Remote learning and university reading difficulties
University students with formal or self-reported reading difficulties reported more remote-learning stress and were more likely than peers to fail at least one exam in the first COVID remote semester.
Source
Remote learning among students with and without reading difficulties during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Anonymous online self-report survey, 16–31 July 2020, University of Warsaw
- N
- University students with and without reading difficulties; exact N not extracted
- Population
- University of Warsaw students during remote learning
- Outcome
- Remote-learning experience of students with versus without reading difficulties
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Remote learning and university reading difficulties
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2182 of 3510 respondents completed the full questionnaire set.
Out of 3510 students who took part in the study, 2182 participants completed the whole set of questionnaires.
216 students reported formal diagnosis; 201 reported difficulties without diagnosis.
216 students declared having formal diagnosis (CDYS) and 201 reported reading difficulties but no formal diagnosis (SIDYS).
What they did
An anonymous online survey at the University of Warsaw (July 2020) compared students with formal dyslexia diagnosis (CDYS), self-reported reading difficulties without diagnosis (SIDYS), and controls on stress, workload, organization difficulties, and exam success during emergency remote learning.
What they found
Reading-difficulty groups reported higher stress related to restrictions and remote assessment formats, more organizational difficulties, and higher rates of failing at least one exam than controls. All groups perceived the remote summer semester as requiring more work than the prior winter semester.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Self-report and non-experimental group differences cannot prove that remote formats caused exam failure, and results are from one university early in the pandemic.
Key terms
- Remote learning
- Emergency web-based teaching implemented during campus closure, distinguished here from planned online learning.
- CDYS
- Students reporting a formal dyslexia/reading-difficulty diagnosis.
- SIDYS
- Students reporting reading difficulties without a formal diagnosis.
- DDQ
- Questionnaire measuring symptoms of reading difficulties used to compare groups.
- Dyslexia
- Specific learning disability involving accurate/fluent word recognition, decoding, and/or spelling difficulties.
- Exam success
- Whether students passed all exams in the remote summer semester.
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What setting did this study examine?
Common questions
Where and when was the survey run?
University of Warsaw, 16–31 July 2020.
How were groups defined?
Formal diagnosis (CDYS), self-reported difficulties without diagnosis (SIDYS), and controls without reading difficulties.
What academic outcome differed?
More CDYS and SIDYS students failed at least one exam than controls.
Did only dyslexic students find remote semester harder?
No—all groups reported more work than the prior winter semester, but reading-difficulty groups faced additional stresses and difficulties.
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