Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine how the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic affected the communality among university personnel and students. Herein, we report the findings from a northern Finnish university in which student (mean number of participants, n = 339) and staff (mean number of participants, n = 133) perceptions and experiences were surveyed. The data (gathered between March 2020 and June 2021 in 7 surveys) included responses to questions about satisfaction with remote and hybrid work and communality. In addition, as the focus of the analysis in this research, we collected the participants’ descriptions of their experiences and thoughts through open-ended questions. The sense of communality among the students, students and teachers, and staff differed, but the appreciation for flexible interactions and availability was similar between the groups. This study discusses the importance of retaining a sense of communality during and after abnormal times on the basis of the reported findings.
Highlights
We have faced a global pandemic due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID19), and the chain of events exempted no one
The aim of this study was to examine how the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic affected the communality among university personnel and students
The purpose of this research was to discuss how the perceptions of communality changed, the lessons learned during the pandemic about the university community, and strategies to ensure that the sense of communality and reciprocal relationships will be maintained in the future
Summary
We have faced a global pandemic due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID19), and the chain of events exempted no one. According to Waters et al (2021b), the global pandemic is a collective phenomenon. Most workplaces such as educational institutions started following their members’ strategies to cope with the situation and to support their staff and students during the time when their well-being was threatened (Van Agteren et al, 2020). This research focused on higher education students in Finland. Almost a third of university students had severe burnout (STT, 2020), whereas, in previous years, the rate of burnout was only approximately 7% (Salmela-Aro & Read, 2017). According to the Finnish Education Evaluation Center (2021), the shift to online teaching during the lockdown went well, but more attention should be paid to students’ well-being and integration into the higher education community (Repo et al, 2020). The same trend of increased burden was observed among university teaching staff (Tieteentekijät, 2020)
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