Abstract
The mobility restrictions imposed in different countries due to the pandemic of Sars-CoV2 has hugely impacted different areas in the world. In this work, impacts on the social areas of Ecuadorian university students such as education, economy, physical and mental health, and access to telecommunications are analyzed. For this work, in a snapshot between May to September 2020, 1841 students from 6 public and 5 private universities from Ecuador were surveyed through 47 questions, which were grouped into 7 mutually exclusive dimensions. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the correlations between the responses of the questions and the relations between dimensions. Dimensional relations were used to analyze how students perceive online classes, teachers’ preparation, mood, and the impact on their learning process due to their decreasing family income. Among the most important results, we found that 63.78% of students want to return to on-site classes regardless of their conditions of Internet connection and their available learning tools (computers, tablets, or cellphones). The results also show that family income has influenced how students access the Internet, Internet connection, technological resources for online learning, and mood. Regarding the relations between variables, we found that older students and students from higher semesters think that online classes are better than face-to-face classes and want to continue in online education.
Highlights
The Sars-CoV2 virus, causing the COVID-19 disease, began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019
COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, forcing the world population to go through curfews and quarantines [1]
The analysis considered the responses to 21 questions out of a total of 47 questions, which were grouped to form 7 dimensions: participants’ information, online classes, basic instruments for online learning, Internet connection, mood and physical state, income and financial status, and relatives affected by COVID-19
Summary
The Sars-CoV2 virus, causing the COVID-19 disease, began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, forcing the world population to go through curfews and quarantines [1]. By June 2021, almost a year and a half later, 177 million infected people and 3 million deaths were reported [2]. The disruptive effects of the COVID-19 outbreak have caused a considerable impact around the world in different areas such as physical and mental health, education, economy, and telecommunications. All of these social areas are analyzed among students of several universities of Ecuador.
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