By fall, many campuses developed plans to merge in-person instruction (with social distancing) and online learning, with varying adjustments of success by institutions. According to NSCL, 44% of institutions developed fully or primarily online instruction, 21% used a hybrid model and 27% offered fully or primarily in-person instruction.
In a survey that was constructed with 85 Georgia Southern students, about 85% of respondents said the pandemic had a negative effect on their performance. Another 9% said the pandemic did not affect their performance, and about 5% said the pandemic had a positive influence on their performance.
The two main factors affecting grades this fall according to the survey, were academic changes and mental health. Students were navigating a changing educational experience, with remote learning and asynchronous courses in many cases, at the same time they are dealing with stress from the personal effects of the pandemic.
Biology Grad Student, Shaun Hunter contributed the decline in academic performance to the lack of resources on campus. “Obviously, Georgia Southern has endless resources, but with the pandemic hovering over our heads, everything is so limited,” he said.
Shaun believes that every college student has a “go to” resource such as in-person lectures, the Recreational Activity Center, and the library to help them with their studies. Interestingly, nutritionist major, Rockie James had a similar assessment to Shaun regarding the RAC.
“New challenges, such as physical activity, social opportunities, and increased learning in times like this can stimulate the production of new cells in the brain,” she said. “A combination of all of those things can improve concentration, help keep the mind focused, and ultimately, boost work productivity and academic success in students.”
Stress is a very common theme during this pandemic, which is why we see a declination in academic performance for college students. When stressed, your muscles may tense all around body, it’ll leave you headaches, tightness around your chest, a pounding pulse, and muscle cramps.
When feeling like this, it’s difficult to perform the way that you’re capable of in the classroom. Exercising is an effective way to break this cycle. As well as releasing endorphins in the brain, physical activity helps to relax the muscles and relieve tension in the body. Since the body and mind are so closely linked, when your body feels better so, too, will your mind.
Andy Macdon, a psychology major relies heavily on the resources that the library provides for him and many students on campus. Henderson Library which normally has unlimited resources available for students tampered down immensely, to provide a safer atmosphere among this pandemic.
As of Fall last semester, like every other area on campus, the library implemented restrictions whereas there can only be a limited amount people in the library at a time. They also implemented a new rule where students were allowed to checkout laptops, which seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.
“At the time, the library only had 117 laptops available for us which was a very low number,
considering the number of students we have on campus,” Andy said.“Sometimes the laptops would take a day or two to get to my place, so it was pretty difficult to keep up with my schoolwork.”
With the unprecedented unique challenges that Covid-19 presented with schools all around the country, its easy to see why so many students struggled to adapt to these times. With a year of Covid under our belt, and an end in sight, expect to see schools’ transition to their normal ways and a huge increase in academic performance.
