Check out the new open-access journal article by Dr. Chunrui Zou and Yuqing Zou:
Zou, Y., & Zou, C. (2023). Exploring factors associated with higher education students' learning outcomes in emergency remote teaching environments during the COVID-19 pandemic: General patterns and individual differences. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-12032-9
Our purposes were to explore the factors associated with higher education students' learning outcomes in emergency remote teaching environments (ERTEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic at both the population and individual levels.
9418 students from 41 countries were selected for analysis from a survey-based dataset collected with the aim of understanding the self-perceived impacts of the first-wave COVID-19 pandemic on higher education students.
Fig. 1 Participant number for each country
We conducted structural equation modeling analysis to explore associated factors and latent profile analysis to identify student profiles based on these factors. Utilizing the identified profiles, we developed a random forest-based classifier to identify the membership of students' profiles.
Fig. 2 framework of the design of this study
The results revealed that multiple environmental and individual factors were significantly associated with learning outcomes, each with varying path coefficient magnitudes.
Fig. 3 Structural equation modeling analysis results
based on these factors, eight profiles were identified with different learning outcomes and student characteristics. The classifier achieved a testing accuracy of 0.904.
Fig. 4 Scores for six factors, learning outcomes, and academic emotions in each class. (a): heatmap; (b): line plot
Fig. 5 SEM model scaled scores for six factors in each class. (a): radar charts; (b): dot charts
By integrating variable-centered and person-centered approaches, this study bridges the gap in understanding general patterns and individual differences regarding key factors associated with higher education students' learning outcomes. The findings have implications for designing individualized interventions and support strategies to enhance student learning outcomes and mitigate educational disparities in ERTEs during crisis situations.
