Students and instructors reflections on the impact of COVID-19 on computer science education after 1 year of remote teaching

Abstract

Abstract In May 2020, about 2 months after countless institutions across the world resorted to moving all their courses online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted a survey to evaluate the impact of this transition on a group of computer science students. That first survey highlighted mostly negative effects, with students struggling to perform many class-related activities. About a year later, after a full year of remote teaching, we wanted to see if and how the students’ sentiment had changed. To assess students’ perceptions of remote teaching, we conducted a new survey composed of 41 multiple choice, Likert scale and open-ended questions. Additionally, we interviewed instructors of computer science courses, to learn about their experience and how they adapted to the new teaching modality. 137 students and 10 instructors shared their feedback regarding their positive and negative experiences in the new learning format. Our results show that the students’ experience improved significantly, to the point that many of them expressed interest in continuing learning online, at least partially, but some populations (e.g., early years students) may still be at a disadvantage in this learning format. At the same time, the instructors manifested concerns that this may not produce the best learning outcomes for the students. The results and considerations included in this report may benefit the conversation on how to conduct computer science higher education in a post-pandemic world.

Keywords

• Emergency remote teaching
• Online education
• COVID-19
• Survey study
• Instructors’ experience