Shocks to the System: COVID-19's Perceived Interference With the Academic Performance and Plans of University Undergraduates

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and reshaped undergraduate students’ social, learning, and workplace environments. Using an ecological systems framework, we draw on survey data from a sequential, mixed-methods study of undergraduate students at an urban, Minority-Serving Institution ( n = 1,272) to examine the association between health, economic, and other pandemic-related shocks and students’ academic perceptions. First, we conducted exploratory factor analyses on two groups of measures: “basic need concerns” and “interference with academic performance and plans.” Second, we connected student perceptions of the pandemic's interference with their academic performance and plans to ecological changes using regression analysis. Our model found a significant amount of the variance (12.6%) could be attributed to economic and health-related shocks and academic disruptions, including changes to caretaker responsibilities. However, students’ perceptions of how well they were doing with online learning accounted for most of the modeled variance. Implications for undergraduate student retention are discussed.