Information and communication technologies in student learning in times of COVID-19

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been vital tools in human interaction in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing the virtuality of many daily activities that would otherwise configure an inherent biological risk of physical contact. For this reason, it was necessary to adopt ICT as non-face-to-face training elements in higher education, allowing pedagogical development and teacher-student interaction from home. This research sought to determine the influence of ICT on the learning of 450 Peruvian university students, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.In general, transmissive ICT obtained higher proportions of accessibility (87%), usability (81 %) and influence on student learning (73%) compared to interactive ones (Figure 1), with active ICT being the least perceived in all three dimensions. According to the results obtained, a positive relationship is proposed between university student learning and the adoption of ICT tools during the COVID-19 pandemic period (p = 0.076). Search engines, video conferences, web pages, academic platforms, repositories, and multimedia tutorials exert the greatest positive influence on the educational process. However, health science students showed more aversion to establishing ICT in their learning, while engineering students showed greater receptivity to its application.