EXPLORING LEARNING EXPERIENCES OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS DURING THE PANDEMIC, A STARTING POINT FOR FUTURE QUALITATIVE IMPROVEMENTS - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ABOUT POST-PANDEMIC LEARNING ANALYTICS

Abstract

The Pandemic period determined an abrupt transition of education systems, including tertiary education, from the traditional "face-to-face" learning environment to alternative ones in the online space, which had significant consequences on the teachers' didactic roles and especially on the quality of student learning, due to them being placed under the conditions of the absence of a transitional period with a formative effect. The article aims to identify the students' perceptions regarding the favorable elements of learning in the digital realm in comparison to the "face-to-face" environment, having as a purpose the improvement of the quality of university studies in the post-pandemic period. The empirical research used in the study involved undergraduate students from the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work (University of Bucharest), being based on the comparative approach of learning analytics elements in order to highlight the differentiated effects caused by online learning versus the face to face one. Analyzing the changes felt by students in the post-pandemic period at the university education level regarding the efficiency of the organizational efforts when it comes to the learning process in the academic space, led to drawing interesting conclusions concerning: the need to expand the usage of blended learning forms, recommendations that can be useful for the teaching staff regarding the stimulation of the students’ learning and the utility of involving a new type of specialist within the university, the one of a learning process analyst that sustains direct forms of mediate learning and learning support, offered especially for undergraduate students.

Keywords

• monitoring the learning process
• learning analytics
• blended learning
• post-pandemic mediated learning
• learning process analyst