Measuring College Students' Experiences with Virtual Education During the Pandemic by COVID-19

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, young university students had to adjust to the emergency remote education provided by the online education modality. To know about the impact of this situation, the objective of this work was to validate the Scale of Experiences of University Students in Virtual Education (EEEV). A total of 2841 Chilean university students participated, with a mean age of 23.42 years (SD=7.72), of which 20% were engineering students. The EEEV arose from the adaptation of the questionnaire of expectations towards virtual education in university students during the COVID-19 pandemic, composed of six dimensions (Relationship with peers, Online learning, Online teaching, Self-efficacy for online learning, Online evaluation, and Comparison with face-to-face education). The psychometric properties of the EEEV version were verified. Validity estimations were performed using confirmatory factor analysis, finding a good fit, and maintaining the original version's factors. As for the dimensions, the internal consistency coefficient for the total scale was adequate. Therefore, it is concluded that the EEEV is a valid and reliable scale for measuring the experiences of university students in the context of emergency remote education.