“Mastering new content was not easy. I do not feel that I learned it as well as I had previously during in-person lecture.”
“I struggle to understand the material and don’t feel motivated at all.”
“I barely made it through this past semester. Prior to the sudden transition to online classes, I didn’t even have internet or a computer at home.”
These are a few of the student responses highlighted in a new report issued by American College Testing (ACT), the non-profit entity that produces the eponymous college-readiness assessment taken by thousands of students every year. ACT surveyed 1,164 students who started their first-year of college in the 2019-2020 academic year specifically to understand how the pivot to online instruction impacted students’ perceived successes and challenges, as well as their retention and persistence.
Dr. Joyce Schnieders
Over two thirds of respondents said they experienced increased challenges in their education due to the pandemic. Those who experienced the greatest difficulty transitioning online were first-generation and low-income students. Almost half of those students surveyed said they had limited technology and one third had limited access to the internet. One quarter of low-income students, and 18% of first-generation students, reported struggling with access to both.
That number could actually be higher, said Dr. Raeal Moore, a principal research scientist at ACT and the study’s other co-lead, “due to the fact that the survey was conducted online.”
