What made emergency remote learning hard for students?
Students in Finland and India reported many similar ERL challenges—schedules, distractions, weak peer communication—and only moderate engagement.
Source
What students want? Experiences, challenges, and engagement during Emergency Remote Learning amidst COVID-19 crisis
Study at a glance
- Design
- Other — Survey plus interview/diary follow-up of ERL experiences in Finland and India
- N
- N=138 · 138 university students across two pandemic waves
- Population
- University students in Finland and India during emergency remote learning
- Outcome
- Shared ERL challenges (schedules, distractions, peer communication) and moderate engagement
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What made emergency remote learning hard for students?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
What does ERL stand for in this paper?
This makeshift online learning is coined as Emergency Remote Learning (ERL) since it was delivered in response to a crisis or catastrophe
How many students participated across surveys?
Total 138 students from different disciplines participated in the study
What they did
Researchers surveyed 138 university students in Finland and India across two pandemic waves, then followed a smaller subset with interviews and diaries. They catalogued Emergency Remote Learning challenges, experiences, and engagement as campuses shifted online with little preparation.
What they found
Learning experiences were largely unsatisfactory at first; 132 of 138 faced multiple challenges (about four on average). Top issues included managing schedules and home distractions. Engagement was moderate; students gradually adjusted but did not fully accept ERL as a long-term normal.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Unequal country samples and voluntary participation limit population estimates. The study describes experiences rather than testing a specific instructional intervention’s causal effect on achievement.
Key terms
- Emergency Remote Learning (ERL)
- A temporary, crisis-driven shift of courses online without the design time of planned online programs.
- Learning engagement
- Students’ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive involvement with coursework.
- Home-learning setup
- The physical and social conditions at home that support or disrupt studying.
- Longitudinal survey
- Data collected from related cohorts or waves over time to track change.
- Pedagogy-in-pandemic
- Teaching and learning practices shaped by COVID-era constraints.
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ERL refers to:
Common questions
Were Finnish and Indian challenges totally different?
No — students in both contexts reported overlapping issues like schedules, boredom, distractions, and pessimistic emotions.
How common were challenges?
About 95.65% of participants faced at least four challenges on average.
Did students eventually love ERL?
They adjusted somewhat over time but did not indicate complete acceptance of ERL.
What challenges topped the list?
Managing schedules and distractions in the home-learning setup were among the most frequent.
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