Subjective Dissatisfaction Versus Objective Success: Exploring the Impact of COVID-19 on First-Generation College Student Experience and Academic Performance in Spring 2020

This phenomenological study explores how 27 first-generation college students attending an elite small liberal arts college experienced the transition to emergency remote learning during the spring 2020 semester. Data from open-ended, semi-structured interviews and spring 2020 student transcripts suggest that students’ subjective experiences of emergency remote learning did not align with their objective outcomes as reflected in their spring 2020 GPAs. Partly due to institutional policies and practices, 75% of students received a higher GPA in spring 2020 than in the previous semester. Results highlight the importance of student-centered, success-oriented responses that made it possible for students with diverse cultural, material and emotional needs to do more than survive the shift to emergency remote learning. Of equal importance is the way institutional responses empowered students to make choices that enabled them to meet academic expectations and family obligations and turn a semester of potential derailment into one of subjective dissatisfaction with objective success.