Hospitality students at the online classes during COVID-19 – How personality affects experience?

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced all teaching and learning activities to shift to online platforms. Hospitality students are not exempted from this transition even though they are used to offline learning environment and often take a blended learning of theoretical and practical components. This sudden change has caused disruptions in their learning process and created all kinds of anxieties. Thus, this study aimed to explore how the personality traits of hospitality students are associated with their level of anxieties and how their learning experience is affected. A survey was conducted in Hong Kong shortly after the affected semester ended. Results showed that students with high levels of agreeableness and openness to experience perceive a high degree of learning, technical, and financial anxiety. By contrast, students with high levels of conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism partially sense a low degree of these anxieties. Results also revealed that a low degree of learning and financial anxiety can enhance students’ perceived online learning and consequently improve student satisfaction. Theoretical development and managerial implications are further discussed.