“I feel like me as a person has been put on pause”: undergraduate student experiences of online learning

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the landscape of higher education, compelling institutions worldwide to swiftly adopt remote learning modalities. This study delves into the lived experiences of undergraduate students amidst the unprecedented shift brought on by the pandemic. The aim was to explore undergraduate students’ experiences of remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in two focus groups with nine undergraduate students from a London university recruited as part of a larger, mixed methods study exploring the effects of COVID-19 on undergraduate academic stress, motivation and coping over time. Students described the effect of lockdown and the shift to online learning on academic stress, motivation and student experience. Findings showed that both individual and contextual factors influenced students’ perceived adaptation to online teaching and learning stemming from the closure of higher education institutions. Institutions will want to take note of the importance of (in-person) interaction on campus between students and staff, alongside the role of potentially positive aspects of online teaching when used in addition to face-to-face teaching. These insights may be of particular interest in the context of the wider ongoing transformation of higher education provision.