Table 1.
Demographics of undergraduate students at the University of Wyoming in the Fall 2020 semester.
Fig 1.
Student’s intentions and actions regarding retention after the onset of the pandemic.
Students persevered in their degree progress, as evident in both their (a) long-term and (b) short-term plans. This was also evident in their (c) continuation toward degree completion in the semester following the onset of COVID disruption.
Fig 2.
Students’ satisfaction with various instructional formats.
(a-e) Students reported varying degrees of satisfaction with different instructional formats, (f) with greatest preference for the familiar face-to-face environment.
Fig 3.
Students’ satisfaction with instructional format varied across class standings.
(a) Satisfaction with instructional formats other than face-to-face was (b) greatest among freshmen students and (c-e) broadly similar among students with more advanced standing.
Fig 4.
Impact of various institutional factors on students’ perception of success and well-being.
(a-j) Students reported that their success and well-being was affected by a wide range of factors, with (k) lack of face-to-face educational and social experiences having the greatest impact.
Fig 5.
Students’ perception of success and well-being across class standings.
(a-e) In contrast to students’ reports regarding satisfaction with various instructional approaches (Fig 3), there were no consistent differences in reports of impact of various factors across different academic standings.
Fig 6.
Impact of various personal factors on students’ perception of success and well-being.
(a-k) Students reported that their perceived success or struggle was affected by a wide range of factors, with (k) overall success in finding instructors available but struggles in all other facets of personal and educational experience during the pandemic.
Fig 7.
Students’ perception of importance of personal factors on success and well-being across class standings.
Consistent with freshmen students’ self-reports of greater satisfaction with their COVID educational experience than students with more advanced standings (Fig 3), (a-b) freshmen students also reported greater perception of personal and educational success. (c-f) That trend was not evident in responses from students with more advanced academic standing.
Fig 8.
Social and personal factors affecting students’ perception of success and well-being.
Students felt most successful regarding the factor that they also felt was least impactful on their experience. Technological challenges were not a major obstacle to their success, but students felt most strongly impacted and least successful regarding social interactions and personal connections with peers and instructors.