Ett skifte inom högre utbildning i Sverige under Covid-19 pandemin

: Skiftets innebörd för campusoch distansstudenters syn på utbildningen och betydelsen av self-efficacy

Abstract

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Swedish Public Health Agency’s recommendations, a shift occurred within higher education in Sweden, where campus education changed to distance education overnight. Previous research, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, shows a general negative effect for campus-students. Opportunities and limitations that arose during the pandemic are reflected in research on conducting distance education, which requires more planning and adaption regarding structure, materials, and pedagogy. However, these studies focus on campus-students, after which no empirical study has been identified including distance-students. Based on Social cognitive theory and selfefficacy, the shift is used as a theoretical concept. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether, and if so, how the shift, in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic, is expressed among preschool teacher students (pre-service teachers) in Sweden. A survey, based on the study’s focus: views on their university studies, views on their learning, views of themselves as a student, and academic achievement, was sent via e-mail to preschool teacher students who were admitted in 2019 to an education at campus or distance at the undergraduate level without profile or previous experience of working in preschool. The study has a withinsubject and a between-subject design and to test the study’s hypotheses, the following statistical analyzes were used: Pearson’s bivariate correlations, independent samples t-test and two-way mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results showed that the shift was handled better by students with high self-efficacy compared to students with low self-efficacy. The results also showed a negative effect for distance-students for the timeframe before (2019) and during (2020) the pandemic. This led to a reevaluation of the theoretical meaning of the shift.

Date of Award	2022-Jun
Original language	Swedish
Supervisor	Anders Eklöf (Supervisor), Anna Blom Kemdal (Supervisor) & Anette Emilson (Examiner)