior test scores from millions of students and leverage research on summer learning patterns to make informed projections of what learning loss due to the pandemic might look like. Ultimately, we wanted to know: What sort of learning losses could we expect from the shortened 2019-20 school year?

Answering this question is complicated by the unique circumstances of COVID-19. Current school closures have added to the time that most students already spend at home during the summer months without explicit face-to-face instruction from teachers. Meanwhile, teachers are scrambling to adapt content for an online platform and parents are juggling work responsibilities (if not joblessness) with caring for and educating their own children. Students themselves are faced with isolation, anxiety about a deadly virus, and uncertainty about the future. In so many ways, the current situation is unprecedented for most people alive today.

Yet there are parallels between the current situation and other reasons students miss school that can give us insight into how COVID-19 may affect achievement. This includes research on the effects of out-of-school time on learning due to absenteeism , weather-related school closures (e.g., Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans), and summer vacation . Existing evidence can provide a rough sense of how time out of school due to COVID-19 will affect achievement.

We relied heavily on past precedent when trying to understand how COVID-19 might impact achievement in the short and medium term. We used a national sample of over 5 million students in grades 3-8 who took MAP Growth assessments in 2017-2018. These assessments enable such estimates because MAP Growth is administered multiple times per year, which means test scores are available in fall, winter, and spring such that changes in achievement during the year can be understood and anticipated. We compared typical growth for students who completed a standard-length school year to projections under multiple scenarios. These scenarios were directly informed by out-of-school-time research.

The results are deeply concerning.

The two figures below show projected math and reading learning patterns from the beginning of the 2019-20 school year (before COVID-19 school closures) through the start of the 2020-21 school year. The solid lines represent average trajectories in a typical year with typical growth (estimated based on a prior year’s data) followed by normal patterns of learning loss over the summer (generally, student achievement/learning tends to decline during the summer, though this varies greatly by student). Next, we assume an extended summer loss would occur during the period since schools closed. We refer to this scenario as the “COVID Slide” (represented by the dotted lines). These projections give a sense of how much learning students could lose, though we hope they will be overestimations of loss, given the online instruction and home schooling occurring.

These preliminary COVID Slide estimates suggest students could begin fall 2020 with roughly 70% of the learning gains in reading from the prior year relative to a typical school year. In mathematics, students may show even smaller learning gains from the previous year, returning with less than 50% of the gains. In lower grades, students may be nearly a full year behind in math compared to what we would observe in normal conditions.

Though not shown in the figures, we produced similar estimates of learning loss based on research showing the effect of being absent on achievement. That is, we simply assumed students’ learning during COVID-19 school closures would be akin to what occurs when students miss school, a large assumption given the online learning and homeschooling now occurring. Results for absenteeism-based projections were often more dire.

We also examined how much more variable achievement might be in the fall—that is, how wide the range in achievement might be between very high and very low-performing students. This range has implications for whether teachers can provide similar content to all students in their classrooms, or if they might need to further differentiate instruction based on a broader range of needs.

The above figures show our estimate of that variability by subject for 4 th and 6 th grade. The shaded areas display the spread in potential outcomes between students who were in the 25 th percentile of summer learning loss (who showed steep declines) and those in the 75 th percentile (who showed flat lines or even small gains during the summer). In mathematics, we see a fair amount of variability in learning rates, though the majority of students show losses over the extended closure and summer period. However, in reading, there is an even wider spread of potential outcomes, with students who are in the 75 th percentile and above showing sizable learning gains during the summer. Further, the figure below shows that extended time out of school may lead to more variability in achievement when students return in the fall relative to a typical year. A wider range of learning needs like the ones suggested by the figure could create greater challenges for teachers.

The New York Times warns that today’s students could be the “COVID generation.” As we think through our road to recovery, we hope education leaders consider our projections among many data points when preparing to support students returning in the fall. Specifically, our results indicate that:

• Students may be substantially behind, especially in mathematics . Thus, teachers of different grade levels may wish to coordinate in order to determine where to start instruction. Educators will also need to find ways to assess students early, either formally or informally, to understand exactly where students are academically.
• Students are likely to enter school with more variability in their academic skills than under normal circumstances. Therefore, educators may need to consider ways to further differentiate instruction or provide opportunities for individualized learning.
• Students who lose the most during the summer tend to gain the most when back in school, but this may not hold for COVID-19 . Regardless, the ground that students have to make up during the 2020-21 academic year will probably be greater due to COVID-19. Therefore, educators may want to work with students to determine growth rates needed to catch up and set learning goals for the year that are ambitious but obtainable.

Finally, the effects of COVID-19 our study cannot examine may be the ones most worthy of addressing. Prior research on students displaced by Hurricane Katrina indicated that they had difficulty concentrating and often manifested symptoms of depression in the months following the hurricane. Understanding these impacts and how best to support students’ social and emotional needs after the huge disruption of COVID-19 will be essential. Many students may face greater food insecurity, loss of family income, loss of family members to the coronavirus, and fear of catching the virus themselves.

While the scale of the COVID-19 school closures is novel, the inequalities in our school systems are unfortunately anything but new. Our models cannot account for the reality that the crisis is having an unequal impact on our most underserved communities. Nonetheless, we hope these analyses, which synthesize what we know from existing bodies of research, will inform tomorrow’s decision-making.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

The perceived impact of covid-19 on student well-being and the mediating role of the university support: evidence from france, germany, russia, and the uk.

• 1 Department of Management, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
• 2 Department of Management, Kedge Business School, Talence, France
• 3 Department of Management, Kedge Business School, Marseille, France
• 4 Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom
• 5 Department Business and Economics, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin, Germany

The rapid and unplanned change to teaching and learning in the online format brought by COVID-19 has likely impacted many, if not all, aspects of university students' lives worldwide. To contribute to the investigation of this change, this study focuses on the impact of the pandemic on student well-being, which has been found to be as important to student lifelong success as their academic achievement. Student well-being has been linked to their engagement and performance in curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities, intrinsic motivation, satisfaction, meaning making, and mental health. The purpose of this study was to examine how student perceptions of their degree completion and future job prospects during the pandemic impact their well-being and what role university support plays in this relationship. We used the conservation of resources theory to frame our study and to develop five hypotheses that were later tested via structural equation modeling. Data were collected from 2,707 university students in France, Germany, Russia, and UK via an online survey. The results showed that university support provided by instructors and administration plays a mediating role in the relationship between the perceived impact of COVID-19 on degree completion and future job prospects and levels of student well-being. Student well-being is decreased by their concerns for their degree completion but not by their concerns for future job prospects. In turn, concerns for future job prospects affect student well-being over time. These results suggest that in a “new normal,” universities could increase student well-being by making support to student studies a priority, especially for undergraduates. Also, universities should be aware of the students' changing emotional responses to crisis and ensure visibility and accessibility of student support.

Introduction

Student well-being has become a concern for many colleges and universities globally as they acknowledge the importance of a balance between psychological, social, emotional, and physical aspects of student lives (e.g., Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 ; Mahatmya et al., 2018 ). Student well-being could be understood as “reduction in stress, enhanced experienced meaning and engagement in the classroom, and ultimately, heightened satisfaction with life” ( Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 , p. 191). Student well-being includes concepts of motivation, identity, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-regulation in the context of learning and matriculating through the program to get a degree ( Willis et al., 2019 ). Student well-being has shown to increase their engagement in learning activities, meaning making, a sense of belonging, positive relationships with others, autonomy, and competencies ( Sortheix and Lönnqvist, 2015 ; Baik et al., 2016 ; Cox and Brewster, 2020 ) and reduce their burn-out, stress, frustration, dissatisfaction, and withdrawal from active learning ( Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 ; Mokgele and Rothman, 2014 ; Yazici et al., 2016 ). Therefore, well-being not only fosters student academic achievement, but also prepares students for lifelong success ( Mahatmya et al., 2018 ). Not surprisingly, many universities across the globe have decided to make well-being their central strategic goal. For example, in Europe, seven universities from seven different regions along with over 100 partnering organizations formed the European University of Well-Being—EUniWell—to promote well-being of students, staff, and communities. Meanwhile, Schools for Health in Europe Network Foundation (2019) is working on health and well-being standards and indicators that offer guidelines to promote health in schools in Europe. In the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Policy Institute (2019) and Advance Higher Education work together to monitor student well-being by continuously collecting and analyzing data from full-time undergraduate students. In the United States, George Mason University, VA, has implemented a university-wide “Well-Being University Initiative” that is coordinated and advanced by a specially created center. The University System of Georgia, USA, has adopted a similar vision of a well-being culture to enhance lives of its community.

Prior to the pandemic, levels of well-being among college students were troublesome ( Poots and Cassidy, 2020 ). For example, in the United States, only one in 10 students graduating from universities measured high in all elements of well-being ( Gallup, 2020 ). In the United Kingdom, undergraduates were reported to have lower well-being than the general population and their well-being was in decline for several years ( Higher Education Policy Institute, 2019 ). This unfortunate state of well-being among students undoubtedly has been devastated by the pandemic that has brought suffering, frustration, discomfort, fear, loss, and other negative emotions and experiences. Students across the world have suddenly been expected to work and learn online, which requires access to good IT infrastructure and equipment, connectivity, and different digital and cognitive skills. Students worry not only about the infection risk but also about their degree completion and unemployment upon graduation, which impacted their well-being even prior to the pandemic ( Moate et al., 2019 ).

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, research has shown the psychological impact of the pandemic on university students and discussed the coping solutions. For instance, disruptions in academic processes due to Covid-19 pandemic have increased student anxiety ( Wang et al., 2020 ), especially for those without adequate social support ( Cao et al., 2020 ). Other health risks, such as depression, alcohol and drug consumption, and eating disorder symptoms, have been reported among German university students ( Kohls et al., 2020 ). Consequently, students with lower levels of mental well-being experience more stress about their academic activities and decreased self-efficacy, satisfaction with coursework, and sense of belonging to university ( Capone et al., 2020 ). Stress also has been found to decrease medical students' enthusiasm to learn and practice medicine upon graduation ( Ye et al., 2020 ). The pandemic has also increased student workload, uncertainty about the semester completion, and confusion about study expectations, which resulted in higher stress levels ( Stathopoulou et al., 2020 ; Van de Velde et al., 2020 ). Due to the limited social life during the pandemic, these students have also reported feeling lonely, anxious, and depressed ( Essadek and Rabeyron, 2020 ). Prior studies highlighted some coping solutions; for example, students searching for information about the pandemic ( Capone et al., 2020 ; Wathelet et al., 2020 ) and for meaning in life ( Arslan et al., 2020 ) have higher levels of mental well-being. Students who spend much time on social media platforms and have strong motivation for online learning also report lower levels of distress ( Al-Tammemi et al., 2020 ). Surprisingly, Capone et al. (2020) found no significant deviation in levels of stress and mental well-being from the accepted norm among college students in Italy.

These and other researchers (e.g., Li et al., 2020 ; Zhai and Du, 2020 ) call for better understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on student psychological states. First, colleges and universities across the globe need to identify and adopt strategies and resources to address the impact of COVID-19, which is likely to be long lasting. These strategies would include a revision of the existing practices and interventions at the curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular levels (e.g., Yamada and Victor, 2012 ; Maybury, 2013 ; Kareem and Bing, 2014 ; Mokgele and Rothman, 2014 ) and at the university-wide level ( Mahatmya et al., 2018 ). Second, COVID-19 has created much uncertainty about “a new normal” in student learning and university functioning. Currently, when most countries are still responding to the pandemic, it seems possible, if not likely, that the change to online or hybrid modes of learning will become more prevalent in colleges and universities across the globe. Therefore, new strategies and resources need to be developed to improve student well-being in the online or hybrid environment. Third, to find effective strategies and resources, colleges, and universities have to identify and understand factors and mechanisms through, which COVID-19 affects student well-being. Consequently, this study sought to examine how student perceptions of their degree completion and future job prospects during the pandemic impact their well-being and what role university support plays in this relationship. To achieve this goal, the study used four scales to collect self-reported data from students in four countries, such as France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom (UK).

Our research contributions are three-fold. First, the study contributes to the emergent knowledgebase of the impact of COVID-19 on student well-being in general (e.g., Al-Tammemi et al., 2020 ; Capone et al., 2020 ; Li et al., 2020 ) and student well-being in France, Germany, Russia and UK in particular (e.g., Essadek and Rabeyron, 2020 ; Kohls et al., 2020 ; Savage et al., 2020 ). Our findings could contribute to the research on the impact of COVID-19 on students and help the higher education sector internationally develop appropriate strategies. Second, this study identifies the key factors affecting students and their learning during the lockdown period and helps understand adjustments needed for the “new normal” learning environment. We argue that the change to an online or hybrid mode of learning will be the “new normal” for teaching, and, hence, we need to explore and find evidence for students to effectively deal with and learn in an online and hybrid environment. Third, using the conservation of resources theory (CoR; Hobfoll, 1988 , 1989 ), we enrich the application of prior student well-being research and provide a theoretical framework that helps understand the mechanism of university support on student well-being.

In the following sections, we introduce the concept of student well-being, provide an overview of the CoR theory ( Hobfoll, 1988 , 1989 ), and review resources that universities provide to enhance student well-being. Then we develop hypotheses, describe the study methodology, and present the results and discussion. We conclude with research limitations and future research direction.

Theoretical Background and Hypotheses Development

Conservation of resources theory.

The CoR theory ( Hobfoll, 1988 , 1989 ) suggests that people experience stress when they feel the threat of resource loss, a real net loss of resources, and/or a lack of gained resources after resource investment. Two types of resources are examined by this theory. On the one hand, individuals' external resources are object resources (e.g., for university student, laptop for taking online courses, living expenses), social resources (e.g., family help), and condition resources (e.g., stable internet and digital support offered by the university). On the other hand, individuals' internal resource includes personal resources (e.g., self-efficacy and self-control during distance learning) and energy resources (e.g., time and health; Chen et al., 2015 ; Hagger, 2015 ). The CoR theory is relevant to better understand the impacts of Covid-19 on university students' well-being as they need to follow fully or partially online courses, they are forced to reduce the social activities to the minimum level, and they should try to manage daily life in the new normal. Simultaneously, Covid-19 remains an international threat to both life and economies, resulting in widespread public nervousness This continuing global pandemic concurrent with the changes in university life are likely to decrease student well-being.

Applying the CoR theory to the current pandemic, Ojo et al. (2020) found that individual reaction and subsequent response to the crisis varies. Some people can bounce back easily and shortly ( Luthans et al., 2006 ; Malik and Garg, 2020 ) while some people will develop the symptoms such as depression or other psychiatric disorders. University students who are able to optimize the resource gains, cope with changes in daily life, and manage their emotions are more likely to perceive the crisis positively. This in turn not only shows their current level of resilience but additionally enables them to develop their resilience capability. Within this dynamic process, their resilience has served to reduce the stress ( Vinkers et al., 2020 ). In this vein, while students are balancing the resource gains (e.g., university support) and resource loss (e.g., change-related stressors), they show different levels of resilience and which affect their capability to maintain well-being.

Student Well-Being

Some researchers explain well-being in terms of equilibrium by stating that everybody has a baseline of happiness. According to Headey and Wearing (1991) , resources, psychic incomes, and subjective well-being are in a dynamic equilibrium. This equilibrium comprises “physical well-being, plenty of physical resources; absence of fatigue; psychological well-being and evenness of temper; freedom of movement and effectiveness in action; good relations with other people” ( Herzlich, 1974 , p. 60). From this perspective, well-being could be defined as the balance point between an individual's resource pool and the challenges faced ( Dodge et al., 2012 ; Chen et al., 2015 ).

During their program completion under the impacts of COVID-19, students face numerous challenges, demands, and turbulences that influence their well-being. For example, they experience diverse social and economic pressures ( Wood et al., 2018 ), have to balance their education, family, and work responsibilities ( Moate et al., 2019 ), and encounter social isolation, discrimination, language barriers, and cross-cultural differences ( Daddow et al., 2019 ). To successfully address these demands and succeed in their pursuit of education and a profession, students at all levels of education and across all disciplines have to have timely and adequate resources ( Mokgele and Rothman, 2014 ; Wood et al., 2018 ). These resources help to address students' needs and, hence, reduce their burn-out and stress and increase their engagement in learning activities, meaning making, and life satisfaction ( Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 ).

Universities can deploy these resources via curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities ( Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 ; Yamada and Victor, 2012 ; Maybury, 2013 ). In the classroom, clear assessment criteria, classroom policies, and project deadlines can eliminate student frustration, dissatisfaction, and withdrawal from active learning ( Mokgele and Rothman, 2014 ). Sports and physical activity have also been shown to decrease depression and stress and increase student well-being ( Yazici et al., 2016 ). Campus libraries contribute to promoting student well-being by ensuring easy access to learning resources and a learning space for all students ( Cox and Brewster, 2020 ). These practices can also help students to increase intrinsic motivation to learn, voice their concerns, enact their identities, and make sense of their experiences. In contrast, a campus environment that does not efficiently address unhealthy and unethical social interactions, for example, bullying ( Chen and Huang, 2015 ), cyberbullying ( Musharraf and Anis-ul-Haque, 2018 ), and cyber dating abuse ( Viillora et al., 2020 ) increases student depression and anxiety and decreases student quality of life. This can lead to students starting to feel less happy and less intrinsically motivated to learn, which affects their well-being.

The Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Degree Completion and Student Well-Being

During COVID-19, more than 100 countries implemented either nationwide or local “lock-down” measures at least once. Such closures meant that face-to-face courses have been transitioned to online learning ( Kwok et al., 2020 ). The impact of COVID-19 on student life becomes significant. These can be, for example, experiencing more workload, adapting oneself to an online learning mode immediately, or moving back to home without sufficient preparation but can also include more worries due to uncertainty and fear of pandemic. In addition, the impact of COVID-19 on each student varies. Some students have limited access to connectivity; some do not have adequate IT equipment to attend online classes, and others cannot afford the extra cost to improve their IT resources ( UNESCO, 2020 ). Meanwhile, students' subjective socioeconomic loss affects their life outcomes. In their study, Kohls et al. (2020) argue that income changes during the pandemic affect the levels of depressive symptoms. In other words, socioeconomic loss leads to increasing stress. For instance, many students rely on part-time jobs to gain their living expenses, and due to the lockdown and economic crisis, they either cannot get a renewed contract or they become unemployed. Unemployment leads not only to earning loss, but also to psychosocial asset loss, social withdrawal, and psychological and physical well-being loss ( Brand, 2015 ). All in all, the unavailable external resources can impact the student learning experience, for example, interrupted learning, lack of participation in in-class discussion, absenteeism in class, and restraints to taking their final exams, all of which can result in students accepting lower-status jobs in order to survive. Additionally, some students have also faced discrimination ( Hardinges, 2020 ) during COVID-19, which may lead to mental health problems ( Kang et al., 2020 ). Students from minority groups (e.g., Asian students, in particular the Chinese) have encountered social isolation and stereotypes, which could impact their student experience and job prospects.

Furthermore, the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the world has been substantial. With insufficient knowledge of the virus and no available vaccine for months, students may be prone to develop more negative emotions. Prior studies have shown that negative emotions have a critical impact on well-being ( Gross, 2015 ; Puente-Martínez et al., 2018 ). Students may experience real and potential loss of resources and a mismatch between task demand at the universities and their resource availability ( Hagger, 2015 ). With the increasing negative emotions, their well-being could be affected as they become more concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on their studies.

We, therefore, predict that COVID-19 would lead to students' negative well-being because students may experience more stress related to uncertainties in their academic success, negative economic impact, and lack of perceived support ( Cao et al., 2020 ). Meanwhile, students would feel the need to deploy more time and energy to protect themselves against and recover from resource loss ( Hobfoll et al., 2018 ) in order to avoid putting their well-being at risk. We propose the following hypothesis:

H1: The perceived impact of COVID-19 on student concerns for degree completion will negatively predict levels of student well-being.

The Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Student Concerns for Future Job Prospects and Student Well-Being

COVID-19 has triggered a worldwide economic recession ( OECD, 2020 ). With the lockdown measures implemented by many governments, business opportunities become restricted in many sectors and unemployment is rising. Many companies have reported layoffs. As predicted during the first wave of the pandemic by OECD (2020) , the second wave of infections in late 2020 worsened the economic situation, and more companies suffered from the economic crisis, which has impacted job losses, financial well-being, and standards of living. As a result, students search for job opportunities to ensure their return on education investment would be limited. Thus, there are more job demands than supply. According to the CoR theory, when resources are lost or perceived to be threatened, people experience stress and are motivated to gain back their resources ( Baer et al., 2018 ). Under the economic lockdown and recession, more students may have difficulties in finding jobs and/or internships, which could negatively affect students' self-esteem (personal resource) and their individual economic well-being (object resource) for instance. Without a guarantee to job prospects, students feel more stressed about their future and return on education investment, which decreases their engagement in learning activities and increases their negative emotions ( Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 ). Therefore, the more concerned students feel about the impact of COVID-19 on their future job prospects, the lower their level of well-being and the higher the level of negative affect. We suggest the second hypothesis:

H2: The perceived impact of COVID-19 on student concerns for future job prospects will negatively predict levels of student well-being.

The Mediating Role of University Support

Universities play an important role in ensuring and increasing student well-being. In the classroom, specific interventions, including positive psychology assignments ( Maybury, 2013 ), stress management and journaling ( Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 ), and mindful awareness practices ( Yamada and Victor, 2012 ) have been shown to improve student well-being. A supportive and enabling environment on campus has been proved to ensure student well-being ( Kareem and Bing, 2014 ; Daddow et al., 2019 ) by fostering their sense of belonging, positive relationships with others, autonomy, and competencies ( Baik et al., 2016 ). For example, through informal social interactions students explore and relate to individual, group, and even the entire university values, which increases their well-being ( Sortheix and Lönnqvist, 2015 ). Mahatmya et al. (2018) describe a set of integrated and interrelated courses that incorporate both traditional and experiential learning activities for undergraduate students. To monitor and manage student well-being outside the classroom, universities provide other services and interventions, including, for example, stress management ( Mokgele and Rothman, 2014 ), counseling ( Kareem and Bing, 2014 ), inter-faith, and cultural diversity programs ( Daddow et al., 2019 ). In summary, these services and interventions represent the support that students can access and, therefore, can make students feel more positive about their resource gains. The perceived impact of COVID-19 may result in students perceiving university support to be limited, insufficient, or non-existent. Therefore, students would need extra resources to achieve the university success and increase their well-being. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:

H3a: University support will mediate the relationship between the perceived impact of COVID-19 on student concerns for degree completion and levels of student well-being.

Similarly, students need support from their universities to increase their chances of employment before and upon graduation ( McMurray et al., 2016 ; Donald et al., 2018 ). These are activities and initiatives provided by academic and student services, campus libraries and student organizations to help students cope with the study demands, develop professional networks, practice job interview skills, write resumes, and gain internships. However, COVID-19 has greatly impacted these resource offering. For example, career services would typically provide more support in a face-to-face format (e.g., career fairs and case championships), but now universities may face difficulties (e.g., time, money, and available talent) to develop effective comparable online services. If universities help students find jobs and internships, students could feel supported, less stressed, and more optimistic about their future careers. Hence, we propose the following hypothesis:

H3b: University support will mediate the relationship between the perceived impact of COVID-19 on student concerns for future job prospects and levels of student well-being.

Methodology

Sample and procedure.

The sample was collected from university students in France, Germany, Russia, and UK between April and June, 2020. In total, 2,707 questionnaires were collected. However, 765 had missing values; after removing them, 1,932 observations were included for further analysis. Out of these 1,932 participants, 119 were recruited from UK, 227 from Russia, 1,314 from Germany, and 272 from France (see Table 1 ). From the students in the sample 63.8% were female, 35.8% male, and 0.4% other. The mean age was 22.87 years old. Most students lived at home (68.5%) and studied full-time (85.1%). Over half of the respondents were first- and second-year undergraduate students.

Table 1 . Demographics.

The questionnaire was administered with Qualtrics XM software. Participants received the link and filled in the questionnaire individually, voluntarily, and anonymously. The project followed ethical standards of research required by each participating university.

The first part of the self-reported questionnaire consisted of demographic details such as gender, age, country, place of residence, study mode, and study year. The main part of the questionnaire included the following four scales.

University Support

University support was measured by asking students to rate to which extent they got support from their lecturers and universities. Two items reflected university support and were measured on a 5-point Likert scale (e.g., Please rate these as they apply to your current experience: I get support that I need from the following:—My lecturers). This was based on the social support scale developed by Pierce et al. (1991) . Good internal consistency was achieved (α = 0.72).

Well-being can be conceptualized as having such components as valence and intensity ( Warr, 2003 ). Therefore, two scales were used to capture well-being in different states: in the moment and general.

In the Moment Well-Being

To test the valence of student well-being in response to predictors, it is important to represent well-being in terms of independent dimensions of positive and negative emotional states ( Tellegen et al., 1999 ). In the moment well-being was measured by a 5-point Likert scale developed and validated by Russell and Daniels (2018) . This scale helps to measure specific positive and negative emotional states relevant to a particular event in time, or “right now.” This ensures affect is measured at its lowest level in terms of duration demonstrating a specific emotional response ( Frijda, 1993 ). Examples of positive states include happy, motivated, and active; examples of negative states include anxious, annoyed, and tired. Good internal consistency was found for negative (α = 0.70) and positive (α = 0.79) dimensions.

General Positive Well-Being

To draw comprehensive conclusions as to the effects of predictors on student well-being, it is necessary to also use a summative circumplex model of well-being ( Feldman Barrett and Russell, 1998 ). This measures the second level of mood-based affect that is not directly anchored to an event and, therefore, at a different intensity to momentary affect ( Brief and Weiss, 2002 ). General positive well-being was measured with World Health Organization (1998) 5-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” This scale helps to assess student mood-based affect for the past 2 weeks. A sample item is “I have felt cheerful and in good spirits and I have felt calm and relaxed.” Good internal consistency was found (α = 0.84).

Student Concerns

This scale was devised to assess participants' concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on the basis of seven items. The items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all stressed” to “extremely concerned.” Varimax orthogonal rotation with Kaiser normalization was used for factor analysis extraction. All factors with eigenvalue >1, explaining 60% of the variance, were considered for further analysis. Coefficients smaller than 0.5 were excluded to get a reasonable number of factors with larger share of variance ( Field, 2009 ). Adequacy of sample size measured by KMO and Bartlett's test of sphericity established a test score of 0.818 ( p < 0.001). Communalities for variables taken for analysis were >0.5. Based on the dimension reduction technique, two latent variables were found to account for 77.38%, so the following two subscales were identified:

Concerns for degree completion measured the perceived effect of COVID-19 on student ability to complete their degree and meet academic expectation. The following four items comprised the subscale: “my exams and assessments,” “my ability to complete my course,” “my final degree/course qualification grade,” and “my grades.” This subscale had a good internal consistency (α = 0.89).

Concerns for future job prospects measured the perceived effect of COVID-19 on student ability to become employed upon graduation. These three items comprised the subscale: “my employability,” “the wider economy,” and “job prospects.” This subscale had a good internal consistency (α = 0.86).

Data Analysis

The Statistical Package for Social Sciences software version (26) with AMOS was used to analyze the data. Descriptive analysis was used to determine means, standard deviations, confidence intervals, skewness, and correlations among the six main variables (see Table 2 ).

Table 2 . Descriptive statistics, correlations, and reliability coefficients.

Since the purpose of this study was to understand the antecedents of well-being, a path analysis was performed by employing structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation method. The use of structural equation modeling in social science and education when testing mediation is recommended as it allows to test multiple pathways to assess the viability of the hypothesized model ( Wu and Zumbo, 2007 ).

The study was exploratory; therefore, two types of university concerns served as independent variables: support from university as a mediating variable and general well-being together with either negative or positive in the moment well-being as the dependent variables. To determine model fit, we applied two types of fit indices: absolute fit measures (χ 2 , RMSEA, AGFI) and incremental fit measures [NFI, NNFI (TLI), CFI; Hooper et al., 2008 ]. Chi-square (χ 2 ) in the range between 2.0 and 5.0 and the probability level with insignificant p -value ( p > 0.05) were acceptable for threshold levels. The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) in the range of 0.03–0.08 provides a good fit. Values >0.95 were suitable for the adjusted goodness-of-fit statistic (AGFI), normed-fit index (NFI), Tucker-Lewis index in AMOS (TLI) or non-normed fit index in EQS (NNFI), and comparative fit index (CFI; Hooper et al., 2008 ).

First, path analysis was run to further evaluate the relationships between student concerns for degree completion and future job prospects, university support, general well-being, and negative in the moment well-being. Path analysis was also used to test the mediation model in terms of overall fit. The model shows satisfying results with the following model fit statistics: p = 0.089, χ 2 = 2.901, RMSEA = 0.031, AGFI = 0.991, NFI = 0.999, NNFI (TLI) = 0.991, CFI = 0.999, and path coefficients presented in Figure 1 .

Figure 1 . Path analysis with negative in the moment well-being.

Second, similar analysis was performed to explore the relationships between student concerns, university support, general well-being, and positive in the moment well-being. This model demonstrates the following statistics: p = 0.055, χ 2 = 3.677, RMSEA = 0.037, AGFI = 0.989, NFI = 0.999, NNFI (TLI) = 0.990, CFI = 0.999 (see Figure 2 ).

Figure 2 . Path analysis with positive in the moment well-being.

All coefficients were significant beyond 0.05 level. The analyses of direct, indirect and total effects of student concerns on general well-being and both negative and positive in the moment well-being are shown in Tables 3 , 4 , respectively.

Table 3 . Direct, indirect, and total effects of student concerns on general well-being.

Table 4 . Direct, indirect, and total effects of student concerns on in the moment well-being.

The Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Student Concerns for Degree Completion and Student Well-Being

The direct effect of student concerns for degree completion on general well-being and positive in the moment well-being is significant and negative (−0.18 and −0.40, respectively). However, when we consider negative in the moment well-being, concerns for degree completion had negative direct effect on general well-being (−0.26) and positive in the moment well-being (0.37). Moreover, the analysis of indirect effects demonstrates that university support mediates the effect of concerns for degree completion on general well-being (−0.31) and positive in the moment well-being (−0.07). In the same way, this construct influences negative in the moment well-being affect (0.05) and general well-being (−0.23). These results suggest that the perceived impact of COVID-19 on concerns for degree completion has a significant negative effect on student well-being while university support plays a mediating role between these two variables, therefore fully supporting H1and H3a.

The Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Future Job Prospects and Student Well-Being

Concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on future job prospects have a direct effect on general well-being, which is significant and negative (−0.06), together with positive in the moment well-being and a significant positive effect on negative in the moment well-being (0.133). These results suggest that increased levels of concerns about the effect of COVID-19 on future job prospects leads to lower levels of general well-being and higher levels of negative in the moment well-being. Therefore, H2 is partially supported. Furthermore, university support attenuates the effect of concerns about future job prospects on negative in the moment well-being (−0.013) ( Table 4 ). These results support H3b, thereby suggesting university support has a beneficial effect on student well-being.

Regarding the future job prospects, degree completion, and well-being, we ran the analysis of variation (ANOVA) to understand the differences between undergraduates ( n = 1,625) and post-graduates ( n = 288) separately. Post-graduates did not show any significant differences regarding degree completion [ F (1, 286) = 0.065, p = 0.798], future job prospects [ F (1, 286) = 0.585, p = 0.445], and general well-being [ F (1, 286) = 0.626, p = 0.430]. However, significant differences between the undergraduate groups were observed for all three variables, namely, concerns for degree completion [ F (4, 1, 620) = 7.77, p < 0.001], future job prospects [ F (4, 1, 620) = 30.2, p < 0.001], and general well-being [ F (4, 1, 620 ) = 4.99, p < 0.001]. Then, a year-by-year comparison analysis was performed by applying Tukey's honestly significant difference test to examine how this is impacted by the year of study. As a result, first-year undergraduates (3.34 ± 1.09 min) expressed significantly higher levels of concerns for degree completion than third- (2.99 ± 1.17 min, p < 0.001) and fourth-year (2.98 ± 1.29 min, p = 0.01) students. Similarly, second-year undergraduates (3.34 ± 1.12 min) expressed significantly higher levels of concerns for degree completion than third- (2.99 ± 1.17 min, p < 0.001) and fourth-year (2.98 ± 1.29 min, p = 0.01) students. However, the findings were opposite when we compared the future job prospects means between years of study. The fourth-year students (3.76 ± 1.18 min) demonstrated higher significant concerns in comparison with other undergraduate groups, namely first-year (2.71 ± 1.12 min, p < 0.001), second-year (2.89 ± 1.25 min, p < 0.001), and even third-year (3.33 ± 1.26 min, p = 0.007) as well as those who study abroad or through placement programs (3.31 ± 1.15 min, p = 0.016). As for general well-being, the most optimistic group was undergraduates who participated in placement programs or studied abroad. These respondents expressed significantly higher levels regarding general well-being over the past week (3.09 ± 0.93 min) than first-year (2.84 ± 0.92 min, p = 0.039) and second-year (2.72 ± 0.97 min, p < 0.001) students. However, there were no statistically significant differences between placement/study abroad undergraduates and third-year (2.85 ± 0.94 min, p = 0.095) and fourth-year (2.93 ± 0.92 min, p = 0.641) students.

The purpose of this study was to examine how student perceptions of their degree completion and future job prospects during the pandemic impact their well-being and what role university support plays in this relationship. We developed and tested the relationship between the perceived impact of COVID-19, university support, and student well-being. Our results showed that the perceived impact of COVID-19 on student concerns for degree completion negatively predicts levels of student well-being. In other words, the more worried students are about the impact of COVID-19 on their studies, the more their levels of well-being decrease. This result is in line with the findings of Poots and Cassidy (2020) who found support to be a positive predictor of well-being and a significantly negative relationship between academic stress and support. COVID-19 disrupted the balance point between the students' resource pool relevant to their academic pursuits and the numerous challenges they face ( Dodge et al., 2012 ). Programs, processes, and services have gone online leading to student poor well-being. Therefore, the impact of the pandemic, and similar crises, extends beyond student perceptions of their success in their main role as students but also to their perceptions of happiness ( Pollard and Lee, 2003 ), life satisfaction ( Diener and Diener, 1996 ), and being intensely alive and authentic ( Ryan and Deci, 2001 ).

Also, the results revealed that the relationship between the perceived impact of COVID-19 on student concerns for degree completion and levels of student well-being is mediated by university support. This result illustrates the importance of university support on student perceptions and emotional states, including stress, meaning making, and life satisfaction ( Flinchbaugh et al., 2012 ). This university support represents a resource that is outside of individuals ( Hobfoll et al., 2018 ). When this support is timely and adequate ( Mokgele and Rothman, 2014 ; Wood et al., 2018 ), students can successfully deal with the demands of their educational pursuits. However, the study also indicates that when students perceive the negative impact of COVID-19 on their degree completion and well-being, they are less likely to perceive their university as supportive. We explain this situation with the different perceptions in effective support. Students and universities have differences in their views about which priorities support well-being ( Graham et al., 2016 ). Students perceive university support as valuable and effective when they can obtain lecturers' timely feedback to their emails, transparent, and fast communication in relation to the changes from the COVID-19 situation, dynamic online courses, and emergency financial support amongst other factors. Students are becoming more exigent on the resources that universities could offer to support their academic success and how efficiently the support is delivered. From the university perspective, they need to develop solutions that are in line with institutional or governmental measures, but little concrete information exists. Universities may find it difficult to cope with changes related to COVID-19 immediately (e.g., adopt fully online learning environments whilst not all the lecturers have the capabilities or facilities to teach online). Therefore, students perceive that university support is not sufficient to their academic success while universities have already made great efforts to ensure online learning and working-from-home policies. Given that students' immediate priority is their academic performance, they are trying to gain more educational resources than universities may be able to offer. Students, therefore, may perceive their university support as insufficient to their degree completion. This could also be explained by one of the principles of the CoR theory that states that resource loss is disproportionately more prominent than resource gain ( Hobfoll et al., 2018 ). Therefore, students seem to be very sensitive to a lack of or very little immediate and long-term university support to their academic success.

The study also found unexpected results related to the student perceptions of their future job prospects. First, there is no direct relationship between the perceived impact of COVID-19 on future job prospects and student well-being. In other words, student concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on their future job prospects does not decrease their level of well-being. This result needs further research. It is possible to suggest that students do not see an immediate threat because job prospects are about the future ( Xu et al., 2015 ). For instance, students that are not in their final academic year could feel less of a threat of resource loss in terms of future employment. Instead, they are more stressed and concerned about the impact of the pandemic on their degree completion that is more urgent at the moment. Interestingly, students who are more stressed about the impact of COVID-19 on their future job prospects are more likely to perceive their university as giving higher levels of support. As fewer employment opportunities exist in the labor market, students expect university networks to offer them some potential job opportunities.

The study also showed that students at different levels of education perceived the impact of the pandemic in different ways. The most vulnerable group was undergraduates who expressed significantly higher levels of concerns for degree completion. Perhaps, due to the uncertainty related to the duration of lockdowns, social distance measures, and other restrictions as well as vaccine effectiveness and availability, first year students struggled to see how they are able to complete their program the most. They also have fewer life experiences to cope with different types of stress that appeared simultaneously. At the same time, last year students struggled the most with potential job prospects. This is somewhat expected because this group of students usually tries to find full-time jobs upon the degree completion. University management can mitigate these student concerns by introducing relevant practices based on the student study year.

Theoretical Implications

This study offers several contributions to better understand the mechanism of university support on student well-being during the COVID-19. First, our findings are in line with the prior studies on the relationships between stress and well-being, and support and well-being. The research on the impact of COVID-19 on student concerns for degree completion and job prospects is underdeveloped. Therefore, by examining student resource loss, we have extended the application scope of the CoR theory and enriched COVID-19 related research.

Second, our findings highlight that students may not perceive university support in the same way when it is related to their concerns for degree completion or job prospects. Prior studies have acknowledged the positive relationship between university support and student well-being ( Baik et al., 2019 ). Our findings imply that perceived effective support is context-specific. Under the impact of COVID-19, all students are concerned about their academic performance and are more exigent on university support. When students feel that they are not able to get support to achieve the balance between resource investment (e.g., spending more time to work online for group-based activities) and the challenge of continuing with their studies (e.g., receiving no immediate feedback when they have inquiries for lecturers or administrators), they may have a lower level of well-being ( Dodge et al., 2012 ). To mitigate the risk to their well-being, students feel the need to deploy more time and energy to protect themselves against resource loss and recovery ( Hobfoll et al., 2018 ).

Third, this study assessed negative in the moment well-being. Our results show that university support could mediate the relationship between impacts of COVID-19 (both on degree completion and job prospects) and student well-being. However, when students perceive a high level of support from the university, they feel a higher level of well-being and a lower level of negative in the moment well-being. This once again implies that university support plays an important mediating role in student perceptions of well-being.

Practical Implications

This study confirms the mediating role of university support that helps turning negative impact of COVID-19 into positive feelings of well-being. Universities could increase student well-being by giving support to student studies and their career and job prospects. This support should come from a wide range of university services that are responsible for all aspects of the student learning experience. For example, program faculty and directors should provide students sufficient and timely information about upcoming mandatory internships. Career centers should utilize their partnerships and networks in the local community to assist in finding their first job after graduation and/or internships. This support should include course instructors, program directors, university management and administration, digital and IT support, and supports from partnership universities for international exchange programs. Supervisors and administration should work closely with students conducting research projects related to their theses or dissertations. They should support them in setting the dissertation topic and research questions, data collection and data analysis, discussion of initiation findings, text drafting, and defending.

The study also suggests that a lack of questioning or concerns related to university support from students does not imply that students feel that they are receiving this support. This could indicate that students may feel forgotten, abandoned, or hopeless about receiving support from the university. Therefore, universities should ensure visibility and accessibility of support, which in the context of online learning would require integration and collaboration between academic and university support services (e.g., IT support, career centers, academic advising, and international exchange programs). They help students navigate the support systems and access all the resources they require to succeed academically and professionally. Universities should not only provide the resources needed for students to engage with online learning, but also propose training on different online pedagogies to course instructors, as these two points could ensure more a positive learning experience for students and their well-being outcome. In addition, universities should monitor the student well-being experience and provide relevant resources and interventions.

Also, with online learning, face-to-face social interactions are missing. Therefore, lecturers and administrative staff should concentrate more on relationship building. They should facilitate the online learning experience, adopt clear communication strategies, improve the learning tools (e.g., PowerPoint and recorded lectures) and diversify assessment methods (e.g., moving from traditional exams to video-based oral presentation and using applications to motivate students to engage in online discussions).

From the student perspective, universities should be aware of the students' changing emotional responses from positive to negative during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that the impact of COVID-19 would probably induce more negative emotional states, universities should offer more support for emotional management. This should encourage students to talk about their concerns, worries, and anxiety toward COVID-19 and to help them destigmatize the fear of COVID-19 on their studies and future. This support should not be a one-time-event, but ongoing. With positive emotions, students are more capable to counterbalance the perceived negative impact of COVID-19 on their degree completion and job prospects by effectively using different resources to reduce resource loss.

Finally, it is important to note that staff well-being is essential in order to support this student learning experience. Therefore, whilst universities propose different support activities to promote student learning, academic performance, and future job opportunities, they should also put in place a variety of resources to support staff. Pedagogy training, digital support, online well-ness programs, high quality information related to Covid-19, peer learning, appreciation attitude, and positive thinking should be promoted. University support and well-being feeling of their staff are a must for their adjustment to this “new normal” work context and a better service to students. It should be acknowledged that although many of the recommendations in this section are best practice in non-crisis times, this research has shown that the current acute pandemic situation and its effect on students (and staff) requires a sustained and reliable response, which utilizes existing policies and procedures to their maximum potential.

Limitations and Future Research

The study used a cross-sectional design, so the results cannot illustrate the process and evolution of how the identified variables influence student well-being. Considering the nature of the COVID-19 crisis, it would be very useful to develop a longitudinal study. Given the subjective nature of perceptions of well-being, there is an opportunity to extend the research and give a deeper understanding of the students' experience by taking a qualitative study approach. For example, phenomenology could help researchers understand lived experiences of students ( van Manen, 1990 ) during COVID-19. Phenomenology could also help to find out how students experience their well-being or how they “perceive it, describe it, feel about it, judge it, remember it, make sense of it and talk about it with others” ( Patton, 2002 , p. 104). Further studies could also explore potential variables that may be more likely to show differences in a cross-cultural context, for example, how various types of social support may be perceived differently in various cultural contexts. The study used self-reported data that could have created a certain bias, so future studies should consider using observations and document analysis to triangulate data.

The study found that there were no student concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on their future job prospects and this did not decrease their level of well-being. This result needs further research. For example, there may be some benefits of using a qualitative and cross-cultural approach such as diary methods. A longitudinal study could help tracking how student concerns for their future job prospects change. Many countries have overcome the second wave of COVID-19, but uncertainty about the economy and high unemployment rates remains. Similarly, it would be useful to understand how students address their concerns for their job prospects and employment and search for and obtain jobs.

The study showed the usefulness of the CoR theory in helping universities and students to understand the emotional responses and impacts on student well-being of the sudden and dramatic changes to the learning experience of an unexpected global crisis. It was found that a major crisis negatively impacts student well-being and their concerns about their studies. However, the longer-term concerns about job prospects and careers had no negative impact on well-being. Support was shown to be an important mediator in the overall impact on student well-being.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by University of Hertfordshire SSAHEC with Delegated Authority. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

GP and KM were substantially involved in planning and conducting the study. NV, SN, and SR-T carried out the data analysis. MP, CJ, and DY wrote the article with contributions by NV, GP, SN, and KM. All authors revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content, read, and approved the submitted version. All authors were involved in distribution of the survey.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords: COVID-19, university students, subjective well-being, university success, job prospects

Citation: Plakhotnik MS, Volkova NV, Jiang C, Yahiaoui D, Pheiffer G, McKay K, Newman S and Reißig-Thust S (2021) The Perceived Impact of COVID-19 on Student Well-Being and the Mediating Role of the University Support: Evidence From France, Germany, Russia, and the UK. Front. Psychol. 12:642689. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.642689

Received: 16 December 2020; Accepted: 09 June 2021; Published: 12 July 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Plakhotnik, Volkova, Jiang, Yahiaoui, Pheiffer, McKay, Newman and Reißig-Thust. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Natalia V. Volkova, nv.volkova@hse.ru

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Introduction

The global outbreak of COVID-19 has certainly taken an overwhelming toll on everyone. People have lost their jobs, their homes, and even their lives. There is no getting past the fact that the overall impact on the world has been negative, but it is important to realize that positive aspects of the pandemic have been overshadowed by the many negative ones. In an attempt to slow the spread of the disease, many governments made the decision to implement lockdowns, forcing billions to work and take classes from home, in many cases for the first times in their lives. Not only have these lockdowns altered the way that people work and go to school, but they have altered the mental health of everyone and the environmental health of the world around us.

Connection to STS Theory

The positive impacts of technology during the pandemic stems from the Modernization Theory, posing that there is a relationship between societal and technological advancements as societies shift to become updated as opposed to traditional. Technology has brought about lots of resistance to COVID that would not have been possible without the drastic advancements in science over the years. Thanks to these advancements, relationships can stay connected, students can continue to learn, jobs can stay open, and the environment can subtly improve. Our modernized world is well enough suited to take on the troubling times that COVID-19 has brought along.

Technology with School – Relates to College Students

Remote learning has allowed each of us to learn from the comfort of our homes. Working remotely has also allowed us to work from our living rooms. The perks of both are not having to wake up early to drive to work in the mornings, not having to sit at an office desk for eight hours a day, and not having to walk to class. Working remotely and remote learning has also been a time saver for many individuals.

According to Business Insider, there are a few tips that will help students be successful while being virtual. One tip is to clean your workspace. It is important to have a space, just like you would at a desk in a classroom, to ensure that you are paying attention to the professor. It is always important to engage with your professor. It is important to contact your professor outside of the class section to ensure that you are retaining the information. Another tip that the Business Insider recommends is to connect with your classmates. It is vital to build connections with your classmates that will help everyone have a comfortable environment to ask questions.

Personal Growth

In March 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak hit the United States. College students were forced to leave their beloved campuses and go home to finish their semesters online. For some, it meant their schoolwork load was lightened and they could sleep until noon. For others, it meant their plans of graduating and having a job for the summer were in jeopardy. Regardless of their situation, one thing was likely the same for all: lots of time alone. Students found things to do to pass the time. Some learned to cook, some started exercising at home, and others had more time to do what they already loved.

Ethan, a student at the University of South Carolina, used the time to start lifting weights in his home gym. In the United States, sales of home gym equipment doubled, reaching nearly $2.4 Billion in revenue. Store shelves were entirely sold out of exercise equipment. Many students like Ethan report that exercising was one of the biggest changes they made during COVID lockdown.

Other students, such as Cam, found an opportunity to get in a better place mentally. “I learned not to take things for granted. My relationship with my family has gotten better. I’m a much stronger person,” the Clemson student reported. Grayson, an athlete at Winthrop University, reported that it made him have a more positive outlook on being by himself. A student that elected to remain anonymous was just happy they could wake up later and not have to brush their teeth as much because of masks. Whether a dentist would approve of that habit or not, an improvement in mental health is a win in anyone’s book.

A select few students decided to challenge themselves in a world where all odds are stacked against them.  Dean, a freshman at the University of South Carolina, decided to start his own bracelet and T-Shirt business in a time when small businesses all over the country were facing a grave threat of going out of business. All the while, he learned to play the guitar and uploaded his songs to SoundCloud, he reported.

Whether college students decided to get a six-pack or learned how to sew, almost everyone found something constructive and positive to do with their extra free time. The college students of COVID-19 learned what it meant to make the best of an unfortunate situation. Things may have looked bleak and frightening, but they learned how to manage those feelings and make something positive out of it.

Change in Workforce

Before the pandemic, many companies did not allow employees to work from home. Also, many companies would not even allow employees to take home items, such as laptops, as a safety precaution. According to Stanford Medicine, rapid innovation and implementation of technology has allowed for the employees to navigate the challenges. It states that it is clear that technology has transformed our typical daily workflow. Technology has also made it easier to connect with the patients during the pandemic.

The Pew Research Center states “about half of new teleworkers say they have more flexibility now and that majority who are working in person worry about virus exposure.” In December 2020, 71% of the workers that were surveyed were doing their job from home all or most of the time. Of those workers, more than half said if they were given the choice that they would want to keep working from home even after the pandemic. Among those who are currently working from home, most say that it has been easy to meet deadlines and complete projects on time without interruptions.

Environmental Improvements

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, a typical day consisted of billions of people across the globe commuting to work or school, whether that be through public buses or trains, driving themselves in cars, or some other means of transportation. As all these vehicles were used, immeasurable amounts of gases and chemicals were released into the atmosphere. As infection numbers and the death toll increased, most nations began enforcing lockdown protocols, and these mandates affected almost 3 billion people (Rume & Islam, 2020). Businesses and factories shut down or people began working from home, meaning they no longer needed to drive to work. In an attempt to stunt transmission, the majority of international travel was halted, limiting tourism, which also had a great impact. Since industrialization has advanced in major cities across the globe, the amount of Greenhouse Gases that have been emitted is alarming. Cars, buses, trains, industries, factories all release harmful chemicals due to the burning of fossil fuels or other energy sources. When these pollutants enter the atmosphere, they cause a variety of issues. It decreases overall air quality and visibility, and can be dangerous to those inhali ng the m.

According to research performed by Shakeel Ahmad Bhat and a group of other scientists from India, China, and the United Kingdom, Delhi, India is one of the most polluted cities in the world (Bhat et al, 2021). The city is highly industrialized and densely populated, contributing to the elevated levels of particulate matter in the air. Particulate matter is small pollutant liquid droplets and solid particles in the air (Environmental Protection Agency, 2020). When inhaled, they can burrow deep into the lungs and even the bloodstream and cause serious damage to a person, “particularly respiratory ailments” (Bhat et al, 2021). The two types of particulate matter are PM10 and PM2.5, and their numbers correspond to the size of the particles (their diameters in units of micrometers). The smaller the particle, the more harmful they are. By National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the level of particulate matter in Delhi is well above the tolerable limits. In 2016 alone, the amount of deaths caused by the poor air quality in India “was approximately 4.2 million” (Bhat et al, 2021).

Lockdowns positively affe cted more than just the air quality around the world; additionally, water quality and beaches were a major beneficiary. Tourism for centuries has led to a significant overuse of beach resources such as fishing and leisure activities, and these in turn led to pollution of the water. If people are using jet skis and boating in lakes or oceans, the fuel and exhaust often leak into the water which can cause significant harm to the wildlife that lives in it. Restricting beach access has allowed them to recover and regain their resources, and has also decreased the pollution levels in the water. The water flowing in the Venice canals are cleaner now than they have been before (Bhat et al, 2021). pH levels, electric conductivity, dissolved oxygen levels, biochemical oxygen demand, and chemical oxygen demand have all decreased as a result of the lockdowns (Rume & Islam, 2020). These decreases all contribute to the fact that overall water quality levels have increased.

Noise pollution is an often-overlooked type of pollution that affects the world, especially in highly urbanized regions. Noise pollution is elevated levels of sound which are typically caused by human activities including transportation, machines, factories, etc. When the noise levels are elevated for extended periods of time, it negatively affects all organisms in the area. It leads to hearing loss, lack of concentration, high stress levels, interrupted sleep, and many other issues in humans. As for the wildlife, their abilities to detect and avoid predators and prey are hindered by noise pollution. It affects the invertebrates responsible for the control of many environmental processes that maintain balance in the ecosystem (Rume & Islam, 2020). When lockdowns were implemented, traveling and transportation stopped, industries shut down, flights were canceled, and people stayed home. The environment was able to recover and the people and organisms within the ecosystem enjoy a higher quality of life as a result.

Reflection Questions

• What kinds of positive experiences have you had during the pandemic?
• As stated in the chapter, there are many students who spent their time working out or picked up new hobbies. What new things were you able to focus on during the lockdowns?

Bhat, Shakeel Ahmad et al. “Impact of COVID-Related Lockdowns on Environmental and Climate Change Scenarios.” Environmental research 195 (2021): 110839–110839. Web. https://www-sciencedirect-com.libproxy.clemson.edu/science/article/pii/S001393512100133X?via%3Dihub.

DiDonato, S., Forgo, E., & Manella, H. (2020, June 5). Here’s how technology is helping residents during the COVID-19 pandemic . Scope Blog. https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2020/06/04/how-technology-is-helping-residents-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/.

Environmental Protection Agency. (2020, October 1). Particulate Matter (PM) Basics. EPA. https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics.

Merkle, Steffen. “Positive Experiences During COVID-19.” Survey. 18 April 2021.

Parker, K., Horowitz, J. M., & Minkin, R. (2021, February 9). How Coronavirus Has Changed the Way Americans Work . Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/12/09/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-has-and-hasnt-changed-the-way-americans-work/.

Rume, T., & Islam, S. M. D.-U. (2020, September 17). Environmental effects of COVID-19 pandemic and potential strategies of sustainability. Heliyon. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7498239/#bib42.

Shaban, Hamza. “The Pandemic’s Home-Workout Revolution May Be Here to Stay.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 8 Jan. 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/road-to-recovery/2021/01/07/home-fitness-boom/.

Thompson, K. L. (2021, February 2). I’m a college professor who’s teaching virtually during the pandemic. Here are 7 things my most successful students do on Zoom. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/tips-for-zoom-success-as-remote-student-professor-advice-2021-2.

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COVID-19 and education: The lingering effects of unfinished learning

As this most disrupted of school years draws to a close, it is time to take stock of the impact of the pandemic on student learning and well-being. Although the 2020–21 academic year ended on a high note—with rising vaccination rates, outdoor in-person graduations, and access to at least some in-person learning for 98 percent of students—it was as a whole perhaps one of the most challenging for educators and students in our nation’s history. 1 “Burbio’s K-12 school opening tracker,” Burbio, accessed May 31, 2021, cai.burbio.com. By the end of the school year, only 2 percent of students were in virtual-only districts. Many students, however, chose to keep learning virtually in districts that were offering hybrid or fully in-person learning.

Our analysis shows that the impact of the pandemic on K–12 student learning was significant, leaving students on average five months behind in mathematics and four months behind in reading by the end of the school year. The pandemic widened preexisting opportunity and achievement gaps, hitting historically disadvantaged students hardest. In math, students in majority Black schools ended the year with six months of unfinished learning, students in low-income schools with seven. High schoolers have become more likely to drop out of school, and high school seniors, especially those from low-income families, are less likely to go on to postsecondary education. And the crisis had an impact on not just academics but also the broader health and well-being of students, with more than 35 percent of parents very or extremely concerned about their children’s mental health.

The fallout from the pandemic threatens to depress this generation’s prospects and constrict their opportunities far into adulthood. The ripple effects may undermine their chances of attending college and ultimately finding a fulfilling job that enables them to support a family. Our analysis suggests that, unless steps are taken to address unfinished learning, today’s students may earn $49,000 to $61,000 less over their lifetime owing to the impact of the pandemic on their schooling. The impact on the US economy could amount to $128 billion to $188 billion every year as this cohort enters the workforce.

Federal funds are in place to help states and districts respond, though funding is only part of the answer. The deep-rooted challenges in our school systems predate the pandemic and have resisted many reform efforts. States and districts have a critical role to play in marshaling that funding into sustainable programs that improve student outcomes. They can ensure rigorous implementation of evidence-based initiatives, while also piloting and tracking the impact of innovative new approaches. Although it is too early to fully assess the effectiveness of postpandemic solutions to unfinished learning, the scope of action is already clear. The immediate imperative is to not only reopen schools and recover unfinished learning but also reimagine education systems for the long term. Across all of these priorities it will be critical to take a holistic approach, listening to students and parents and designing programs that meet academic and nonacademic needs alike.

What have we learned about unfinished learning?

As the 2020–21 school year began, just 40 percent of K–12 students were in districts that offered any in-person instruction. By the end of the year, more than 98 percent of students had access to some form of in-person learning, from the traditional five days a week to hybrid models. In the interim, districts oscillated among virtual, hybrid, and in-person learning as they balanced the need to keep students and staff safe with the need to provide an effective learning environment. Students faced multiple schedule changes, were assigned new teachers midyear, and struggled with glitchy internet connections and Zoom fatigue. This was a uniquely challenging year for teachers and students, and it is no surprise that it has left its mark—on student learning, and on student well-being.

As we analyze the cost of the pandemic, we use the term “unfinished learning” to capture the reality that students were not given the opportunity this year to complete all the learning they would have completed in a typical year. Some students who have disengaged from school altogether may have slipped backward, losing knowledge or skills they once had. The majority simply learned less than they would have in a typical year, but this is nonetheless important. Students who move on to the next grade unprepared are missing key building blocks of knowledge that are necessary for success, while students who repeat a year are much less likely to complete high school and move on to college. And it’s not just academic knowledge these students may miss out on. They are at risk of finishing school without the skills, behaviors, and mindsets to succeed in college or in the workforce. An accurate assessment of the depth and extent of unfinished learning will best enable districts and states to support students in catching up on the learning they missed and moving past the pandemic and into a successful future.

Students testing in 2021 were about ten points behind in math and nine points behind in reading, compared with matched students in previous years.

Unfinished learning is real—and inequitable

To assess student learning through the pandemic, we analyzed Curriculum Associates’ i-Ready in-school assessment results of more than 1.6 million elementary school students across more than 40 states. 2 The Curriculum Associates in-school sample consisted of 1.6 million K–6 students in mathematics and 1.5 million in reading. The math sample came from all 50 states, but 23 states accounted for 90 percent of the sample. The reading sample came from 46 states, with 21 states accounting for 90 percent of the sample. Florida accounted for 29 percent of the math and 30 percent of the reading sample. In general, states that had reopened schools are overweighted given the in-school nature of the assessment. We compared students’ performance in the spring of 2021 with the performance of similar students prior to the pandemic. 3 Specifically, we compared spring 2021 results to those of historically matched students in the springs of 2019, 2018, and 2017. Students testing in 2021 were about ten points behind in math and nine points behind in reading, compared with matched students in previous years.

To get a sense of the magnitude of these gaps, we translated these differences in scores to a more intuitive measure—months of learning. Although there is no perfect way to make this translation, we can get a sense of how far students are behind by comparing the levels students attained this spring with the growth in learning that usually occurs from one grade level to the next. We found that this cohort of students is five months behind in math and four months behind in reading, compared with where we would expect them to be based on historical data. 4 The conversion into months of learning compares students’ achievement in the spring of one grade level with their performance in the spring of the next grade level, treating this spring-to-spring difference in historical scores as a “year” of learning. It assumes a ten-month school year with a two-month summer vacation. Actual school schedules vary significantly, and i-Ready’s typical growth numbers for a “year” of learning are based on 30 weeks of actual instruction between the fall and the spring rather than on a spring-to-spring calendar-year comparison.

Unfinished learning did not vary significantly across elementary grades. Despite reports that remote learning was more challenging for early elementary students, 5 Marva Hinton, “Why teaching kindergarten online is so very, very hard,” Edutopia, October 21, 2020, edutopia.org. our results suggest the impact was just as meaningful for older elementary students. 6 While our analysis only includes results from students who tested in-school in the spring, many of these students were learning remotely for meaningful portions of the fall and the winter. We can hypothesize that perhaps younger elementary students received more help from parents and older siblings, and that older elementary students were more likely to be struggling alone.

It is also worth remembering that our numbers capture the “average” progress by grade level. Especially in early reading, this average can conceal a wide range of outcomes. Another way of cutting the data looks instead at which students have dropped further behind grade levels. A recent report suggests that more first and second graders have ended this year two or more grade levels below expectations than in any previous year. 7 Academic achievement at the end of the 2020–2021 school year , Curriculum Associates, June 2021, curriculumassociates.com. Given the major strides children at this age typically make in mastering reading, and the critical importance of early reading for later academic success, this is of particular concern.

While all types of students experienced unfinished learning, some groups were disproportionately affected. Students of color and low-income students suffered most. Students in majority-Black schools ended the school year six months behind in both math and reading, while students in majority-white schools ended up just four months behind in math and three months behind in reading. 8 To respect students’ privacy, we cannot isolate the race or income of individual students in our sample, but we can look at school-level demographics. Students in predominantly low-income schools and in urban locations also lost more learning during the pandemic than their peers in high-income rural and suburban schools (Exhibit 1).

In fall 2020, we projected that students could lose as much as five to ten months of learning in mathematics, and about half of that in reading, by the end of the school year. Spring assessment results came in toward the lower end of these projections, suggesting that districts and states were able to improve the quality of remote and hybrid learning through the 2020–21 school year and bring more students back into classrooms.

Indeed, if we look at the data over time, some interesting patterns emerge. 9 The composition of the fall student sample was different from that of the spring sample, because more students returned to in-person assessments in the spring. Some of the increase in unfinished learning from fall to spring could be because the spring assessment included previously virtual students, who may have struggled more during the school year. Even so, the spring data are the best reflection of unfinished learning at the end of the school year. Taking math as an example, as schools closed their buildings in the spring of 2020, students fell behind rapidly, learning almost no new math content over the final few months of the 2019–20 school year. Over the summer, we assume that they experienced the typical “summer slide” in which students lose some of the academic knowledge and skills they had learned the year before. Then they resumed learning through the 2020–21 school year, but at a slower pace than usual, resulting in five months of unfinished learning by the end of the year (Exhibit 2). 10 These lines simplify the pattern of typical learning through the year. In a typical year, students learn more in the fall and less in the spring, and only learn during periods of instruction (the chart includes the well-documented learning loss that happens during the summer, but does not include shorter holidays when students are not in school receiving instruction).

In reading, however, the story is somewhat different. As schools closed their buildings in March 2020, students continued to progress in reading, albeit at a slower pace. During the summer, we assume that students’ reading level stayed roughly flat, as in previous years. The pace of learning increased slightly over the 2020–21 school year, but the difference was not as great as it was in math, resulting in four months of unfinished learning by the end of the school year (Exhibit 3). Put another way, the initial shock in reading was less severe, but the improvements to remote and hybrid learning seem to have had less impact in reading than they did in math.

Before we celebrate the improvements in student trajectories between the initial school shutdowns and the subsequent year of learning, we should remember that these are still sobering numbers. On average, students who took the spring assessments in school are half a year behind in math, and nearly that in reading. For Black and Hispanic students, the losses are not only greater but also piled on top of historical inequities in opportunity and achievement (Exhibit 4).

Furthermore, these results likely represent an optimistic scenario. They reflect outcomes for students who took interim assessments in the spring in a school building 11 Students who took the assessment out of school are not included in our sample because we could not guarantee fidelity and comparability of results, given the change in the testing environment. Out-of-school students represent about a third of the students taking i-Ready assessments in the spring, and we will not have an accurate understanding of the pandemic’s impact on their learning until they return to school buildings, likely in the fall. —and thus exclude students who remained remote throughout the entire school year, and who may have experienced the most disruption to their schooling. 12 Initial results from Texas suggest that districts with mostly virtual instruction experienced more unfinished learning than those with mostly in-person instruction. The percent of students meeting math expectations dropped 32 percent in mostly virtual districts but just 9 percent in mostly in-person ones. See Reese Oxner, “Texas students’ standardized test scores dropped dramatically during the pandemic, especially in math,” Texas Tribune , June 28, 2021, texastribune.org. The Curriculum Associates data cover a broad variety of schools and states across the country, but are not fully representative, being overweighted for rural and southeastern states that were more likely to get students back into the classrooms this year. Finally, these data cover only elementary schools. They are silent on the academic impact of the pandemic for middle and high schoolers. However, data from school districts suggest that, even for older students, the pandemic has had a significant effect on learning. 13 For example, in Salt Lake City, the percentage of middle and high school students failing a class jumped by 60 percent, from 2,500 to 4,000, during the pandemic. To learn about increased failure rates across multiple districts from the Bay Area to New Mexico, Austin, and Hawaii, see Richard Fulton, “Failing Grades,” Inside Higher Ed , March 8, 2021, insidehighered.com.

The harm inflicted by the pandemic goes beyond academics

Students didn’t just lose academic learning during the pandemic. Some lost family members; others had caregivers who lost their jobs and sources of income; and almost all experienced social isolation.

These pressures have taken a toll on students of all ages. In our recent survey of 16,370 parents across every state in America, 35 percent of parents said they were very or extremely concerned about their child’s mental health, with a similar proportion worried about their child’s social and emotional well-being. Roughly 80 percent of parents had some level of concern about their child’s mental health or social and emotional health and development since the pandemic began. Parental concerns about mental health span grade levels but are slightly lower for parents of early elementary school students. 14 While 30.7% percent of all K–2 parents were very or extremely concerned, a peak of 37.6% percent of eighth-grade parents were.

Parents also report increases in clinical mental health conditions among their children, with a five-percentage-point increase in anxiety and a six-percentage-point increase in depression. They also report increases in behaviors such as social withdrawal, self-isolation, lethargy, and irrational fears (Exhibit 5). Despite increased levels of concern among parents, the amount of mental health assessment and testing done for children is 6.1 percent lower than it was in 2019 —the steepest decline in assessment and testing rates of any age group.

Broader student well-being is not independent of academics. Parents whose children have fallen significantly behind academically are one-third more likely to say that they are very or extremely concerned about their children’s mental health. Black and Hispanic parents are seven to nine percentage points more likely than white parents to report higher levels of concern. Unaddressed mental-health challenges will likely have a knock-on effect on academics going forward as well. Research shows that trauma and other mental-health issues can influence children’s attendance, their ability to complete schoolwork in and out of class, and even the way they learn. 15 Satu Larson et al., “Chronic childhood trauma, mental health, academic achievement, and school-based health center mental health services,” Journal of School Health , 2017, 87(9), 675–86, escholarship.org.

In our recent survey of 16,370 parents across every state in America, 35 percent of parents said they were very or extremely concerned about their child’s mental health.

The impact of unfinished learning on diminished student well-being seems to be playing out in the choices that students are making. Some students have already effectively dropped out of formal education entirely. 16 To assess the impact of the pandemic on dropout rates, we have to look beyond official enrollment data, which are only published annually, and which only capture whether a child has enrolled at the beginning of the year, not whether they are engaged and attending school. Chronic absenteeism rates provide clues as to which students are likely to persist in school and which students are at risk of dropping out. Our parent survey suggests that chronic absenteeism for eighth through 12th graders has increased by 12 percentage points, and 42 percent of the students who are new to chronic absenteeism are attending no school at all, according to their parents. Scaled up to the national level, this suggests that 2.3 million to 4.6 million additional eighth- to 12th-grade students were chronically absent from school this year, in addition to the 3.1 million who are chronically absent in nonpandemic years. State and district data on chronic absenteeism are still emerging, but data released so far also suggest a sharp uptick in absenteeism rates nationwide, particularly in higher grades. 17 A review of available state and district data, including data released by 14 states and 11 districts, showed increases in chronic absenteeism of between three and 16 percentage points, with an average of seven percentage points. However, many states changed the definition of absenteeism during the pandemic, so a true like-for-like comparison is difficult to obtain. According to emerging state and district data, increases in chronic absenteeism are highest among populations with historically low rates. This is reflected also in our survey results. Black students, with the highest historical absenteeism rates, saw more modest increases during the pandemic than white or Hispanic students (Exhibit 6).

It remains unclear whether these pandemic-related chronic absentees will drop out at rates similar to those of students who were chronically absent prior to the pandemic. Some students could choose to return to school once in-person options are restored; but some portion of these newly absent students will likely drop out of school altogether. Based on historical links between chronic absenteeism and dropout rates, as well as differentials in absenteeism between fully virtual and fully in-person students, we estimate that an additional 617,000 to 1.2 million eighth–12th graders could drop out of school altogether because of the pandemic if efforts are not made to reengage them in learning next year. 18 The federal definition of chronic absenteeism is missing more than 15 days of school each year. According to the Utah Education Policy Center’s research brief on chronic absenteeism, the overall correlation between one year of chronic absence between eighth and 12th grade and dropping out of school is 0.134. For more, see Utah Education Policy Center, Research brief: Chronic absenteeism , July 2012, uepc.utah.edu. We then apply the differential in chronic absenteeism between fully virtual and fully in-person students to account for virtual students reengaging when in-person education is offered. For students who were not attending school at all, we assumed that 50 to 75 percent would not return to learning. This estimation is partly based on The on-track indicator as a predictor of high school graduation from the UChicago Consortium on School Research, which estimates that up to 75 percent of high school students who are “off track”—either failing or behind in credits—do not graduate in five years. For more, see Elaine Allensworth and John Q. Easton, The on-track indicator as a predictor of high school graduation , UChicago Consortium on School Research, 2005, consortium.uchicago.edu.

Even among students who complete high school, many may not fulfill their dreams of going on to postsecondary education. Our survey suggests that 17 percent of high school seniors who had planned to attend postsecondary education abandoned their plans—most often because they had joined or were planning to join the workforce or because the costs of college were too high. The number is much higher among low-income high school seniors, with 26 percent abandoning their plans. Low-income seniors are more likely to state cost as a reason, with high-income seniors more likely to be planning to reapply the following year or enroll in a gap-year program. This is consistent with National Student Clearinghouse reports that show overall college enrollment declines, with low-income, high-poverty, and high-minority high schools disproportionately affected. 19 Todd Sedmak, “Fall 2020 college enrollment update for the high school graduating class of 2020,” National Student Clearinghouse, March 25, 2021, studentclearinghouse.org; Todd Sedmak, “Spring 2021 college enrollment declines 603,000 to 16.9 million students,” National Student Clearinghouse, June 10, 2021, studentclearinghouse.org.

Unfinished learning has long-term consequences

The cumulative effects of the pandemic could have a long-term impact on an entire generation of students. Education achievement and attainment are linked not only to higher earnings but also to better health, reduced incarceration rates, and greater political participation. 20 See, for example, Michael Grossman, “Education and nonmarket outcomes,” in Handbook of the Economics of Education, Volume 1 , ed. Eric Hanushek and Finis Welch (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006), 577–633; Lance Lochner and Enrico Moretti, “The effect of education on crime: Evidence from prison inmates, arrests, and self-reports,” American Economic Review , 2004, Volume 94, Number 1, pp. 155–89; Kevin Milligan, Enrico Moretti, and Philip Oreopoulos, “Does education improve citizenship? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom,” Journal of Public Economics , August 2004, Volume 88, Number 9–10, pp. 1667–95; and Education transforms lives , UNESCO, 2013, unesdoc.unesco.org. We estimate that, without immediate and sustained interventions, pandemic-related unfinished learning could reduce lifetime earnings for K–12 students by an average of $49,000 to $61,000. These costs are significant, especially for students who have lost more learning. While white students may see lifetime earnings reduced by 1.4 percent, the reduction could be as much as 2.4 percent for Black students and 2.1 percent for Hispanic students. 21 Projected earnings across children’s lifetimes using current annual incomes for those with at least a high school diploma, discounting the earnings by a premium established in Murnane et al., 2000, which tied cognitive skills and future earnings. See Richard J. Murnane et al., “How important are the cognitive skills of teenagers in predicting subsequent earnings?,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management , September 2000, Volume 19, Number 4, pp. 547–68.

Lower earnings, lower levels of education attainment, less innovation—all of these lead to decreased economic productivity. By 2040 the majority of this cohort of K–12 students will be in the workforce. We anticipate a potential annual GDP loss of $128 billion to $188 billion from pandemic-related unfinished learning. 22 Using Hanushek and Woessmann 2008 methodology to map national per capita growth associated with decrease in academic achievement, then adding additional impact of pandemic dropouts on GDP. For more, see Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann, “The role of cognitive skills in economic development,” Journal of Economic Literature , September 2008, Volume 46, Number 3, pp. 607–68.

This increases by about one-third the existing hits to GDP from achievement gaps that predated COVID-19. Our previous research indicated that the pre-COVID-19 racial achievement gap was equivalent to $426 billion to $705 billion in lost economic potential every year (Exhibit 7). 23 This is the increase in GDP that would result if Black and Hispanic students achieved the same levels of academic performance as white students. For more information on historical opportunity and achievement gaps, please see Emma Dorn, Bryan Hancock, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, and Ellen Viruleg, “ COVID-19 and student learning in the United States: The hurt could last a lifetime ,” June 1, 2020.

What is the path forward for our nation’s students?

There is now significant funding in place to address these critical issues. Through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act); the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA); and the American Rescue Plan (ARP), the federal government has already committed more than $200 billion to K–12 education over the next three years, 24 The CARES Act provided $13 billion to ESSER and $3 billion to the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund; CRRSAA provided $54 billion to ESSER II, $4 billion to Governors (GEER II and EANS); ARP provided $123 billion to ESSER III, $3 billion to Governors (EANS II), and $10 billion to other education programs. For more, see “CCSSO fact sheet: COVID-19 relief funding for K-12 education,” Council of Chief State School Officers, 2021, https://753a0706.flowpaper.com/CCSSOCovidReliefFactSheet/#page=2. a significant increase over the approximately $750 billion spent annually on public schooling. 25 “The condition of education 2021: At a glance,” National Center for Education Statistics, accessed June 30, 2021, nces.ed.gov. The majority of these funds are routed through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), of which 90 percent flows to districts and 10 percent to state education agencies. These are vast sums of money, particularly in historical context. As part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Obama administration committed more than $80 billion toward K–12 schools—at the time the biggest federal infusion of funds to public schools in the nation’s history. 26 “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Saving and Creating Jobs and Reforming Education,” US Department of Education, March 7, 2009, ed.gov. Today’s funding more than doubles that previous record and gives districts much more freedom in how they spend the money. 27 Andrew Ujifusa, “What Obama’s stimulus had for education that the coronavirus package doesn’t,” Education Week , March 31, 2020, www.edweek.org.

However, if this funding can mitigate the impact of unfinished learning, it could prevent much larger losses to the US economy. Given that this generation of students will likely spend 35 to 40 years in the workforce, the cumulative impact of COVID-19 unfinished learning over their lifetimes could far exceed the investments that are being made today.

Furthermore, much of today’s federal infusion will likely be spent not only on supporting students in catching up on the unfinished learning of the pandemic but also on tackling deeper historical opportunity and achievement gaps among students of different races and income levels.

As districts consider competing uses of funding, they are juggling multiple priorities over several time horizons. The ARP funding needs to be obligated by September 2023. This restricts how monies can be spent. Districts are balancing the desire to hire new personnel or start new programs with the risk of having to close programs because of lack of sustained funds in the future. Districts are also facing decisions about whether to run programs at the district level or to give more freedom to principals in allocating funds; about the balance between academics and broader student needs; about the extent to which funds should be targeted to students who have struggled most or spread evenly across all students; and about the balance between rolling out existing evidence-based programs and experimenting with innovative approaches.

It is too early to answer all of these questions decisively. However, as districts consider this complex set of decisions, leading practitioners and thinkers have come together to form the Coalition to Advance Future Student Success—and to outline priorities to ensure the effective and equitable use of federal funds. 28 “Framework: The Coalition to Advance Future Student Success,” Council of Chief State School Officers, accessed June 30, 2021, learning.ccsso.org.

These priorities encompass four potential actions for schools:

• Safely reopen schools for in-person learning.
• Reengage students and reenroll them into effective learning environments.
• Support students in recovering unfinished learning and broader needs.
• Recommit and reimagine our education systems for the long term.

Across all of these actions, it is important for districts to understand the changing needs of parents and students as we emerge from the pandemic, and to engage with them to support students to learn and to thrive. The remainder of this article shares insights from our parent survey of more than 16,000 parents on these changing needs and perspectives, and highlights some early actions by states and districts to adapt to meet them.

1. Safely reopen schools for in-person learning

The majority of school districts across the country are planning to offer traditional five-days-a-week in-person instruction in the fall, employing COVID-19-mitigation strategies such as staff and student vaccination drives, ongoing COVID-19 testing, mask mandates, and infrastructure updates. 29 “Map: Where Were Schools Required to Be Open for the 2020-21 School Year?,” Education Week , updated May 2021, edweek.org. The evidence suggests that schools can reopen buildings safely with the right protocols in place, 30 For a summary of the evidence on safely reopening schools, see John Bailey, Is it safe to reopen schools? , CRPE, March 2021, crpe.org. but health preparedness will likely remain critical as buildings reopen. Indeed, by the end of the school year, a significant subset of parents remain concerned about safety in schools, with nearly a third still very or extremely worried about the threat of COVID-19 to their child’s health. Parents also want districts to continue to invest in safety—39 percent say schools should invest in COVID-19 health and safety measures this fall.

2. Reengage and reenroll students in effective learning environments

Opening buildings safely is hard enough, but encouraging students to show up could be even more challenging. Some students will have dropped out of formal schooling entirely, and those who remain in school may be reluctant to return to physical classrooms. Our survey results suggest that 24 percent of parents are still not convinced they will choose in-person instruction for their children this fall. Within Black communities, that rises to 34 percent. But many of these parents are still open to persuasion. Only 4 percent of parents (and 6 percent of Black parents) say their children will definitely not return to fully in-person learning—which is not very different from the percentage of parents who choose to homeschool or pursue other alternative education options in a typical year. For students who choose to remain virtual, schools should make continual efforts to improve virtual learning models, based on lessons from the past year.

For parents who are still on the fence, school districts can work to understand their needs and provide effective learning options. Safety concerns remain the primary reason that parents remain hesitant about returning to the classroom; however, this is not the only driver. Some parents feel that remote learning has been a better learning environment for their child, while others have seen their child’s social-emotional and mental health improve at home.

Still, while remote learning may have worked well for some students, our data suggest that it failed many. In addition to understanding parent needs, districts should reach out to families and build confidence not just in their schools’ safety precautions but also in their learning environment and broader role in the community. Addressing root causes will likely be more effective than punitive measures, and a broad range of tactics may be needed, from outreach and attendance campaigns to student incentives to providing services families need, such as transportation and childcare. 31 Roshon R. Bradley, “A comprehensive approach to improving student attendance,” St. John Fisher College, August 2015, Education Doctoral, Paper 225, fisherpub.sjfc.edu; a 2011 literature review highlights how incentives can effectively be employed to increase attendance rates. Across all of these, a critical component will likely be identifying students who are at risk and ensuring targeted outreach and interventions. 32 Elaine M. Allensworth and John Q. Easton, “What matters for staying on-track and graduating in Chicago Public Schools: A close look at course grades, failures, and attendance in the freshman year,” Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, July 2007, files.eric.ed.gov.

Chicago Public Schools, in partnership with the University of Chicago, has developed a student prioritization index (SPI) that identifies students at highest risk of unfinished learning and dropping out of school. The index is based on a combination of academic, attendance, socio-emotional, and community vulnerability inputs. The district is reaching out to all students with a back-to-school marketing campaign while targeting more vulnerable students with additional support. Schools are partnering with community-based organizations to carry out home visits, and with parents to staff phone banks. They are offering various paid summer opportunities to reduce the trade-offs students may have to make between summer school and summer jobs, recognizing that many have found paid work during the pandemic. The district will track and monitor the results to learn which tactics work. 33 “Moving Forward Together,” Chicago Public Schools, June 2021, cps.edu.

In Florida’s Miami-Dade schools, each school employee was assigned 30 households to contact personally, starting with a phone call and then showing up for a home visit. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho personally contacted 30 families and persuaded 23 to return to in-person learning. The district is starting the transition to in-person learning by hosting engaging in-person summer learning programs. 34 Hannah Natanson, “Schools use home visits, calls to convince parents to choose in-person classes in fall,” Washington Post , July 7, 2021, washingtonpost.com.

3. Support students in recovering unfinished learning and in broader needs

Even if students reenroll in effective learning environments in the fall, many will be several months behind academically and may struggle to reintegrate into a traditional learning environment. School districts are therefore creating strategies to support students  as they work to make up unfinished learning, and as they work through broader mental health issues and social reintegration. Again, getting parents and students to show up for these programs may be harder than districts expect.

Our research suggests that parents underestimate the unfinished learning caused by the pandemic. In addition, their beliefs about their children’s learning do not reflect racial disparities in unfinished learning. In our survey, 40 percent of parents said their child is on track and 16 percent said their child is progressing faster than in a usual year. Black parents are slightly more likely than white parents to think their child is on track or better, Hispanic parents less so. However, across all races, more than half of parents think their child is doing just fine. Only 14 percent of parents said their child has fallen significantly behind.

Even if programs are offered for free, many parents may not take advantage of them, especially if they are too academically oriented. Only about a quarter of parents said they are very likely to enroll their child in tutoring, after-school, or summer-school programs, for example. Nearly 40 percent said they are very likely to enroll their students in enrichment programs such as art or music. Districts therefore should consider not only offering effective evidence-based programs, such as high-dosage tutoring and vacation academies, but also ensuring that these programs are attractive to students.

In Rhode Island, for example, the state is taking a “Broccoli and Ice Cream” approach to summer school to prepare students for the new school year, combining rigorous reading and math instruction with fun activities provided by community-based partners. Enrichment activities such as sailing, Italian cooking lessons, and Olympic sports are persuading students to participate. 35 From webinar with Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island Department of Education, https://www.ewa.org/agenda/ewa-74th-national-seminar-agenda. The state-run summer program is open to students across the state, but the Rhode Island Department of Education has also provided guidance to district-run programs, 36 Learning, Equity & Accelerated Pathways Task Force Report , Rhode Island Department of Education, April 2021, ride.ri.gov. encouraging partnerships with community-based organizations, a dual focus on academics and enrichment, small class sizes, and a strong focus on relationships and social-emotional support.

In Louisiana, the state has provided guidance and support 37 Staffing and scheduling best practices guidance , Louisiana Department of Education, June 3, 2021, louisianabelieves.com. to districts in implementing recovery programs to ensure evidence-based approaches are rolled out state-wide. The guidance includes practical tips on ramping up staffing, and on scheduling high-dosage tutoring and other dedicated acceleration blocks. The state didn’t stop at guidance, but also flooded districts with support and two-way dialogue through webinars, conferences, monthly calls, and regional technical coaching. By scheduling acceleration blocks during the school day, rather than an add-on after school, districts are not dependent on parents signing up for programs.

For students who have experienced trauma, schools will likely need to address the broader fallout from the pandemic. In southwest Virginia, the United Way is partnering with five school systems to establish a trauma-informed schools initiative, providing teachers and staff with training and resources on trauma recovery. 38 Mike Still, “SWVA school districts partner to help students in wake of pandemic,” Kingsport Times News, June 26, 2021, timesnews.net. San Antonio is planning to hire more licensed therapists and social workers to help students and their families, leveraging partnerships with community organizations to place a licensed social worker on every campus. 39 Brooke Crum, “SAISD superintendent: ‘There are no shortcuts’ to tackling COVID-related learning gaps,” San Antonio Report, April 12, 2021, sanantonioreport.org.

4. Recommit and reimagine our education systems for the long term

Opportunity gaps have existed in our school systems for a long time. As schools build back from the pandemic, districts are also recommitting to providing an excellent education to every child. A potential starting point could be redoubling efforts to provide engaging, high-quality grade-level curriculum and instruction delivered by diverse and effective educators in every classroom, supported by effective assessments to inform instruction and support.

Beyond these foundational elements, districts may consider reimagining other aspects of the system. Parents may also be open to nontraditional models. Thirty-three percent of parents said that even when the pandemic is over, the ideal fit for their child would be something other than five days a week in a traditional brick-and-mortar school. Parents are considering hybrid models, remote learning, homeschooling, or learning hubs over the long term. Even if learning resumes mostly in the building, parents are open to the use of new technology to support teaching.

Edgecombe County Public Schools in North Carolina is planning to continue its use of learning hubs this fall to better meet student needs. In the district’s hub-and-spoke model, students will spend half of their time learning core content (the “hub”). For the other half they will engage in enrichment activities aligned to learning standards (the “spokes”). For elementary and middle school students, enrichment activities will involve interest-based projects in science and social studies; for high schoolers, activities could include exploring their passions through targeted English language arts and social studies projects or getting work experience—either paid or volunteer. The district is redeploying staff and leveraging community-based partnerships to enable these smaller-group activities with trusted adults who mirror the demographics of the students. 40 “District- and community-driven learning pods,” Center on Reinventing Public Education, crpe.org.

In Tennessee, the new Advanced Placement (AP) Access for All program will provide students across the state with access to AP courses, virtually. The goal is to eliminate financial barriers and help students take AP courses that aren’t currently offered at their home high school. 41 Amy Cockerham, “TN Department of Education announces ‘AP Access for All program,’” April 28, 2021, WJHL-TV, wjhl.com.

The Dallas Independent School District is rethinking the traditional school year, gathering input from families, teachers, and school staff to ensure that school communities are ready for the plunge. More than 40 schools have opted to add five additional intercession weeks to the year to provide targeted academics and enrichment activities. A smaller group of schools will add 23 days to the school year to increase time for student learning and teacher planning and collaboration. 42 “Time to Learn,” Dallas Independent School District, dallasisd.org.

It is unclear whether all these experiments will succeed, and school districts should monitor them closely to ensure they can scale successful programs and sunset unsuccessful ones. However, we have learned in the pandemic that some of the innovations born of necessity met some families’ needs better. Continued experimentation and fine-tuning could bring the best of traditional and new approaches together.

Thanks to concerted efforts by states and districts, the worst projections for learning outcomes this past year have not materialized for most students. However, students are still far behind where they need to be, especially those from historically marginalized groups. Left unchecked, unfinished learning could have severe consequences for students’ opportunities and prospects. In the long term, it could exact a heavy toll on the economy. It is not too late to mitigate these threats, and funding is now in place. Districts and states now have the opportunity to spend that money effectively to support our nation’s students.

Emma Dorn is a senior expert in McKinsey’s Silicon Valley office; Bryan Hancock and Jimmy Sarakatsannis are partners in the Washington, DC, office; and Ellen Viruleg is a senior adviser based in Providence, Rhode Island.

The authors wish to thank Alice Boucher, Ezra Glenn, Ben Hayes, Cheryl Healey, Chauncey Holder, and Sidney Scott for their contributions to this article.

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by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

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For students applying to college using the CommonApp, there are several different places where students and counselors can address the pandemic’s impact. The different sections have differing goals. You must understand how to use each section for its appropriate use.

The CommonApp COVID-19 question

First, the CommonApp this year has an additional question specifically about COVID-19 :

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces. Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

This question seeks to understand the adversity that students may have had to face due to the pandemic, the move to online education, or the shelter-in-place rules. You don’t have to answer this question if the impact on you wasn’t particularly severe. Some examples of things students should discuss include:

• The student or a family member had COVID-19 or suffered other illnesses due to confinement during the pandemic.
• The candidate had to deal with personal or family issues, such as abusive living situations or other safety concerns
• The student suffered from a lack of internet access and other online learning challenges.
• Students who dealt with problems registering for or taking standardized tests and AP exams.

Jeff Schiffman of the Tulane University admissions office has a blog about this section. He recommends students ask themselves several questions as they go about answering this section:

• Are my experiences different from others’?
• Are there noticeable changes on my transcript?
• Am I aware of my privilege?
• Am I specific? Am I explaining rather than complaining?
• Is this information being included elsewhere on my application?

If you do answer this section, be brief and to-the-point.

Counselor recommendations and school profiles

Second, counselors will, in their counselor forms and school profiles on the CommonApp, address how the school handled the pandemic and how it might have affected students, specifically as it relates to:

• Grading scales and policies
• Graduation requirements
• Instructional methods
• Schedules and course offerings
• Testing requirements
• Your academic calendar
• Other extenuating circumstances

Students don’t have to mention these matters in their application unless something unusual happened.

Writing about COVID-19 in your main essay

Write about your experiences during the pandemic in your main college essay if your experience is personal, relevant, and the most important thing to discuss in your college admission essay. That you had to stay home and study online isn’t sufficient, as millions of other students faced the same situation. But sometimes, it can be appropriate and helpful to write about something related to the pandemic in your essay. For example:

• One student developed a website for a local comic book store. The store might not have survived without the ability for people to order comic books online. The student had a long-standing relationship with the store, and it was an institution that created a community for students who otherwise felt left out.
• One student started a YouTube channel to help other students with academic subjects he was very familiar with and began tutoring others.
• Some students used their extra time that was the result of the stay-at-home orders to take online courses pursuing topics they are genuinely interested in or developing new interests, like a foreign language or music.

Experiences like this can be good topics for the CommonApp essay as long as they reflect something genuinely important about the student. For many students whose lives have been shaped by this pandemic, it can be a critical part of their college application.

Want more? Read 6 ways to improve a college essay , What the &%$! should I write about in my college essay , and Just how important is a college admissions essay? .

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‘When Normal Life Stopped’: College Essays Reflect a Turbulent Year

This year’s admissions essays became a platform for high school seniors to reflect on the pandemic, race and loss.

By Anemona Hartocollis

This year perhaps more than ever before, the college essay has served as a canvas for high school seniors to reflect on a turbulent and, for many, sorrowful year. It has been a psychiatrist’s couch, a road map to a more hopeful future, a chance to pour out intimate feelings about loneliness and injustice.

In response to a request from The New York Times, more than 900 seniors submitted the personal essays they wrote for their college applications. Reading them is like a trip through two of the biggest news events of recent decades: the devastation wrought by the coronavirus, and the rise of a new civil rights movement.

In the wake of the high-profile deaths of Black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers, students shared how they had wrestled with racism in their own lives. Many dipped their feet into the politics of protest, finding themselves strengthened by their activism, yet sometimes conflicted.

And in the midst of the most far-reaching pandemic in a century, they described the isolation and loss that have pervaded every aspect of their lives since schools suddenly shut down a year ago. They sought to articulate how they have managed while cut off from friends and activities they had cultivated for years.

To some degree, the students were responding to prompts on the applications, with their essays taking on even more weight in a year when many colleges waived standardized test scores and when extracurricular activities were wiped out.

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Insights Into the Pandemic’s Impact on Student Well-Being

We explore how our shift out of the pandemic is impacting student relationships, motivation, and emotional well-being..

Editor’s note: This is the fourth blog in this series. To learn more about the 2023 Education Engagement Index survey, please read part one with overall findings, part two on hybrid learning, and part three on academic workplace. Learn more about our survey method here .

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a new focus on well-being, not just physical, but also emotional well-being and other factors that support a multidimensional approach to health. This is especially relevant on college and university campuses, where the current cohort of students had their education disrupted by the pandemic. Whether in high school or college at the time, they were forced to isolate during a critical point in their personal and academic development.

In this installment of our Education Engagement Index blog series, we look at how our shift out of the pandemic is impacting student relationships, motivation, and emotional well-being.

For the purpose of the study, we explore engagement using the following framework:

In our national survey of 2,500 students, educators, and staff at U.S.-based colleges and universities, we asked students about their relationships with instructors, mentors, peers, and advisors, and in all cases they reported weaker relationships in 2023 than in 2022, with some falling below pre-COVID levels. Similarly, on the questions related to motivation and emotional well-being, there was a significant decline in nearly all questions.

Students’ sense of belonging is of particular concern, as this was the lowest scoring question, and it shows the greatest decline from pre-COVID level. This data was surprising to the research team. According to our research, students’ presence on campus increased between 2022 and 2023. However, this increase in contact with others does not appear to have translated to improved relationships, sense of belonging, or other aspects of emotional well-being.

When we disaggregated the responses by students’ modality of learning — fully on campus, fully virtual, or hybrid — there were no significant differences between the groups. This suggests that relationships, motivation, and emotional well-being are not significantly impacted by modality; instead, other factors have a greater effect, which could include broader health considerations, conditions within the institutions, and geopolitical conditions.

The role of the campus community

We were curious if (and how) students’ relationships may impact their motivation and emotional well-being. In analyzing the responses across these question sets (through multiple linear regressions), we found that instructors have the greatest impact on students’ motivation, and peers have the greatest impact on students’ emotional well-being. Advisors had the least impact on motivation and emotional well-being of these four relationship types.

Embracing a Multimodal Approach to Student Services

We cannot explore relationships, motivation, and emotional well-being without considering the ecosystem of services that are supporting students. Many institutions are increasing their range of services, as well as the depth of support that they provide. In looking at how students would like to engage with services, responses indicate that having both in person and virtual options are very important, and there is a desire for virtual access to all services.

If institutions embrace a multimodal approach to providing services and support, there are many potential benefits. Although this may require a shift in mindset and an investment in technology, campuses may be able to reduce office space and make real estate available for other uses, while satisfying students’ desire for choice in how they access support.

Although, for many, the pandemic is in the past, we are still feeling its effects and understanding its impact. There may be longer lasting negative impacts on health and well-being than we anticipated, but there may also be positive outcomes, based on our resilience and ability to develop solutions, that take hold in the “new normal” that is emerging. As institutions settle in to the post-pandemic landscape, it is essential to continue to support relationships, motivation, and emotional well-being in a multidimensional approach to student health and success.

Education Engagement Index 2023 Methodology

We deployed an online survey to an anonymous panel of 2,479 students, educators, and staff members at U.S.-based colleges and universities. Responses were collected from May 1 to June 7, 2023. This study was conducted through the Gensler Research Institute, a network of researchers and thought leaders who create insights that our education designers and strategists can use to tackle campuses’ toughest challenges, such as the student, faculty, and staff experience.

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Impact of COVID-19 on people's livelihoods, their health and our food systems

Joint statement by ilo, fao, ifad and who.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health, food systems and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year.

Millions of enterprises face an existential threat. Nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable because the majority lack social protection and access to quality health care and have lost access to productive assets. Without the means to earn an income during lockdowns, many are unable to feed themselves and their families. For most, no income means no food, or, at best, less food and less nutritious food. 

The pandemic has been affecting the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing markets, including for buying inputs and selling their produce, and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets. The pandemic has decimated jobs and placed millions of livelihoods at risk. As breadwinners lose jobs, fall ill and die, the food security and nutrition of millions of women and men are under threat, with those in low-income countries, particularly the most marginalized populations, which include small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, being hardest hit.

Millions of agricultural workers – waged and self-employed – while feeding the world, regularly face high levels of working poverty, malnutrition and poor health, and suffer from a lack of safety and labour protection as well as other types of abuse. With low and irregular incomes and a lack of social support, many of them are spurred to continue working, often in unsafe conditions, thus exposing themselves and their families to additional risks. Further, when experiencing income losses, they may resort to negative coping strategies, such as distress sale of assets, predatory loans or child labour. Migrant agricultural workers are particularly vulnerable, because they face risks in their transport, working and living conditions and struggle to access support measures put in place by governments. Guaranteeing the safety and health of all agri-food workers – from primary producers to those involved in food processing, transport and retail, including street food vendors – as well as better incomes and protection, will be critical to saving lives and protecting public health, people’s livelihoods and food security.

In the COVID-19 crisis food security, public health, and employment and labour issues, in particular workers’ health and safety, converge. Adhering to workplace safety and health practices and ensuring access to decent work and the protection of labour rights in all industries will be crucial in addressing the human dimension of the crisis. Immediate and purposeful action to save lives and livelihoods should include extending social protection towards universal health coverage and income support for those most affected. These include workers in the informal economy and in poorly protected and low-paid jobs, including youth, older workers, and migrants. Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women, who are over-represented in low-paid jobs and care roles. Different forms of support are key, including cash transfers, child allowances and healthy school meals, shelter and food relief initiatives, support for employment retention and recovery, and financial relief for businesses, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. In designing and implementing such measures it is essential that governments work closely with employers and workers.

Countries dealing with existing humanitarian crises or emergencies are particularly exposed to the effects of COVID-19. Responding swiftly to the pandemic, while ensuring that humanitarian and recovery assistance reaches those most in need, is critical.

Now is the time for global solidarity and support, especially with the most vulnerable in our societies, particularly in the emerging and developing world. Only together can we overcome the intertwined health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic and prevent its escalation into a protracted humanitarian and food security catastrophe, with the potential loss of already achieved development gains.

We must recognize this opportunity to build back better, as noted in the Policy Brief issued by the United Nations Secretary-General. We are committed to pooling our expertise and experience to support countries in their crisis response measures and efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need to develop long-term sustainable strategies to address the challenges facing the health and agri-food sectors. Priority should be given to addressing underlying food security and malnutrition challenges, tackling rural poverty, in particular through more and better jobs in the rural economy, extending social protection to all, facilitating safe migration pathways and promoting the formalization of the informal economy.

We must rethink the future of our environment and tackle climate change and environmental degradation with ambition and urgency. Only then can we protect the health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition of all people, and ensure that our ‘new normal’ is a better one.

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• Volume 76, Issue 2
• COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on social relationships and health
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• http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1512-4471 Emily Long 1 ,
• Susan Patterson 1 ,
• Karen Maxwell 1 ,
• Carolyn Blake 1 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7342-4566 Raquel Bosó Pérez 1 ,
• Ruth Lewis 1 ,
• Mark McCann 1 ,
• Julie Riddell 1 ,
• Kathryn Skivington 1 ,
• Rachel Wilson-Lowe 1 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4409-6601 Kirstin R Mitchell 2
• 1 MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit , University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
• 2 MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, Institute of Health & Wellbeing , University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
• Correspondence to Dr Emily Long, MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G3 7HR, UK; emily.long{at}glasgow.ac.uk

This essay examines key aspects of social relationships that were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses explicitly on relational mechanisms of health and brings together theory and emerging evidence on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to make recommendations for future public health policy and recovery. We first provide an overview of the pandemic in the UK context, outlining the nature of the public health response. We then introduce four distinct domains of social relationships: social networks, social support, social interaction and intimacy, highlighting the mechanisms through which the pandemic and associated public health response drastically altered social interactions in each domain. Throughout the essay, the lens of health inequalities, and perspective of relationships as interconnecting elements in a broader system, is used to explore the varying impact of these disruptions. The essay concludes by providing recommendations for longer term recovery ensuring that the social relational cost of COVID-19 is adequately considered in efforts to rebuild.

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This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2021-216690

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Introduction

Infectious disease pandemics, including SARS and COVID-19, demand intrapersonal behaviour change and present highly complex challenges for public health. 1 A pandemic of an airborne infection, spread easily through social contact, assails human relationships by drastically altering the ways through which humans interact. In this essay, we draw on theories of social relationships to examine specific ways in which relational mechanisms key to health and well-being were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Relational mechanisms refer to the processes between people that lead to change in health outcomes.

At the time of writing, the future surrounding COVID-19 was uncertain. Vaccine programmes were being rolled out in countries that could afford them, but new and more contagious variants of the virus were also being discovered. The recovery journey looked long, with continued disruption to social relationships. The social cost of COVID-19 was only just beginning to emerge, but the mental health impact was already considerable, 2 3 and the inequality of the health burden stark. 4 Knowledge of the epidemiology of COVID-19 accrued rapidly, but evidence of the most effective policy responses remained uncertain.

The initial response to COVID-19 in the UK was reactive and aimed at reducing mortality, with little time to consider the social implications, including for interpersonal and community relationships. The terminology of ‘social distancing’ quickly became entrenched both in public and policy discourse. This equation of physical distance with social distance was regrettable, since only physical proximity causes viral transmission, whereas many forms of social proximity (eg, conversations while walking outdoors) are minimal risk, and are crucial to maintaining relationships supportive of health and well-being.

The aim of this essay is to explore four key relational mechanisms that were impacted by the pandemic and associated restrictions: social networks, social support, social interaction and intimacy. We use relational theories and emerging research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response to make three key recommendations: one regarding public health responses; and two regarding social recovery. Our understanding of these mechanisms stems from a ‘systems’ perspective which casts social relationships as interdependent elements within a connected whole. 5

Social networks

Social networks characterise the individuals and social connections that compose a system (such as a workplace, community or society). Social relationships range from spouses and partners, to coworkers, friends and acquaintances. They vary across many dimensions, including, for example, frequency of contact and emotional closeness. Social networks can be understood both in terms of the individuals and relationships that compose the network, as well as the overall network structure (eg, how many of your friends know each other).

Social networks show a tendency towards homophily, or a phenomenon of associating with individuals who are similar to self. 6 This is particularly true for ‘core’ network ties (eg, close friends), while more distant, sometimes called ‘weak’ ties tend to show more diversity. During the height of COVID-19 restrictions, face-to-face interactions were often reduced to core network members, such as partners, family members or, potentially, live-in roommates; some ‘weak’ ties were lost, and interactions became more limited to those closest. Given that peripheral, weaker social ties provide a diversity of resources, opinions and support, 7 COVID-19 likely resulted in networks that were smaller and more homogenous.

Such changes were not inevitable nor necessarily enduring, since social networks are also adaptive and responsive to change, in that a disruption to usual ways of interacting can be replaced by new ways of engaging (eg, Zoom). Yet, important inequalities exist, wherein networks and individual relationships within networks are not equally able to adapt to such changes. For example, individuals with a large number of newly established relationships (eg, university students) may have struggled to transfer these relationships online, resulting in lost contacts and a heightened risk of social isolation. This is consistent with research suggesting that young adults were the most likely to report a worsening of relationships during COVID-19, whereas older adults were the least likely to report a change. 8

Lastly, social connections give rise to emergent properties of social systems, 9 where a community-level phenomenon develops that cannot be attributed to any one member or portion of the network. For example, local area-based networks emerged due to geographic restrictions (eg, stay-at-home orders), resulting in increases in neighbourly support and local volunteering. 10 In fact, research suggests that relationships with neighbours displayed the largest net gain in ratings of relationship quality compared with a range of relationship types (eg, partner, colleague, friend). 8 Much of this was built from spontaneous individual interactions within local communities, which together contributed to the ‘community spirit’ that many experienced. 11 COVID-19 restrictions thus impacted the personal social networks and the structure of the larger networks within the society.

Social support

Social support, referring to the psychological and material resources provided through social interaction, is a critical mechanism through which social relationships benefit health. In fact, social support has been shown to be one of the most important resilience factors in the aftermath of stressful events. 12 In the context of COVID-19, the usual ways in which individuals interact and obtain social support have been severely disrupted.

One such disruption has been to opportunities for spontaneous social interactions. For example, conversations with colleagues in a break room offer an opportunity for socialising beyond one’s core social network, and these peripheral conversations can provide a form of social support. 13 14 A chance conversation may lead to advice helpful to coping with situations or seeking formal help. Thus, the absence of these spontaneous interactions may mean the reduction of indirect support-seeking opportunities. While direct support-seeking behaviour is more effective at eliciting support, it also requires significantly more effort and may be perceived as forceful and burdensome. 15 The shift to homeworking and closure of community venues reduced the number of opportunities for these spontaneous interactions to occur, and has, second, focused them locally. Consequently, individuals whose core networks are located elsewhere, or who live in communities where spontaneous interaction is less likely, have less opportunity to benefit from spontaneous in-person supportive interactions.

However, alongside this disruption, new opportunities to interact and obtain social support have arisen. The surge in community social support during the initial lockdown mirrored that often seen in response to adverse events (eg, natural disasters 16 ). COVID-19 restrictions that confined individuals to their local area also compelled them to focus their in-person efforts locally. Commentators on the initial lockdown in the UK remarked on extraordinary acts of generosity between individuals who belonged to the same community but were unknown to each other. However, research on adverse events also tells us that such community support is not necessarily maintained in the longer term. 16

Meanwhile, online forms of social support are not bound by geography, thus enabling interactions and social support to be received from a wider network of people. Formal online social support spaces (eg, support groups) existed well before COVID-19, but have vastly increased since. While online interactions can increase perceived social support, it is unclear whether remote communication technologies provide an effective substitute from in-person interaction during periods of social distancing. 17 18 It makes intuitive sense that the usefulness of online social support will vary by the type of support offered, degree of social interaction and ‘online communication skills’ of those taking part. Youth workers, for instance, have struggled to keep vulnerable youth engaged in online youth clubs, 19 despite others finding a positive association between amount of digital technology used by individuals during lockdown and perceived social support. 20 Other research has found that more frequent face-to-face contact and phone/video contact both related to lower levels of depression during the time period of March to August 2020, but the negative effect of a lack of contact was greater for those with higher levels of usual sociability. 21 Relatedly, important inequalities in social support exist, such that individuals who occupy more socially disadvantaged positions in society (eg, low socioeconomic status, older people) tend to have less access to social support, 22 potentially exacerbated by COVID-19.

Social and interactional norms

Interactional norms are key relational mechanisms which build trust, belonging and identity within and across groups in a system. Individuals in groups and societies apply meaning by ‘approving, arranging and redefining’ symbols of interaction. 23 A handshake, for instance, is a powerful symbol of trust and equality. Depending on context, not shaking hands may symbolise a failure to extend friendship, or a failure to reach agreement. The norms governing these symbols represent shared values and identity; and mutual understanding of these symbols enables individuals to achieve orderly interactions, establish supportive relationship accountability and connect socially. 24 25

Physical distancing measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 radically altered these norms of interaction, particularly those used to convey trust, affinity, empathy and respect (eg, hugging, physical comforting). 26 As epidemic waves rose and fell, the work to negotiate these norms required intense cognitive effort; previously taken-for-granted interactions were re-examined, factoring in current restriction levels, own and (assumed) others’ vulnerability and tolerance of risk. This created awkwardness, and uncertainty, for example, around how to bring closure to an in-person interaction or convey warmth. The instability in scripted ways of interacting created particular strain for individuals who already struggled to encode and decode interactions with others (eg, those who are deaf or have autism spectrum disorder); difficulties often intensified by mask wearing. 27

Large social gatherings—for example, weddings, school assemblies, sporting events—also present key opportunities for affirming and assimilating interactional norms, building cohesion and shared identity and facilitating cooperation across social groups. 28 Online ‘equivalents’ do not easily support ‘social-bonding’ activities such as singing and dancing, and rarely enable chance/spontaneous one-on-one conversations with peripheral/weaker network ties (see the Social networks section) which can help strengthen bonds across a larger network. The loss of large gatherings to celebrate rites of passage (eg, bar mitzvah, weddings) has additional relational costs since these events are performed by and for communities to reinforce belonging, and to assist in transitioning to new phases of life. 29 The loss of interaction with diverse others via community and large group gatherings also reduces intergroup contact, which may then tend towards more prejudiced outgroup attitudes. While online interaction can go some way to mimicking these interaction norms, there are key differences. A sense of anonymity, and lack of in-person emotional cues, tends to support norms of polarisation and aggression in expressing differences of opinion online. And while online platforms have potential to provide intergroup contact, the tendency of much social media to form homogeneous ‘echo chambers’ can serve to further reduce intergroup contact. 30 31

Intimacy relates to the feeling of emotional connection and closeness with other human beings. Emotional connection, through romantic, friendship or familial relationships, fulfils a basic human need 32 and strongly benefits health, including reduced stress levels, improved mental health, lowered blood pressure and reduced risk of heart disease. 32 33 Intimacy can be fostered through familiarity, feeling understood and feeling accepted by close others. 34

Intimacy via companionship and closeness is fundamental to mental well-being. Positively, the COVID-19 pandemic has offered opportunities for individuals to (re)connect and (re)strengthen close relationships within their household via quality time together, following closure of many usual external social activities. Research suggests that the first full UK lockdown period led to a net gain in the quality of steady relationships at a population level, 35 but amplified existing inequalities in relationship quality. 35 36 For some in single-person households, the absence of a companion became more conspicuous, leading to feelings of loneliness and lower mental well-being. 37 38 Additional pandemic-related relational strain 39 40 resulted, for some, in the initiation or intensification of domestic abuse. 41 42

Physical touch is another key aspect of intimacy, a fundamental human need crucial in maintaining and developing intimacy within close relationships. 34 Restrictions on social interactions severely restricted the number and range of people with whom physical affection was possible. The reduction in opportunity to give and receive affectionate physical touch was not experienced equally. Many of those living alone found themselves completely without physical contact for extended periods. The deprivation of physical touch is evidenced to take a heavy emotional toll. 43 Even in future, once physical expressions of affection can resume, new levels of anxiety over germs may introduce hesitancy into previously fluent blending of physical and verbal intimate social connections. 44

The pandemic also led to shifts in practices and norms around sexual relationship building and maintenance, as individuals adapted and sought alternative ways of enacting sexual intimacy. This too is important, given that intimate sexual activity has known benefits for health. 45 46 Given that social restrictions hinged on reducing household mixing, possibilities for partnered sexual activity were primarily guided by living arrangements. While those in cohabiting relationships could potentially continue as before, those who were single or in non-cohabiting relationships generally had restricted opportunities to maintain their sexual relationships. Pornography consumption and digital partners were reported to increase since lockdown. 47 However, online interactions are qualitatively different from in-person interactions and do not provide the same opportunities for physical intimacy.

Recommendations and conclusions

In the sections above we have outlined the ways in which COVID-19 has impacted social relationships, showing how relational mechanisms key to health have been undermined. While some of the damage might well self-repair after the pandemic, there are opportunities inherent in deliberative efforts to build back in ways that facilitate greater resilience in social and community relationships. We conclude by making three recommendations: one regarding public health responses to the pandemic; and two regarding social recovery.

Recommendation 1: explicitly count the relational cost of public health policies to control the pandemic

Effective handling of a pandemic recognises that social, economic and health concerns are intricately interwoven. It is clear that future research and policy attention must focus on the social consequences. As described above, policies which restrict physical mixing across households carry heavy and unequal relational costs. These include for individuals (eg, loss of intimate touch), dyads (eg, loss of warmth, comfort), networks (eg, restricted access to support) and communities (eg, loss of cohesion and identity). Such costs—and their unequal impact—should not be ignored in short-term efforts to control an epidemic. Some public health responses—restrictions on international holiday travel and highly efficient test and trace systems—have relatively small relational costs and should be prioritised. At a national level, an earlier move to proportionate restrictions, and investment in effective test and trace systems, may help prevent escalation of spread to the point where a national lockdown or tight restrictions became an inevitability. Where policies with relational costs are unavoidable, close attention should be paid to the unequal relational impact for those whose personal circumstances differ from normative assumptions of two adult families. This includes consideration of whether expectations are fair (eg, for those who live alone), whether restrictions on social events are equitable across age group, religious/ethnic groupings and social class, and also to ensure that the language promoted by such policies (eg, households; families) is not exclusionary. 48 49 Forethought to unequal impacts on social relationships should thus be integral to the work of epidemic preparedness teams.

Recommendation 2: intelligently balance online and offline ways of relating

A key ingredient for well-being is ‘getting together’ in a physical sense. This is fundamental to a human need for intimate touch, physical comfort, reinforcing interactional norms and providing practical support. Emerging evidence suggests that online ways of relating cannot simply replace physical interactions. But online interaction has many benefits and for some it offers connections that did not exist previously. In particular, online platforms provide new forms of support for those unable to access offline services because of mobility issues (eg, older people) or because they are geographically isolated from their support community (eg, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth). Ultimately, multiple forms of online and offline social interactions are required to meet the needs of varying groups of people (eg, LGBTQ, older people). Future research and practice should aim to establish ways of using offline and online support in complementary and even synergistic ways, rather than veering between them as social restrictions expand and contract. Intelligent balancing of online and offline ways of relating also pertains to future policies on home and flexible working. A decision to switch to wholesale or obligatory homeworking should consider the risk to relational ‘group properties’ of the workplace community and their impact on employees’ well-being, focusing in particular on unequal impacts (eg, new vs established employees). Intelligent blending of online and in-person working is required to achieve flexibility while also nurturing supportive networks at work. Intelligent balance also implies strategies to build digital literacy and minimise digital exclusion, as well as coproducing solutions with intended beneficiaries.

Recommendation 3: build stronger and sustainable localised communities

In balancing offline and online ways of interacting, there is opportunity to capitalise on the potential for more localised, coherent communities due to scaled-down travel, homeworking and local focus that will ideally continue after restrictions end. There are potential economic benefits after the pandemic, such as increased trade as home workers use local resources (eg, coffee shops), but also relational benefits from stronger relationships around the orbit of the home and neighbourhood. Experience from previous crises shows that community volunteer efforts generated early on will wane over time in the absence of deliberate work to maintain them. Adequately funded partnerships between local government, third sector and community groups are required to sustain community assets that began as a direct response to the pandemic. Such partnerships could work to secure green spaces and indoor (non-commercial) meeting spaces that promote community interaction. Green spaces in particular provide a triple benefit in encouraging physical activity and mental health, as well as facilitating social bonding. 50 In building local communities, small community networks—that allow for diversity and break down ingroup/outgroup views—may be more helpful than the concept of ‘support bubbles’, which are exclusionary and less sustainable in the longer term. Rigorously designed intervention and evaluation—taking a systems approach—will be crucial in ensuring scale-up and sustainability.

The dramatic change to social interaction necessitated by efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 created stark challenges but also opportunities. Our essay highlights opportunities for learning, both to ensure the equity and humanity of physical restrictions, and to sustain the salutogenic effects of social relationships going forward. The starting point for capitalising on this learning is recognition of the disruption to relational mechanisms as a key part of the socioeconomic and health impact of the pandemic. In recovery planning, a general rule is that what is good for decreasing health inequalities (such as expanding social protection and public services and pursuing green inclusive growth strategies) 4 will also benefit relationships and safeguard relational mechanisms for future generations. Putting this into action will require political will.

Ethics statements

Patient consent for publication.

Not required.

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Twitter @karenmaxSPHSU, @Mark_McCann, @Rwilsonlowe, @KMitchinGlasgow

Contributors EL and KM led on the manuscript conceptualisation, review and editing. SP, KM, CB, RBP, RL, MM, JR, KS and RW-L contributed to drafting and revising the article. All authors assisted in revising the final draft.

Funding The research reported in this publication was supported by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00022/1, MC_UU_00022/3) and the Chief Scientist Office (SPHSU11, SPHSU14). EL is also supported by MRC Skills Development Fellowship Award (MR/S015078/1). KS and MM are also supported by a Medical Research Council Strategic Award (MC_PC_13027).

Competing interests None declared.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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• Open access
• Published: 26 August 2024

Factors that influence happiness of nursing students according to COVID-19 infection status

• Hyun-Ok Jung 1 &
• Seung-Woo Han 2  

BMC Nursing volume  23 , Article number:  588 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Happiness is a cognitive and emotional evaluation of one’s life, and the upward approach affects satisfaction and happiness throughout life. Because nursing students must experience medical settings closely related to COVID-19 infection through clinical practice, they are vulnerable to exposure to infection and academic stress, and are also sensitive to personal life satisfaction and happiness. In this study, Korean nursing students who experienced the COVID-19 pandemic during the COVID-19 endemic era were divided into nursing students infected with COVID-19 and non-infected nursing students. By identifying the effects of college life adaptation, leisure satisfaction from club activities, and family health on happiness, which are individual sub-factors of happiness, we intend to provide basic data for the development of intervention programs for promoting their happiness.

Data were collected from October 4, 2023 to November 15, 2023. The subjects were 343 students enrolled in five nursing schools in four major cities (D, G, K, and Y) in Korea. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation coefficients.

For COVID + students, happiness was significantly affected by adaptation to campus life and family strengths. This model had r 2  = 0.401; i.e., it explained 40.1% of the variability in happiness. For COVID 0 students, happiness was significantly affected by adaptation to campus life and subjective health status, with r 2  = 0.346.

Conclusions

These results indicate the necessity of developing a happiness-promotion program for nursing students.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

According to the World Happiness Report 2022, the average happiness index for South Koreans was 5.94, ranking 59th out of 146 countries; it was 1.88 points below the first-ranked country, Finland [ 1 ]. However, early stages in the COVID-19 pandemic, the average happiness index for Korean university students was low, at 53.3 out of 100 [ 2 ]. Upon questioning about their current happiness, the most frequent response was ‘I don’t know exactly’ at 33.0%, followed by ‘I’m relatively happy’ (29.2%), ‘I’m relatively unhappy ' (22.9%), ‘I’m not at all happy’ (11.0%), and ‘I’m extremely happy’ (3.9%). Only about three in ten Korean university students considered their lives to be happy.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, university students were already experiencing lower levels of happiness due to various factors such as the pressures of establishing a career path, academic demands, the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and peer pressure [ 3 ]. The happiness levels of university students further decreased due to changes in daily life caused by COVID-19, including reduced personal interactions with classmates and friends, and the interruption of academic and professional trajectories [ 4 ].

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the world implemented various infectious disease prevention measures, such as quarantine, maintaining social distance, working from home, and wearing masks, to reduce stress and anxiety related to COVID-19. These measures aimed to create an environment conducive to economic, social, and political well-being [ 5 ], but they had more negative than positive effects on human happiness (e.g., deterioration in health, disruption of social relationships, decreased adaptability, financial worries) [ 6 , 7 , 8 ].

Strong social lockdowns that were implemented beginning in the early 2020s shifted classes in nursing theory from face-to-face to distance learning, and transformed nursing practice fields from clinical and community settings to simulation and online systems [ 9 , 10 ]. Nursing students, faced with restricted access to university facilities and reduced contact with peers and teachers, were compelled to adopt a remote education system while being granted increased autonomy, necessitating increased control over their learning process. However, the unprecedented and unanticipated shift to a remote education system resulted in a decline in academic adaptation among nursing students, compared to the pre-COVID-19 era, due to a lack of motivation, and decrease in attention, in effort, and in time investment in learning [ 8 , 11 , 12 ]. Nursing students faced problems issues in adapting to university life, including personal emotional adjustment, social adaptation, and institutional attachment. These adaptations are necessary to meet the various educational demands that arise from university expectations [ 13 ].

Leisure activities are critically important in protecting against the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 14 ]. However, due to the continuous remote education system during the pandemic, college students’ leisure activities decreased [ 14 ]. Nursing students were more anxious about others becoming infected with COVID-19 than about themselves becoming infected with it, and therefore intentionally chose self-quarantine, avoided direct contact with friends and family, and sometimes sought temporary living arrangements alone, thereby detaching themselves from support systems offered by family, friends, or colleagues [ 9 , 15 ]. Social lockdowns implemented to prevent COVID-19 further limited nursing students’ the social relationships, which are often cultivated by engaging in leisure activities [ 16 , 17 ].

During the COVID-19 pandemic, information collected from families was important in collecting knowledge about the disease and its risks [ 13 ]. Strong social lockdown measures implemented to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic forced nursing students to undertake online learning at home and to have limited interpersonal interactions with their family members [ 5 ]. In this changed home environment, nursing students often encounter conflicts, such as arguments, in maintaining a balance of power with other family members working online [ 18 ]. However, the happiness of nursing students increases as their emotional relationships with their family members improve [ 19 ].

Happiness is conceptualized as an subject’s cognitive and emotional evaluation of their life [ 20 ]. People who experience happiness and satisfaction are likely to have greater self-discipline, self-regulation and coping abilities, which empower them to positively navigate their lives, even during crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic [ 19 ]. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, key factors that can reduce happiness have been identified; they include the degree of mobility restriction due to isolation and social-distancing measures, the perceived threat to interpersonal relationships such as love and friendship, concerns regarding educational pursuits and employment, the dynamics of remote work and returning to the office, and overall satisfaction with domestic life [ 21 , 22 ]. The ‘upward approach’ within happiness diffusion theory posits that overall life satisfaction and happiness are influenced by accumulating satisfaction in subject sub-factors that affect happiness. These sub-factors include health, income, leisure, family, academics, and occupation [ 20 ].

This research aims to provide foundational data for developing intervention programs to increase the happiness of Korean nursing students during the COVID-19 endemic era. The first step is to distinguish between nursing students who had been infected with COVID-19 (COVID + students) or had not been infected by COVID-19 (COVID 0 students). The second was to explore how their overall happiness was affected by subject happiness sub-factors, such as college life adaption, leisure satisfaction from club activities, and family strengths. The hypotheses of this study are as follows.

Hypothesis 1

College life adaptation affects the happiness of both COVID + and COVID 0 nursing students.

Hypothesis 2

Leisure satisfaction from club activities affect the happiness of both COVID + and COVID 0 students.

Hypothesis 3

Family strengths affects the happiness of both COVID + and COVID 0 nursing students.

Research design

This a descriptive survey study that utilized a self-reported questionnaire method. It is based on the upward approach within the theory of happiness diffusion as described by Diener [ 20 ]. The aim is to determine the impact of college life adaptation, leisure satisfaction from club activities, and family strengths on the happiness of South Korean nursing students during the COVID-19 endemic era. This study analyzes the differences in college life adaptation, leisure satisfaction, family strengths, and happiness depending on the presence or absence of COVID-19 infection. In addition, this study compares and analyzes how factors affecting happiness differ depending on whether there is infection or not.

Research participants

Participants were convenience sampled from five nursing departments in South Korean cities D, G, K, and Y. To ensure sufficient statistical power, the G*Power 3.1 program was used. The study required a minimum convenience sample size of 152 participants, considering a significance level (α) of 0.05, a power (1-β) of 0.90, an effect size of 0.15, and the incorporation of 11 independent variables. To meet this requirement, 370 questionnaires were distributed, accounting for non-response rates and unreliable responses. Of the responses received, 27 were discarded due to a high number of non-responses or insincere answers, leaving a final sample size of 343 participants (180 COVID + , 163 COVID 0 ).

The specific selection criteria for the study were as follows. (1) Common Criteria: Participants were third and fourth-year nursing students who had experienced more than one year (more than three times per week) of remote learning between March 2020 and December 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and who had actively participated in club activities for more than six months (at least twice a month) within the past year. (2) COVID + Participants: Subjects who received a positive COVID-19 diagnosis from a health center or hospital after the outbreak and had an experience of isolation, as well as those whose infection was confirmed by an official notification or message from a health center or hospital. (3) COVID 0 Participants: Those who have not received a positive COVID-19 diagnosis from a health center or hospital since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Research tools

• College life adaptation

This study used a tool specifically developed for nursing college students by Park and Kim [ 23 ]. It is composed of 34 items in six subscales: nine items for interpersonal relations, nine items for major satisfaction, five items for major ease, five items for coping capacity, three items for job preparation, and three items for academic fidelity. Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale, starting from 1 point, where negative items are reverse-scored, so a high score corresponds to good overall adaptation to university life. In this study, the instrument had Cronbach’s α = 0.91.

Leisure satisfaction from club activities

This study used the Leisure Satisfaction Scale (LSS), developed by Beard and Ragheb [ 24 ] and validated for reliability and validity by Kim et al. [ 25 ]. This scale consists of 24 items in six subscales: psychological, educational, social, relaxation, physical, and aesthetic. Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 = ‘Not at all,’ to 5 = ‘Very much so,’ so a high total score signifies high leisure satisfaction. In this study, the scale had Cronbach’s α = 0.97.

• Family strengths

This study used the Korea Family Strengths Scale (KFSS-II), developed by Yoo et al. [ 26 ]. This scale consists of five sub-areas: family resilience, mutual respect and acceptance, quality of bonding, economic stability and cooperation, and family culture and social participation, totaling 22 items. Each item is scored on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 = ‘Not at all’ to 5 = ‘Very much so’ 5, so a high total score indicates high family strengths. In this study, the scale had Cronbach’s α = 0.96.

This study used the shortened Korean version of the happiness scale developed by Suh and Koo [ 27 ]. This scale consists of nine items across three core sub-factors of happiness experience: life satisfaction, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Life satisfaction assesses satisfaction with personal aspects, interpersonal relationships, and group belonging. Positive emotions and negative quantify emotions closely related to happiness. Each item is rated on a 7-point Likert scale, from 1 to 7, with happiness increasing with score. In this study, this scale had Cronbach’s α = 0.90.

Data collection

Data were collected from October 4, 2023, to November 15, 2023, as per approved guidelines. The researchers visited five nursing departments in major South Korean cities (D, G, K, and Y cities). They explained the study’s purpose and methodology to the department heads, secured their permission and cooperation for the research, and posted a recruitment announcement for participants. Subjects selected through the recruitment process were given detailed explanations by the researchers about the study’s purpose, anonymity, and confidentiality. The participants gave written consent for voluntary participation, completed the questionnaire, which the researchers later collected. For participants who reported a history of COVID-19 infection, the notification document or text message received from a health center or hospital was verified.

Data analysis

The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS/WIN 23.0 software program. The distributions of general characteristics of the subjects were presented as frequencies and percentages. Differences in happiness according to the subjects’ general characteristics were compared using t-tests and one-way ANOVA. The levels of college life adaptation, leisure satisfaction from club activities, family strengths, and happiness were reported as average and standard deviation. The correlation between happiness and related variables was examined using Pearson’s correlation coefficients. The assumptions for regression analysis of the independent variables were diagnosed considering multicollinearity, residuals, and singular values. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to identify factors that influence happiness.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the Kwangju Women’s University Institutional Review Board (IRB NO.1041465-202308-HR-001-30). The survey questionnaire incorporated detailed explanations about the necessity and purpose of the study, research method, estimated time commitment, the possibility of withdrawal during the study, voluntary participation, potential benefits and disadvantages of participating, as well as the management and confidentiality of personal information. Contact information for the researchers was also provided for any inquiries related to the study. The survey was administered only to those who understood and consented to these terms, and their responses were included in the analysis. Participants were assured that the survey results would be quantified, processed, and used exclusively for the purposes of this research, that their anonymity would be preserved, and that they could opt out of the survey at any point without facing any negative consequences. Following these explanations, written consent was obtained from the students who agreed to participate. They then individually completed the questionnaires, which were collected directly by the research team.

Demographic differences in happiness among participants how had been or had not been infected with COVID-19

Most subjects (291) were women; of them, 159 (88.3%) were COVID + and 132 (81.0%) were COVID 0 . The average happiness score was 5.16 (± 1.16) for COVID + subjects and 5.23 (± 1.10) for COVID 0 subjects; both scores were higher among men than among women, but the differences were not statistically significant.

Most of COVID + subjects (94 subjects, 52.2%) were participants were 4th -year students, whereas most of the COVID 0 subjects were 3rd -year students (98 subjects, 60.1%). The average happiness score was higher for 3rd -year students, than for 4th -years students: 5.11 (± 0.99) for COVID + and 5.06 (± 1.01) for COVID 0 , but these differences were not statistically significant.

Most participants came from nuclear families: 157 (87.2%) of COVID + and 142 (87.1%) of COVID 0 subjects. The average happiness score was higher for those in nuclear families among the COVID + (5.02 ± 1.04) and in extended families among the COVID 0 (5.42 ± 0.63), but the differences were not statistically significant.

Most participants had one sibling: 90 (50.0%) of COVID + and 90 (55.2%) of COVID 0 subjects. The highest average happiness scores were for those with no siblings among the COVID + (5.18 ± 0.97) and those with one sibling among the COVID 0 (5.15 ± 0.90), but the differences were not statistically significant.

Most participants reported having no religious affiliation: 120 (66.7%) of COVID + and 114 (69.9%) of COVID 0 . The average happiness score was slightly higher among those with no religious affiliation than among those who claimed an affiliation, i.e., 5.00 (± 1.06) for COVID + and 5.01 (± 0.96) for the COVID 0 , but the differences were not statistically significant.

Most of both groups were members of one club: 115 (63.9%) of COVID + and 113 (69.3%) of COVID 0 . The average happiness score was highest for those in one club among the COVID + , at 5.00 (± 1.02), and in four clubs among the COVID + , at 5.83 (± 0.88), but these differences were not statistically significant.

Most participants belonged to the ‘medium’ economic category: 149 (82.8%) of COVID + and 130 (79.8%) of COVID 0 . The average happiness score was highest for those in the ‘high’ economic category; i.e., 5.58 (± 1.01) for the COVID + and 5.39 (± 1.08) for the COVID 0 . As a result of One-Way ANOVA verification, there was a statistically significant difference (F = 5.640, p  = 0.004).

Most participants self-evaluated their health status, as ‘good’; i.e., 107 (59.4%) of COVID + and 100 (61.3%) COVID 0 . The average happiness score was highest among those who rated their health as ‘good’; i.e., 5.24 (± 0.99) for COVID + and 5.22 (± 0.89) for the COVID 0 . As a result of One-Way ANOVA verification, there was a statistically significant difference (F = 11.801, p  < 0.001) (Table  1 ).

Adaptation to college life, leisure satisfaction, family strengths, and happiness in relation to COVID-19 infection status

Happiness scores were 3.55 ± 0.52 for the COVID + group and 3.52 ± 0.47 for the COVID + group. Regarding adaptation to college life, scores were 3.58 ± 0.67 for the COVID + and 3.49 ± 0.84 for the COVID 0 . In terms of leisure satisfaction, the scores were 4.12 ± 0.69 for the COVID + and 4.06 ± 0.67 for the COVID 0 . For family strengths, the COVID + group scored 4.96 ± 1.06, whereas the COVID 0 group scored 4.99 ± 0.96. As a result of t-test testing according to the presence or absence of infection, there was no statistically significant difference in all variables (Table  2 ).

Correlation among study variables

The results of testing “Pearson Correlation” to determine the correlation between research variables are as follows. Among the COVID + students, happiness showed a significant positive correlation with college life adaptation ( r  = 0.598, p  < 0.001), leisure satisfaction ( r  = 0.345, p  < 0.001), and family strengths ( r  = 0.387, p  < 0.001). In the COVID 0 group, happiness also showed a significant positive correlation with college life adaption ( r  = 0.568, p  < 0.001), leisure satisfaction ( r  = 0.262, p  < 0.001), and family strengths ( r  = 0.331, p  < 0.001) (Table  3 ).

Factors that influenced happiness

Multiple linear regression was conducted to identify factors that influenced the happiness of the participants. In order to find out the influencing factors on the subject’s happiness, adaptation to college life, leisure satisfaction, and family strengths were input, and additionally, variables with statistically significant results(subjective health status, household economic level) among general characteristics were input step by step. For COVID + subjects, the regression model for happiness was significant (F = 24.970, p  < 0.001), with college life adaptation (b = 0.462, p  = 0.001) and family strengths (b = 0.148, p  = 0.025) having significant effects on happiness. These variables explained 40.1% of happiness. For COVID 0 subjects, the regression model for happiness was also significant (F = 18.177, p  < 0.001), with college life adaptation (b = 0.456, p  = 0.001) and subjective health status (b = 0.165, p  = 0.016) having significant effects on happiness. These variables explained 34.6% of happiness. Therefore, the research results according to the hypothesis are as follows.

Adaptation to college life affected the happiness of infected nursing students (β = 0.462, p  = 0.001) and non-infected nursing students (β = 0.456, p  = 0.001), so hypothesis 1 was supported.

Leisure satisfaction from club activities does not affect the happiness of infected nursing students (β = 0.083, p  = 0.199) and non-infected nursing students (β = 0.014, p  = 0.846), so hypothesis 2 is rejected.

Family strengths only affected the happiness of infected nursing students (β = 0.148, p  = 0.025), so hypothesis 3 was partially supported.

Regarding the fit of this regression model, the multicollinearity was checked by referring to tolerance limits, which were between 0.731 and 0.880 for COVID + subjects and between 0.681 and 0.883 for COVID 0 subjects; all of these values exceeded the threshold of 0.1. The Variance Inflation Factors (VIF) for COVID + subjects ranged from 1.136 to 1.368 and from 1.133 to 1.469 for COVID 0 subjects; these values were all below the threshold of 10. The Durbin-Watson test for residual normality in the model yielded values of 1.661 for COVID + subjects and 2.093 for COVID 0 subjects; these results indicate no autocorrelation in the residuals (Table  4 ).

COVID-19 has been associated with an increase in negative emotions such as anxiety and depression among college students, particularly during their critical period of transition to adulthood and exploration. This increase in negative emotions contributes to a decrease in their overall happiness levels [ 6 ]. This study examined the effect of COVID-19 infection on the happiness of Korean nursing students.

This analysis revealed that college life adaptation had the most significant effect on happiness among both COVID + and COVID 0 nursing students. College life adaptation is a specific form of social adaptation, and involves the process by which students adjust their behaviors and thoughts in response to the new environment of the college campus, encompassing living, studying, and social interactions [ 28 ]. The COVID-19 outbreak on university campuses was rapid and extensive, and these factors raised concerns about its potential to quickly spread to other communities [ 9 ].

Nationally-implemented social containment policies for intercepting and preventing the spread of COVID-19 necessitated a shift from face-to-face academic classes and nursing practices to remote, online learning environments for nursing students [ 9 , 10 ]. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, college students had already embraced a culture in which remote support systems using the internet, computers, and smartphones facilitated convenience in learning and daily life [ 28 ]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most university-life activities shifted to online modes, and this transition to remote learning systems continues even in the era of COVID-19 becoming endemic.

Nursing students, regardless of their COVID-19 infection status, relied on non-face-to-face university activities while adhering to national prevention guidelines such as avoiding direct contact, due to their heightened anxiety about infection among family and friends [ 9 , 15 ]. Excessive online activity can reduce an subject’s ability to regulate emotions, and may thereby lead to depression, suicidal thoughts, academic failure, and social isolation [ 29 ].

Attending university entails an increase in freedom of choice and independence from parental supervision [ 28 ]. However, nursing students experienced increased psychological distress due to worries about the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the uncertainty of returning to normal life, loneliness from isolation, anxiety about limited clinical practice opportunities, and future uncertainties [ 30 ]. All of the subjects, both COVID + and COVID 0 realized the importance and necessity of face-to-face interactions in campus life, learning, and social engagement while adhering to long-term infection prevention lifestyle rules.

During the change of COVID-19 from the epidemic to the endemic phase, the academic classes, clinical practice, and other campus activities of nursing education have changed from remote formats back to in-person formats [ 31 ]. All of these nursing students, both COVID + and COVID 0 , have reinterpreted the current situation as an opportunity for professional growth as nurses [ 31 , 32 ]. This reevaluation may explain why adaptation to university life significantly affects their happiness. Therefore, to increase the happiness of nursing students, programs must be developed and implemented that aid in job preparation, improve interpersonal relationships, and enhance problem-solving skills, along with regular academic classes and clinical practices, as part of college life adaption.

For COVID + students, family strengths also influenced their happiness. During COVID-19, nursing students experienced elevated levels of negative emotions like anxiety and depression, especially when dealing with family illness or death, economic struggles due to the breadwinner’s job loss, or conflicts with parents and siblings while staying at home for extended periods [ 33 ]. Specifically, COVID + nursing students experienced anxiety and depression due to uncertainties about infecting other family members, threats to their own and their family’s health, and fears about the challenges of recovery [ 7 , 34 ].

Negative emotions persisted among 30–40% of COVID + students, even more than a month after their recovery [ 7 ]. During their COVID-19 infection, the primary source of care and concern often came from their own family, rather than others sources. Although direct contact was not possible, family members frequently visited to check on their condition, prayed for their speedy recovery, and provided food and necessary supplies. This unconditional acceptance and support from family members helped to inspire and motivate the participants to recover from COVID-19. Moreover, active family support also helped COVID + nursing students to positively embrace the healing process. This support strengthened their immune system and reduced feelings of anxiety and depression, and thus promoted health and wellness [ 35 , 36 ]. These factors indicate that family involvement in the process of recovery from COVID-19 infection assists the infected in resolving problems, and expedites the treatment process.

For COVID + nursing students, the support and encouragement received from their families were instrumental in overcoming various discomforts and challenges encountered during the recovery process. Consequently, family strengths emerged as a significant factor influencing their happiness. The family is the most essential source of social support and provides support to its members in forms such as emotional, instrumental, informational, and reward support [ 36 ]. Hence, to boost the happiness of COVID + nursing students, interaction-enhancing programs for their families must be developed. Additionally, health-promotion programs that increase knowledge, attitudes, and practices concerning infectious diseases should be implemented to sustain family strengths consistently.

For COVID 0 nursing students, subjective health status was another influential factor on their happiness. Subjective health status is the self-perceived assessment of one’s overall health condition as good [ 37 ]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID 0 nursing students shared similar fears as their infected peers, including the fear of contracting the virus, the fear of close contacts becoming infected, and uncertainties about the future [ 34 , 38 ]. Subjective health status helps to alleviate various stresses caused by COVID-19 and to increase a person’s ability to manage personal health threats [ 39 , 40 ]. Increase in an subject’s subjective health status is correlated with a decrease in their subjective perception the risk of contracting COVID-19. This reduction in perceived risk leads to decreased negative emotions related to COVID-19, such as feelings of isolation, loneliness, fear, anxiety, and depression. In short, a high subjective health status causes reduction in perception of the risk of contracting COVID-19, and helps a person to maintain positive emotions in their daily life. In contrast, subjects with poor subjective evaluation of health may feel threatened by the risk of COVID-19 infection, and therefore adhere more strictly to preventive measures like wearing masks and limiting outdoor activities, than people who have high subjective evaluation of health [ 39 ].

During the endemic phase of COVID-19, COVID 0 nursing students are concerned about the possibility of eventually contracting COVID-19 as daily life transitions from remote to face-to-face interactions, despite the continued presence of the virus [ 41 ]. This concern highlights the importance of subjective health status as an influencing factor on their happiness. Therefore, for to increase the happiness of COVID 0 nursing students, health care education programs that are aimed at improving their health status should be developed.

Implications

This research has explored the factors affecting the happiness of nursing students in relation to their COVID-19 infection status. Many studies in social sciences have investigated psychological factors linked to the COVID-19 context [ 12 , 21 , 28 ]. However, this study suggests that infection should precede the development of happiness promotion programs based on college life adaptation, leisure satisfaction from club activities, and family health, which are the upward factors of happiness in the COVID-19 endemics era. This differentiation is crucial because psychological responses vary depending on infection status, a concept supported by previous research [ 42 ], which found that sensitivity to COVID-19 as a disease can aid in explaining the assessment of stress overload. Therefore, this study seeks to explore the factors influencing the happiness of nursing students depending on the presence or absence of infection. Unlike previous studies, this study is recommended as a differentiated study in that it contributed to providing basic data for developing a program to improve the happiness of nursing students depending on the presence or absence of infection.

In addition, it is necessary to apply and develop the factors that were found to be significant in the results of this study in various ways in practice to find ways to increase the happiness of nurses and improve their work performance after employment. Furthermore, at a policy level, it will be necessary to provide continuous mentoring and counseling programs centered on university counseling centers to help nursing students maintain a happy college life.

Limitations

Firstly, this research involved convenience sampling from five nursing departments in D, G, K, and Y cities. Consequently, these findings may not be applicable to all nursing students across different regions in Korea. To increase generalizability, future research should consider nursing students in various locations to enhance generalizability population density and urban scale. Secondly, the study focused only on college life adaptation, leisure satisfaction, and family strengths as factors affecting nursing students’ happiness; restriction of the analysis to a few aspects may miss out on a multifaceted examination of happiness. Future studies should explore a wider range of factors that may positively influence nursing students’ happiness, than this study considered. Lastly, the use of quantitative research in this study may not sufficiently examine nursing students’ happiness. Future research should employ qualitative methods to explore the practical significance of happiness in nursing students’ experiences.

As a result of this study, adaptation to college life was confirmed to be a factor that affects happiness in both infected and non-infected people. However, the important difference was that family strengths were confirmed as a factor affecting happiness in the case of infected people, and subjective health status was confirmed as a factor affecting happiness in the case of uninfected people. Various activities (quarantine measures, social distancing, working from home, wearing masks, etc.) to prevent the spread of COVID-19 had a negative effect rather than a positive effect on human happiness, and the intensity of application varied depending on the presence or absence of COVID-19 infection [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. This research has contributed foundational data for the development of happiness enhancement programs for nursing students in the COVID-19 endemic era, by discerning the factors influencing their happiness relative to their COVID-19 infection status. In developing happiness-enhancement programs for nursing students during the COVID-19 endemic era, focus should be placed on college life adaptation. Additionally, for COVID + nursing students, the emphasis should be on family strengths, whereas for COVID 0 nursing students, the focus should be on their health status. Nursing students must be guided in implementing these aspects into their practices.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We extend our gratitude to the nurses students participating in the study for their support and cooperation.

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Hyun-Ok Jung

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Conceptualization: HO, Jung; Data handling: SW, Han; Research design: HO, Jung; Data analysis: SW, Han; Study validation: SW, Han; Supervision: HO, Jung; Data presentation: SW, Han; Draft preparation: HO, Jung and SW, Han; Study consultation: HO, Jung; Writing and reviewing, project administration: HO, Jung and SW, Han. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Jung, HO., Han, SW. Factors that influence happiness of nursing students according to COVID-19 infection status. BMC Nurs 23 , 588 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-02237-9

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Nursing Students’ Experiences and Challenges in Their Education During COVID 19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Method Study

Puvaneswari kanagaraj.

1 Department of Nursing, College of Applied Medical Sciences, University of Bisha, Bisha, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Judie Arulappan

2 Department of Maternal and Child Health, College of Nursing, Sultan Qaboos University, Al Khoudh, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Arpita Pradhan

3 Narayana Multi Specialty Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

* Current address: Durgapur City Hospital and Clinic Pvt. Limited, Durgapur, West Bengal, India.

Shimmaa Mansour Moustafa Mohammed

4 Faculty of Nursing, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

Associated Data

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-son-10.1177_23779608241272484 for Nursing Students’ Experiences and Challenges in Their Education During COVID 19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Method Study by Puvaneswari Kanagaraj, Judie Arulappan, Arpita Pradhan and Shimmaa Mansour Moustafa Mohammed in SAGE Open Nursing

Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-son-10.1177_23779608241272484 for Nursing Students’ Experiences and Challenges in Their Education During COVID 19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Method Study by Puvaneswari Kanagaraj, Judie Arulappan, Arpita Pradhan and Shimmaa Mansour Moustafa Mohammed in SAGE Open Nursing

Introduction

The COVID-19 outbreak disrupted the nursing education across the world. The nursing students faced many challenges in their learning process.

The study explored the experiences and challenges faced by nursing students who had virtual education in India.

The study adopted an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. The study was conducted as two phases. Phase 1: Qualitative data were collected using direct focus group interview with 18 students. Phase 2: Quantitative data were collected from 477 students using a Likert scale prepared by the investigators of the study on challenges experienced by nursing students on their education. The analysis was done using the descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic analysis.

Phase 1: The analyzed data produced seven themes and 10 sub-themes; (1) technical issues—a concern, (2) regular rhythm in educational training—but not complete, (3) stress and strain, (4) evaluation—a concern, (5) communication, (6) comfort zone, and (7) easy distraction. Phase 2: Majority of the students (54.71%) experienced high-level challenges with the nursing education during pandemic. The overall mean and SD of all the domain-wise challenges were 103.39 + 7.11 with the range from 30 to 150. The mean and SD with educational challenges were (20.27 + 3.04), environmental challenges (6.92 + 1.66), communication challenges (17.61 + 4.01), technical challenges (17.39 + 3.75), evaluation challenges (7.09 + 1.94), physical and mental challenges (20.47 + 4.33), career challenges (7.06 + 1.91), and financial challenges (6.61 + 2.1). The demographic variable gender ( P  = 0.045) showed a statistically significant association with the challenges.

Considering the experiences and challenges faced by the nursing students, the nursing administrators shall design educational strategies to mitigate these challenges in nursing education during a pandemic.

Implication

Virtual nursing education offers flexibility in teaching and learning, self-paced learning opportunity, lower the costs, career advancement, comfortable learning environment, more opportunities for participation, easier to track documentation and improves skills in technology. Therefore, the challenges in virtual nursing education should be lessened to have successful teaching learning experiences.

Introduction/Background

The world faced unprecedented challenges during COVID-19 global pandemic ( World Health Organization, 2020 ). The pandemic changed the lives of people at different levels. Additionally, social distancing shaped the social relationship and behavior ( Kaveh et al., 2022 ). COVID-19 significantly strained the healthcare system. In addition, it affected the education in academic institutions and universities to a greater extent ( Dewart et al., 2020 ). As a preventive and control measure, all the schools, colleges, and universities were closed ( Mustafa, 2020 ). In April 2020, 94% of learners worldwide were affected by the pandemic, representing 1.58 billion children and youth in 200 countries ( De Giusti, 2020 ). Likewise, nursing education has undergone many radical changes both in developed and developing countries. The situation affected the learning opportunities of nursing students as their clinical placements were suspended and the face-to-face teaching moved into online teaching. Additionally, the pre-clinical activities such as laboratory and simulation-based teaching were affected due to social and organizational restrictions to limit unnecessary access and contact with others ( Tomietto et al., 2020 ).

To continue the teaching–learning activity, the academic institutions adopted various digital platforms including Zoom, Google meet, WebEx, Udemy, Edmodo, Google classroom, etc. ( Mishra et al., 2020 ). Moreover, web-based conferences were routinely organized by educational institutions during this pandemic ( Kaware, 2022 ). In addition, educational institutions have placed greater emphasis on ERP systems, library modules, fee modules, and examination modules. The virtual learning enhanced the comfort, accessibility, and encouraged remote learning ( Mukhtar et al., 2020 ). Similarly, the learners found it easy to access the online material, were able to record meetings and sessions and retrieve information ( Alsayed & Althaqafi, 2022 ). The faculty and students expressed that online education is useful during the COVID-19 pandemic; it was convenient, flexible, cost low, and encouraged self-learning ( Almahasees et al., 2021 ). Likewise, online education improved the flexibility, ability to teach large classes, increased interaction between the teachers and students and increased learning opportunities for the learners ( Hako, 2021 ). Ultimately, these educational technologies have had significant positive impact on the learning of the students. Additionally, it paves the way toward the blending of technology synchronously or asynchronously into education ( Thaheem et al., 2022 ).

Review of Literature

Although online education was beneficial to both the teachers and learners, it posed various challenges to the faculty and students ( Nimavat et al., 2021 ). Poor student attendance, loneliness, issues with internet connectivity and lack of information and technology skills were reported as challenges of online education ( Hako, 2021 ). The faculty and students indicated that efficacy of online teaching and learning is less effective than face–face teaching and learning. Moreover, online learning is ineffective for deaf and hard of hearing students. Likewise, online education is linked to lack of interaction and motivation, data privacy and security and technical issues ( Almahasees & Amin, 2021 ; Alsayed & Althaqafi, 2022 ). Furthermore, online education was inefficient in terms of maintaining academic integrity ( Mukhtar et al., 2020 ). The teachers reported difficulties in motivating the students without visual connection during online teaching ( Moustakas & Robrade, 2022 ). Also, Atout et al., (2022) reported lack of resources for the clinical learning, distracting home environment and challenging evaluation of learners as the barriers for virtual learning.

The challenges faced by the instructors includes transitional difficulties from offline to online teaching, communication barriers, changes in the teaching style and additional time and resources for preparation of teaching. The institutions experienced challenges such as need for additional training for faculty and students, technical and multimedia support, online counselling sessions for teachers and the need to have technical troubleshooting team. Students experienced challenges related to having technical skills to learn online, lack of readiness, network and speed issues, and lack of identity, interaction and participation. There were challenges related to content such as development of new material, regular assignments, multimedia tools, and checking assignments and sharing regular feedback with the students. Technological challenges included device suitability, network stability and speed, tools of conferencing software for online teaching and ease of use. Lastly, the motivational factors included lack of sense of job security, non-availability of salary on time, and lack of family support, mental and emotional support from colleagues and higher authorities ( Siddiquei & Kathpal, 2021 ).

To enhance the online teaching and learning, technical aptitude enhancement, resource management and utilization, time management, control over the learning environment and help seeking are essential ( Barrot et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, formal training for the teachers, and enhancement of psychosocial wellbeing of both the learners and teachers are necessary to curb the feelings of loneliness and isolation. Moreover, the nature of the problems related to the shift from face to face to online learning should be identified to combat these challenges ( Hako, 2021 ). In India, both the undergraduate and postgraduate students were badly affected during the COVID-19 pandemic and experienced many challenges with online education ( Joshi et al., 2020 ; Kamal & Illiyan, 2021 ; Muthuprasad et al., 2021 ; Pandit & Agrawal, 2022 ; Rannaware et al., 2022 ; Sengupta, 2022 ). However, very few studies explored the challenges encountered by the nursing students during the online learning ( Gaur et al., 2020a ; George et al., 2022 ; Kanagaraj et al., 2022 ; Lata & Kudi, 2022 ). Therefore, the authors decided to understand the experiences and challenges encountered by nursing students in their nursing education during the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that the study finding will be beneficial to the educational authorities, curriculum developers, and policy makers to design appropriate measures and strategies to enhance effective learning both in nursing education and practice.

An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was utilized in this study. The study integrated qualitative data into quantitative data to understand the experiences and challenges experienced by nursing students’ during the pandemic.

Research Setting

The study was conducted among nursing students of Narayana Hrudayalaya College of Nursing, Koshy's College of Nursing and Kirubanidhi College of Nursing, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. These colleges initiated virtual classes from April 2020. Therefore, these colleges were selected as settings for the study.

The target population of the study included both Diploma and BSN students. The accessible population included both Diploma and BSN students studying in Narayana Hrudayalaya College of Nursing, Koshy's College of Nursing and Kirubanidhi College of Nursing, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

Sample, Sample Size, and Sampling Techniques

Three nursing colleges were conveniently selected for the study. In Phase 1, the researchers used purposive sampling technique to collect the qualitative data from six students in each college (Narayana Hrudayalaya College of Nursing, Koshy's College of Nursing and Kirubanidhi College of Nursing, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India). The data collection was done face to face. Thus, in total, 18 students participated in the focused group interview during phase I. For Phase 2, the sample size calculation was done based on the previous cross-sectional study ( Thapa et al., 2021 ). Having the expected proportion of challenges experienced by nursing students as 15%, with 95% confidence interval, and with the precision, the minimum required sample size was 400. In total, all the three nursing colleges had 654 students. Convenient sampling technique was used to collect the data in phase II.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The study included nursing students who were enrolled for Diploma and BSN program, exposed to online learning, and second, third, and fourth year nursing students. The study excluded those who were not willing to participate, and first year nursing students as they had limited exposure to the virtual theory and clinical classes, which may give a limited and inaccurate data. Considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 477 students participated in the study.

Description and Interpretation of Study Instrument

The instruments used in the study were prepared by the researchers of the study. The qualitative data collected during the first phase of the study was utilized in preparing the tool used for the quantitative phase of the study. It included four parts namely demographic variables, background variables, open-ended questions to explore the participant's experiences and challenges and Likert scale to assess the challenges.

Part 1 included the demographic variables of the participants including age, gender, course of study, year of study, residence, and place of attending online classes.

Part 2 comprised of the background variables such as gadgets used for attending online classes, source of internet, mode of theory classes taken during the last 6 months, mode of practical training, methods of teaching theory classes, audio visual aids used, and the virtual platform used.

Part 3 consisted of a questionnaire related to students’ experiences and challenges. It included 15 open-ended questions related to the aspects of theoretical learning, practical learning, study materials, teaching methodology, evaluation process, issues related to physical and mental health, issues related to technology and issues related to finance.

Lastly, Part 4 included a Likert scale on challenges having 30 questions with eight domains; educational challenges (six items), environmental challenges (two items), communication challenges (five items), technical challenges (five items), evaluation challenges (two items), physical challenges (six items), career challenges (two items), and financial challenges (two items). Dimensions were evaluated using 5-point Likert scale varying from strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4) and strongly agree (5). The total score ranges from 30 to 150. The domain-wise challenges were interpreted as 1–50 = low challenges, 51–100 = moderate challenges, 101–150 = high challenges. The instrument was prepared in English and no translations were done.

Reliability and Validity of the Tool

Content validity was obtained from eight experts in the field of nursing education. The calculated content validity index was 0.80. Pilot study was conducted with 10% of the study participants (42 students) to test the reliability of the tool before administering to the main study participants. Using Cronbach's alpha (inter-item reliability), the internal consistency assessed was 0.89, which is highly reliable. The participants participated in the pilot study were excluded from the main study.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical approval was obtained from the Research and Ethics Committee of Narayana Hrudayalaya College of Nursing (NHH/AEC-CL.2022-BI5 dated 22/3/2022), Kirubhanidhi College of Nursing (KCC/22/22 dated 04/3/2022), and Koshy's College of Nursing (KCN/15 dated 07/3/2022) and Institutional review board. After getting the ethical approvals, formal permission was obtained from the Head of Nursing colleges to collect data. The researchers explained the purpose of the study to the participants involved in both quantitative and qualitative data collection. The participants were informed that their participation in the study was voluntary. Since the participants were not forced to participate in the study, they were given the freedom to withdraw from the study at any time without any penalty. The participants signed the informed consent and responded to all the questions and returned the completed questionnaire. All the audio recordings were coded and password protected. It was explained to the participants that they were not exposed to any kind of risk. To keep the data anonymous, no identifying information was collected from the participants. The researchers maintained confidentiality of information throughout the study period. All the collected data were stored in a password protected file. Only, the investigators of the study had access to the data.

Data Collection (Qualitative Phase)

In Phase I of the study, three focus groups were selected using purposive sampling technique. Each group included six participants with a total of 18 nursing students. After getting the consent, the participants shared their experiences and challenges faced during their educational training in the pandemic. The interviews were conducted from 25/2/2022 to 25/3/2022 and each interview lasted for 1.30 h to 2 h. The first and third authors conducted the interview. The first author is a PhD and the third author is a BSN holder. The first author is an assistant professor and the third author is a staff nurse. Both of them were females. Both of them were trained in qualitative data collection. The researchers established rapport with the study participants. The researcher used 15 open-ended probing questions and the participants were given the freedom to express additional views and comments. All the interviews were conducted in person in the college and audio recorded with their consent. Focus group discussions were continued till the data saturation occurred. The transcripts were returned to the participants for their correction.

Data Collection (Quantitative Phase)

In Phase II, the quantitative data were collected using convenient sampling technique. The total number of students participated in the study were 477. The questionnaires were transferred to Google forms and were circulated to the students after explaining the objectives and getting the informed consent. The quantitative data were collected from 11/04/2022 to 20 /04/2022. The response rate was 72.9% (477) which included Narayana Hrudayalaya College of nursing (88 participants), Koshy's College of nursing (235 participants) and Kirubanidhi College of nursing (154 participants).

Data Analysis (Qualitative Phase)

The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The collected data were transcribed and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis. Reflexive thematic analysis was performed in this study ( Clarke & Braun, 2017 ).

Data Analysis (Quantitative Phase)

The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 22.

Credibility, Dependability, and Transferability

To ensure credibility of the data, the researcher strongly engaged with the focused group interviews by means of observation, documentation, and taking notes. Dependability was achieved through reviews and comments given by the research guide, who is the second author of the study who has full knowledge of the study design and methodology. The data collected from participants and the findings could be applicable to other contexts, situations, times, and populations and the study setting. It ensures transferability.

The researcher adhered to rigor by carefully collecting data via audio recordings and by taking field notes. Each focus group interview was transcribed immediately after the interview. The transcripts were given to the participants for cross-checking and approval. In addition to ensuring rigor through trustworthiness criteria, the authors followed mixed-methods research legitimation criteria by ensuring design quality, design suitability, within design consistency, design fidelity, and analytic adequacy ( Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009 ).

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness was established by using an unbiased approach in selecting the participants and by participant's being honest, clearly recorded, and accurately presented inputs. The transcriptions, coding, and themes–subthemes were discussed by the research team for their verification. Then based on the themes and subthemes the quantitative questionnaire was created by the researchers.

Phase 1 Qualitative Phase

Table 1 shows the frequency and percentage distribution of background variables of 18 participants who shared their experiences and challenges faced during their educational training in the pandemic. Table 2 shows the frequency and percentage distribution of participants’ background variables.

Table 1.

Frequency and Percentage Distribution of Demographic Variables of Nursing Students.

Table 2.

Frequency and Percentage Distribution of Baseline Variables of Nursing Students.

Experiences and Challenges Faced by the Nursing Students

In Phase 1, the experiences and challenges experienced by nursing students with their educational training during the pandemic were analyzed using thematic analysis. Table 3 reports seven themes and 10 sub-themes. The themes identified includes: (1) technical issues—a concern, (2) regular rhythm in educational training—but not complete, (3) stress and strain, (4) evaluation—a concern, (5) communication, (6) comfort zone, and (7) easy distraction. The sub-themes were: (1.1) problems with internet connectivity, (1.2) issues with the digital platform, (2.1) theoretical learning experience-better, (2.2) deficient practical skills, (3.1) physical stress, (3.2) mental stress, (4.1) unfair evaluation and lack of feedback, (5.1) decreased quality of communication, (6.1) very convenient, and (7.1) difficult to concentrate.

Table 3.

Themes and Subthemes of Experiences and Challenges Faced by Nursing Students.

Theme 1: Technical Issues: A Concern

Modern technology is progressive in all sectors. With this technology, it was possible to deliver training in all educational sectors including nursing education during COVID-19. Though it was helpful, technical problems interrupted the teaching–learning process. Most of the participants expressed their concern related to technical issues. It includes issues with internet connectivity, and issues with the digital platform.

Subtheme 1: Problems with Internet Connectivity

Constant network issues were an unavoidable fact for many students. Students could not be connected to the virtual class on time due to the internet connectivity issues and they had to miss attending the classes.

“Sometimes it keeps on showing error code and by the time I get connected the class is completed by the faculty” (5A).

Students stated that they faced technical and network issues while attending the classes.

“During online classes, we have faced a lot of technical and network issues” (2A).

In addition, fluctuations in the network connectivity were another technical issue faced by students and it affected the virtual learning of the students.

“I faced fluctuations in my network during a natural calamity in my place so I missed many classes during that time” (13A).

Subtheme 2: Issues with the Digital Platform

There are various platforms used to deliver online educational training. The participants expressed their difficulties as they had hitches in updating the digital platforms, and mentioned that the lack of experience in using the platforms affected their learning.

Digital platform did not work if the application is not updated on time. This was stated as below;

“If I did not update the app on time, it will not work” (1A).

Students faced problems in joining the virtual platform due to issues with the virtual platform.

“Sometimes I faced problems with joining with the virtual platform” (8A).

Lack of experience in using the virtual platform by both the faculty and student was another challenge stated by the students.

“Had struggle to join the meeting initially for both students and faculties because it was very new to us” (5A).

Students faced difficulties in submitting the assignments and answer sheets, as they did not have previous experience in submitting it through digital platforms.

“I struggled while submitting the answer sheets /assignment through digital platforms” (4A).

Theme 2: Regular Rhythm in Educational Training: But not Complete

Virtual education is a boon during pandemic. It took the education system in a rhythmic manner. Though the online lectures were beneficial, at times, students faced few challenges.

Subtheme 1: Online Theoretical Learning Experience

The students utilized the opportunities to learn from online classes with few challenges in attending online classes.

Commencement of online classes helped the students to have continuity in their studies. As the online classes were started on time immediately, it did not affect their theoretical learning.

“…It was not at all possible for the colleges to continue the offline classes so that the apex body instructed to start with online classes and it's good that we were in touch with our studies” (12A).

Different methods and techniques of teaching adopted during online classes enhanced interest in their learning.

“During online classes teacher used to teach with PPTs, and some good videos to make the session interesting. Sometimes they used to conduct lecture cum discussion. That time I was interested to listen to the class” (15A).

“I was interested to attend the online theory classes when teachers used to take a class by showing some videos related to theory content. It was good” (16A).

Students encountered issues with the storage of study materials as they had minimal storage space in their gadgets.

“Teachers used to send notes in PDF form in the mail or by WhatsApp. When I have storage issues in my gadgets, I deleted the content because of storage issues” (18A).

Subtheme 2: Deficient Practical Skills

Practical training is a major part of nursing profession. Students faced many challenges while attending online practical classes.

Most of the students stated that their theoretical learning through virtual mode was excellent. However, students felt that learning practical skills through direct clinical experience is rewarding than learning through virtual platform.

“…theory classes were very good. But in case of practical, like IV infusion, it was very easy to watch the procedure in a virtual platform, but it was very difficult to perform. I feel offline clinical exposure is better than online” (3A).

Students stated that they learnt basic nursing skills through direct clinical experience before the pandemic. However, the students lack confidence in performing the skills that they learnt through videos. The students felt nervous while performing the skills directly on the patients, as they did not get hands-on experience during virtual learning.

“…During my first-year clinical posting, I learnt basic procedure like vital signs checking, wound care, surgical dressing, etc with the direct clinical experience, suddenly everything goes on online, the faculty used to show us best videos. While watching videos I feel I can do. But when it's time to do directly, my hands were shivering and I was not confident. I feel offline exposure is better, we can get more exposure” (1A).

Huge gap in practical learning due to the pandemic affected the learning of the students. Thus, the students did not recommend online learning for learning the skills.

“I did not get adequate practical posting in my first year because of COVID-19. It continued with the second year too. So I have a huge gap with practical learning. For practical learning, online learning is not appropriate” (7A).

Theme 3: Stress and Strain

Prolonged online training affects the students’ physical as well as mental health. They felt more stressful.

Subtheme 1: Physical Stress

Students experienced physical symptoms such as strain in the eyes, neck pain, back pain and numbness in the legs due to prolonged usage of phone and sitting.

“I have to write my notes by seeing my phone. Every time I need to continuously see my mobile and make notes. It was straining my eyes and stressful for me” (16A).

“While attending online classes I used to keep my video on and listen to the class. Due to prolonged sitting, I have neck pain, eye strain also” (5A).

“I felt back pain and numbness in my leg while attending the online classes with prolonged sitting. I used to walk in between for some time to reduce the numbness” (12A).

Subtheme 2: Mental Stress

Students were anxious, as they could not complete the given tasks in online classes.

“I was anxious because I did not complete my task given in online classes, I was lazy” (4A).

As the students did not get practical experience in the clinical area, their confidence levels were low during the pandemic. Moreover, as the students did not get any opportunity to practice directly in the clinical area during the pandemic, they felt tensed and lacked confidence to directly practice on the patient after the pandemic.

“Due to lack of practice in clinical, my confidence had come down” (8A).

“I felt stressed out when I am thinking about my practical learning. I did not get adequate opportunity to practice” (10A).

“After lockdown when I came in the clinical setting, I was tensed about how I will handle the patient” (15A).

Theme 4: Evaluation: A Concern

Evaluation is the process of providing feedback to the students to improve themselves. The test, examination, assignment, and evaluation were new for the students and faculty during the pandemic and there were malpractice incidences by the students.

Sub-Theme 1 - Unfair Evaluation and Lack of Feedback

Students felt conducting exam using Google form as useful.

“Some faculties conducted few exams in Google Form, it was good because at that time I studied and attend the exam” (16A).

Malpractice in the online exam could be observed in the students during virtual learning.

“For the online exam, I never used to study because I can copy from PPT, my screenshots, or from Google and score good marks” (2A, 8A, 17A, 18A).

Students stated that they did not get proper feedback on their assignments.

“In my point of view, some faculties did not give us proper feedback on my assignment writing” (6A).

One student stated the unfair evaluation as the students copied scored well.

“I feel very bad when I write without copying and score very less marks; while the students who did malpractice scored well. So the evaluation was going very wrong” (4A).

Theme 5: Communication

It is necessary to build proper communication between the teachers and students to continue a smooth training session online. However, students felt that this distance learning created a communication gap between teachers and students.

Sub Theme 1- Decreased Quality of Communication

Limited and disrupted communication with the friends and teachers created distress in the students.

“It was not possible for me to communicate face to face with my friends and teachers during the online classes. It was quite distressing” (1A).

“Online class communication was the major problem. We could not communicate with faculties and peers like offline” (18A).

Students felt that they could not clarify their doubts with the faculty. However, faculty responded to their queries through WhatsApp and social media.

“If it comes to communication, it was very limited… During offline we can directly ask doubts to the faculty, but not now” (2A).

“During the online classes communication was not easy like face to face communication. But teachers were responding by WhatsApp and other social media after class time also” (6A).

Theme 6: Comfort Zone

Online classes were attended by the students either from hostel or home.

Subtheme 1: Very Convenient

Students felt comfortable staying home and attending online classes.

“It was convenient for me. Because I can stay at home, take care of my family and attend class also” (8A).

“For me, it was convenient, I got more time and can get up late to attend classes” (2A, 3A, 7A).

Students expressed that their transport expenses could be minimized, as they were not required to travel during the pandemic.

“I could save time. Even transport expenses could be minimized” (10A).

Theme 7: Distraction

Distraction was very high in online classes.

Sub-Theme 1: Difficult to Concentrate

Students were distracted during the online classes due to many notifications received from other online applications and disturbance from their siblings.

“As my internet is on I will get many notifications from other apps during class, it was a distraction for me” (4A, 9A, 11A).

“I attended online classes from my home only. I had disturbance from siblings, during my online classes” (7A, 16A).

Students themselves got distracted as they were using social media in between the online classes.

“I used to browse on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. during the online classes” (13A).

Phase 2: Quantitative Phase

Table 1 shows the frequency and percentage distribution of participant's demographic variables. Majority (90.6%) of the participants were in the age group between 18 and 23 years. Most of them were females (76.7%). 69.4% of the students were undergraduate (BSN) nursing students, while the rest were in Diploma nursing program. 47.4% of the participants were in their second and 47.4% were in their third year of study. Nearly half (45.3%) were from urban areas and 23.7 were from semi-urban areas, while the remaining (31%) were from rural areas. A large number (83.4%) of students attended the online classes from their hostels.

Table 2 outlines the frequency and percentage distribution of participants’ background variables. The results showed that the majority (98.3%) of the students used mobile phones to attend online classes. Most of them (94.5%) used the mobile data to have the internet connection. Almost half of the participants (52.6%) attended both online and offline classes. More than half (52.6%) of the participants had both online and offline practical exposure, and around 33% had offline clinical exposure. Most of the students (94.5%) attended lecture and discussion sessions. A huge number (93.3%) used power point presentation, and 45.7% of them used videos for teaching. Majority (60%) used Google Meet, while 52.4% used Zoom. The remaining used multiple platforms like Cisco, and Webex.

Figure 1 describes the frequency and percentage of distribution of level of challenges. It was classified as low, moderate, and high level of challenges. Majority of them (54.71%) experienced high-level challenges, 44.6% encountered moderate-level challenges, and the remaining experienced low-level challenges related to their nursing education during the pandemic.

Frequency and Percentage Distribution of Challenges Faced by Nursing Students During Their Educational Training.

The domain-wise challenges with nursing education during pandemic were shown in Table 4 . The eight domains included educational challenges, environmental challenges, communication challenges, technical challenges, evaluation challenges, physical and mental challenges, career challenges, and financial challenges. The mean and standard deviations for educational challenges is (20.27 ± 3.04), environmental challenges (6.92 ± 1.66), communication challenges (17.61 ± 4.01), technical challenges (17.39 ± 3.75), evaluation challenges (7.09 ± 1.94), physical and mental challenges (20.47 ± 4.33), career challenges (7.06 ± 1.91), and financial challenges (6.61 ± 2.1). The overall mean and S.D. of all the domain was 103.39 ±  1 7.11 with the range from 30 to 150.

Table 4.

Assessment of Mean and Standard Deviation of Domain-Wise Challenges Faced by the Nursing Students n  = 477.

Table 5 displays the item-wise challenges. The results of Educational Challenges indicated that almost 38.57% responded that they lack interest in learning. 15.93% either strongly agreed or agreed that face-to-face learning is very effective than E-learning. A larger portion (78.62%) of participants mentioned that the notes and lectures were inadequate. More than half of the participants (54.3%) agreed that virtual demonstration is not very effective for the practical patient care, and 61.21% mentioned that they lack confidence while taking care of patients. The participants provided similar responses during the qualitative phase of the study. The students lack confidence in performing the skills that they learnt through videos. Similarly, the students felt nervous while performing the skills directly on the patients, as they did not get hands-on experience during virtual learning. However, one third of the respondents (33.75%) expressed that they could learn the modern ways of handling patients through videos.

Table 5.

Item-Wise/Domain-Wise Analysis of Challenges Faced by Nursing Students.

With regard to Environmental challenges , 41.51% expressed that they were comfortable with their home or hostel environment to attend online classes. However, more than half (58.91%) said that they were easily distracted while attending classes. Similar findings were seen in the qualitative phase of the study. Students were distracted during the online classes due to many notifications received from other online applications and disturbance from their siblings. Further, the students were distracted as they were using social media during the online class.

In terms of Communication challenges , almost half of them (46.96%) expressed that they had difficulty in sharing their view with the teachers, and 45.91% said that teacher–student interaction was passive. More than half (57.86%) of them expressed that peer group socialization has decreased, missed interaction (48.64%) with other college mates/seniors and experienced loneliness (56.6%) without interacting much with peer groups. Similar to these findings in the quantitative phase, in qualitative phase, the students mentioned that limited and disrupted communication with the friends and teachers created distress in the students. Moreover, the students could not clarify their doubts with the faculty.

Regarding Technical challenges , 44.03% had uncertain internet connection that interrupted the learning process. Around 37.32% expressed that the teachers had difficulty in using technical aspects of the online platforms initially. Around 39.63% had internet issues in their place. Almost 55.56% students faced technical issues with learning platform/device and around 59.54% had difficulty while submitting the answer sheets/assignment through digital platforms. Likewise, the qualitative findings revealed that the students faced technical and network issues while attending the classes. In addition, fluctuation in the network connectivity was another technical issue faced by students and it affected virtual learning. The participants expressed their concerns as they had difficulties in updating the digital platforms, and mentioned that the lack of experience in using the platforms affected their learning. Students faced difficulties in submitting the assignments and answer sheets, as they did not have previous experience in submitting it through digital platforms.

Related to Evaluation challenges , almost half of them (51.15%) mentioned that the online evaluation might create irrational discrimination between students with network issues, and 51.99% of them said that the evaluation/test conducted online was unfair. Consistent findings could be noted during the qualitative phase of study. Students mentioned that malpractice in the online exam occurred and it affected their grades. In addition, students stated that they did not get proper feedback on their assignments.

With respect to Physical and mental challenges , more than half 62.06% experienced physical strain like headache, backache, neck pain, and eye strain, 47.17% experienced insomnia, around 70.86% had mental stress, 46.75% got addicted to phone due to prolonged usage other than for learning purpose, 56.82% mentioned that the regular life style has changed, and lastly 48.21% were worried about the online teaching applications which lack proper security system. Likewise, same results are discovered in the qualitative phase of the study. Students experienced physical symptoms such as strain in the eyes, neck pain, back pain, and numbness in the legs due to prolonged sitting and continuous usage of phone. Additionally, students were anxious, as they could not complete the given tasks in online classes. Further, as the students did not get practical experience in the clinical area, their confidence levels were low and they felt tensed and lacked self-confidence to directly practice on the patients after the pandemic.

In terms of Career challenges , 56.4% agreed that virtual practical training may affect their career as a registered nurse, and 49.06% agreed that they may not be able to work as a skillful nurse with the virtual learning. Regarding Financial challenges , almost 58.07% agreed that extra money was spent for good internet package and 38.37% bought a new laptop/mobile/electric gadget to attend virtual classes.

With regard to association of demographic variables, only gender (χ 2  = 6.218, p  = 0.045) has shown statistically significant association with problems or challenges faced by the nursing students during educational training in the pandemic at p  < 0.05 level of significance.

During COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face teaching and learning were converted to virtual learning and the clinical experiences were suspended to protect the students from the pandemic ( Agu et al., 2021 ). The experiences with the online classes were very new for the nursing students. Moreover, the online education became unavoidable and was a good choice for the faculty and students during this pandemic across the world. Even though, the students and teachers had a positive view of the technology, which helped in the teaching–learning process during pandemic, it posted many challenges ( Mousavizadeh, 2022 ).

We conducted a mixed-methods study to explore the experiences and challenges faced by nursing students in their education during COVID-19 in India. The study adopted an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design. The study was conducted as two phases; the qualitative data were collected during Phase I using focus group interview with the students. The qualitative data collected during the first phase of the study was utilized in preparing the tool for the quantitative phase of the study. The quantitative data were collected using a Likert scale prepared by the investigators of the study on challenges experienced by nursing students on their education. During Phase 1, the analyzed data produced seven themes and 10 sub-themes on the challenges. These themes produced during the qualitative phase further explained the challenges experienced by the nursing students in their education during COVID-19 pandemic in the quantitative phase.

Educational Challenges

Learning motivation encourages learners’ activities and directs and maintains their progress, allowing students to immerse themselves in learning ( Kim, 2020 ). However, virtual learning decreased students’ attention and interest in classes, which then decreased their motivation to learn ( Morfaki & Skotis, 2022 ). Likewise, in the current study most of the students expressed that they lost interest in their learning. Student's interest is very important for academic achievement, so different methods of teaching and learning need to be adopted in future to improve the learning among students during online education ( Mousavizadeh, 2022 ).

During COVID-19 pandemic, the medical and nursing institutions used learning management systems (LMS) and uploaded various reading materials, videos, quizzes, and presentations to encourage the engagement of students in asynchronous learning activities. In addition, online discussion forums were created to facilitate the virtual learning process ( Atwa et al., 2022 ). Some students preferred online learning as it provides structured learning materials and enables studying from home at their own pace and convenience ( Paechter et al., 2010 ; Zheng et al., 2021 ). However, most of the students in different studies conducted across the world preferred face-to-face learning for acquiring motor skills, for establishing interpersonal relationships, and for achieving student learning outcomes ( Arias et al., 2018 ; Faidley, 2021 ; Ramani & Deo, 2021 ; Lim et al., 2021 ). Similarly, Muthuprasad et al. (2021) advocated that the online mode of learning may not be a viable option for practical/skill-oriented courses and therefore hybrid/blended curriculum involving both face to face and online modes of learning shall be adopted by the institutions.

The faculty used different methods of teaching and audio visual aids to enhance the teaching–learning process during the pandemic ( Reimers et al., 2020 ). However, students in the present study mentioned that the notes/lecture content were inadequate. Similar findings were reported in other studies that the quality and effectiveness of lecture were low; and inconsistencies were observed in some professor's lecture during COVID-19 ( Cengiz et al., 2022 ; Dziurka et al., 2022 ; Mousavizadeh, 2022 ; Mukasa et al., 2021 ; Rohde et al., 2022 ). This warrants the educational institutions to monitor the quality of teaching delivered by the faculty to their students during this pandemic. In addition, the faculty should take self-initiatives for the professional empowerment ( Osmanovic Zajic et al., 2022 ).

The professional preparation of nurses involves many hours of practical and theoretical classes which is conducted face to face, which gives a real learning experience ( Dziurka et al., 2022 ). However, COVID-19 pandemic caused alterations, restrictions, limited clinical placements and simulation training in the campus ( Rohde et al., 2022 ). Thus, many nursing institutions adopted virtual theoretical and practical learning modes. Various studies across the world including the present study reported that virtual practical learning was inappropriate and ineffective in doing practical skills. Additionally, the nursing students lack confidence in taking care of the patients as they did not have hands on training ( Cengiz et al., 2022 ; Dziurka et al., 2022 ; Gheshlagh et al., 2022 ; Mukasa et al., 2021 ; Rohde et al., 2022 ; Wajid & Gedik, 2022 ). Therefore, in addition to direct face-to-face practical training in the clinical areas, more nursing simulations, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and telenursing should be utilized to enhance the practical learning of nursing students ( Dziurka et al., 2022 ).

Environmental Challenges

Student engagement during the virtual classes are very essential. The students are expected to actively participate, show positive conduct, self-regulated, display deep learning and understanding, and should demonstrate positive reactions to the learning environment, peers, and teachers ( Bond et al., 2020 ). However, students in the current study and many other studies were distracted very easily while attending online classes, which limited their learning during pandemic ( Bergdahl, 2022 ; Farrell & Brunton, 2020 ; Fazza & Mahgoub, 2021 ; Hollister et al., 2022 ). Therefore, more peer-to-peer conversations and faculty–student exchanges are recommended to enhance the engagement and learning during the pandemic.

Communication Challenges

Effective communication between the educator and the students enhances the learning experience and creates a positive learning environment. In addition, it improves the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and thought to fulfill the purpose of teaching and learning. However, ineffective communication creates frustration, impaired interpersonal relationships, and lack of motivation ( Alawamleh e al., 2020 ). In consistent to this study, the present participants had difficulty in sharing their view with the teachers, could not socialize with peer groups, and experienced loneliness. Furthermore, studies reported that impaired communication during online learning creates uncertainties and insufficiencies in learning ( Cengiz et al., 2022 ; Mousavizadeh, 2022 ; Mukasa et al., 2021 ). Thus, effective communication with the students should be streamlined for successful virtual learning ( Mukasa et al., 2021 ).

Technical Challenges

Online education can be effectively integrated in the nursing curriculum as it guarantees effective problem-based learning. However, the nursing colleges were not adequately prepared to effectively utilize the online teaching and learning in developing and under developed countries ( Molefe & Mabunda, 2022 ). Technical aptitude was lacking among the faculty and students, which posed various challenges ( Barrot et al., 2021 ). Moreover, technical challenges limited the satisfaction of students and faculty toward online teaching and learning ( Mahyoob, 2020 ). Furthermore, failure of internet services, website failures, problems in logging into the site disrupted the teaching–learning process during the pandemic ( Fuchs, 2022 ; Gaur et al., 2020b ). Similar to these studies, the present study participants mentioned that they experienced uncertain internet connection, faced technical issues with learning platform/device, and had difficulty while submitting the answer sheets /assignment through digital platforms. In addition, the teachers had difficulty in using technical aspects of the online platforms. This calls for improving the instructional design and pedagogical methods by training the faculty and students to utilize the digital platforms effectively, which might improve the motivation and engagement of faculty and students during the online education ( Aivaz & Teodorescu, 2022 ).

Evaluation Challenges

Significant changes in the teaching and learning during the pandemic created profound opportunities and threats. Stakeholders and students reported that the evaluation during online learning was biased and ineffective ( Krishnamurthy, 2020 ) and experienced uncertainty toward the examination ( Idris et al., 2021 ). Besides, online learning affects the test scores and grades, student outcomes, attitude, and overall satisfaction with learning ( Szopiński & Bachnik, 2022 ). In the same way, the students in the current study mentioned that the online evaluation created irrational discrimination between students and the evaluation conducted online was unfair. Therefore, standard setting in the evaluation is an essential step considering the learners and educator's perspective, which would improve the teaching–learning process ( Wasfy et al., 2021 ).

Physical and Mental Challenges

COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected the physical and mental health of students ( Ro et al., 2021 ). Students missed eating, did not participate in extracurricular activities, and experienced computer-related physical stress ( Idris et al., 2021 ). Likewise, students experienced increased stress due to homework, social isolation and lack of social interactions ( Rao & Rao, 2021 ). In congruent with these study findings, the participants in the present study experienced headache, backache, neck pain, eye strain, insomnia, and mental stress. The authors recommend addressing the physical and mental health issues of the students by promoting the utilization of physical, emotional, and mental health support programs ( Idris et al., 2021 ).

Career Challenges

COVID-19 pandemic impacted the career preference, career perspective, and ideal workplace ( Wang et al., 2022 ). In the same way, the students struggled with the career decision-making process during the pandemic ( Jemini-Gashi & Kadriu, 2022 ). Likewise, working students lost their jobs, which affected their lives, studies, and health ( Tsurugano et al., 2021 ). In line with these studies, students of the present study expressed that virtual practical training will affect their career as a registered nurse and they may not be able to work as a skillful nurse. This calls for the initiation of a structured and well-designed practical training program for the nursing students in the hospitals before their placement as a registered nurse in the clinical practice.

Financial Challenges

The pandemic put a number of students under financial strain, which severely affected their mental well-being ( Negash et al., 2021 ). Similarly, the university students were disproportionately affected by the economic consequences of the pandemic, which escalated the economic uncertainty ( Gewalt et al., 2022 ). The students who lost their economic resources during pandemic experienced higher prevalence of depressive symptoms ( Tancredi et al., 2022 ). Participants in the current study mentioned that they had to spend extra money for good internet package and bought a new laptop/mobile /electric gadget to attend virtual classes, which increased their economic burden. To counterbalance these economic challenges, financial aid schemes for students need to be made available to relieve distress and allow students to focus on their studies ( Gewalt et al., 2022 ).

Strengths and Limitations

The study findings are limited to only few nursing colleges in India. Therefore, the study findings may not be generalizable to other states of India. As the study population was not selected through probability sampling strategy, the representativeness of samples might be lacking in the current study. Moreover, the study instruments were prepared by the investigators of the study that did not undergo rigorous standardization process, which might limit the strength of the study. Based on the study findings, the institutions where the study was conducted should design strategies to mitigate the challenges to have effective teaching and learning.

Implications for Practice

Virtual nursing education can be improved by refining the content and delivery methods, training of nursing faculty to use online educational strategies, and by reducing the technical and environmental barriers. Hybrid and blended teaching–learning strategies may further improve the learning among nursing students.

Virtual education can be very successful if we address the challenges and experiences of the students by performing appropriate groundwork by upgrading the required hardware and software, teaching how to use the facilities, and developing innovative teaching techniques and standard protocols for virtual education.

Supplemental Material

Acknowledgments.

The authors thank the students and faculty members who participated in this study. The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research at University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia for supporting this work through the Fast-Track Research Support Program. The authors would like to acknowledge the nursing students who have participated in the study. Special thanks to the administrators and faculty members of the institutions for their motivation and support during data collection.

Author Contributions: PK designed and conducted the study and wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. JA edited and added additional content and refined the manuscript. AP collected the data. SM edited the manuscript.

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical Approval: Ethical approval was obtained from the Research and Ethics Committee of Narayana Hrudayalaya College of Nursing (NHH/AEC-CL.2022-BI5 dated 22/3/2022), Kirubhanidhi College of Nursing (KCC/22/22 dated 04/3/2022), and Koshy's College of Nursing (KCN/15 dated 07/3/2022).

Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Graduate Studies and Scientific Research at University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia for supporting this work through the Fast-Track Research Support Program.

ORCID iDs: Judie Arulappan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2788-2755

Shimmaa Mansour Moustafa Mohammed https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2956-610X

Supplemental Material: Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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