Abstract
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of students in China followed an emergency policy called “Suspending Classes without Stopping Learning” to continue their study online as schools across the country were closed. The present study examines how students adapted to learning online in these unprecedented circumstances. We aimed to explore the relationship between adaptability, academic emotion, and student engagement during COVID-19. 1,119 university students from 20 provinces participated in this longitudinal study (2 time points with a 2-week interval). The results showed that adaptability (the ability to respond to changes) and student engagement are significantly positively correlated with positive academic emotion and negatively correlated with negative academic emotion. Furthermore, adaptability not only directly predicts student engagement, but also affects student engagement through the chain mediation of positive academic emotion and negative academic emotion. The results contribute to the gap in knowledge regarding changes in students’ learning in response to the outbreak. This study further explains the internal mechanisms mediating the relationship between adaptability and student engagement. It may provide references for educational researchers and universities in dampening the negative effects of COVID-19 on students’ learning by improving their adaptability and developing positive academic emotions.
Highlights
Beginning in late 2019, a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread widely and quickly around China and the world (Guan et al, 2020; Wu and McGoogan, 2020; Zhou et al, 2020)
We examine if adaptability influences academic emotions, and if academic emotions influence student engagement in response to the wide-ranging changes in students’ academic experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., the possible mediating role of academic emotions
The results show that the chain intermediary effect of Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2) positive academic emotion (β = 0.010, 95% bias-corrected confidence interval (95% CI) [0.003, 0.017]), and T1 and T2 negative academic emotions (β = 0.028, 95% CI [0.016, 0.042]) were significant, indicating a significant mediation by both positive and negative emotions
Summary
Beginning in late 2019, a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread widely and quickly around China and the world (Guan et al, 2020; Wu and McGoogan, 2020; Zhou et al, 2020). The Adaptability Promotes Student Engagement Under COVID-19. Approximately 30 million quarantined university students experienced an unprecedented and unplanned switch from traditional face-toface learning to online learning from home. The combined psychological pressure caused by COVID-19 and the abrupt change in learning modality created significant challenges for students, with significant impacts on the mental health of university students (Cao et al, 2020). No detailed study has examined the impact of university students’ adaptability on their learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted this study to investigate how adaptability (i.e., the ability to respond to changing, new, and uncertain conditions appropriately) may influence their engagement following the transition to online learning in China during the COVID19 pandemic
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