by CLAIRE FIELD

Despite teachers and education administrators giving it their all in the move to on-line delivery for many students the lack of engagement with their teachers and peers had a noticeable, negative impact on their learning experience.

As students return to face-to-face learning in most institutions this semester, time spent on student engagement and re-engagement will be critically important.

While data on the impact of COVID-19 and the mass shift to on-line learning on student attrition is not readily available yet (in higher education the 2020 student data is yet to be published and completion rates in VET are notoriously tricky to measure); nonetheless there is evidence available which shows the pandemic has had a detrimental impact on student engagement in both VET and higher education.

The 2021 VET Student Outcomes Survey shows that almost one-third (32.5 per cent) of students who discontinued their training in 2021 cited COVID-19 as the reason for leaving. The two most significant challenges these “non-completers” cited when learning shifted on-line were the lack of face-to-face interaction with trainers/teachers/instructors (cited by 60.3 per cent) and a lack of face-to-face interaction with peers (47 per cent).

In higher education, the 2020 Student Experience Survey results show a precipitous drop in learner engagement (with just 44 per cent of students giving a positive rating down from 60 per cent the previous year). This in turn impacted the quality of the student experience – just 68 per cent of students gave a positive rating in 2020 compared with 78 per cent of students in 2019.

Despite teachers and education administrators giving it their all in the move to on-line delivery during the pandemic, for many students the lack of engagement with their teachers and peers had a noticeable, negative impact on their learning experience.

The start of the 2022 academic year is the obvious time to address student engagement. It may well be that after two years of predominantly on-line study new methods and engagement approaches are needed – as students now increasingly look for hybrid online and off-line options in their learning which reflect their experiences in all other facets of their lives.

The worry is that if this window of opportunity is missed to re-engage students in their studies, then it is likely we will see higher rates of attrition in both VET and higher education.

In the latest episode of the free ‘What now? What next?’ podcast Claire Field discusses the role of EdTech in student engagement with Shaunak Roy from Yellowdig.