Student well-being in pandemic times

With the substantial effect of societal restrictions on people’s lives, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected overall well-being, including social, emotional, physical, and psychological facets. [e.g. 2; for a thorough definition of student well-being, see 3] Taylor [4] identifies various pandemic-related stressors associated with well-being, including uncertainty, disruption of routines, separation from family, social isolation, financial insecurity, and closure of educational institutions. Additionally, Holmes et al. [5] propose a general sense of loss as a psychological consequence.

Young adults have been particularly affected by the current pandemic [6–8]. For instance, studies from the UK, US, and Poland implemented shortly before and into the pandemic found a significant increase in psychological distress and ill-being among young adults [9–12]. Particularly students’ experienced impaired psychological well-being compared with other populations [2,13]. They reported elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as decreased quality of life [14–17]. Likewise, a longitudinal research project in the Netherlands found that students report the absence of social interaction and connection, accompanied by higher stress [18]. In summary, prior research consistently highlights students’ compromised well-being throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual and institutional resources, however, may counteract this tendency and support student well-being.

Students’ resilience in pandemic times

Resilience refers to an individual capacity to bounce back from a stressor and regain one’s former psychological health [19,20]. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that resilience promotes student well-being and counteracts negative experiences [21–23]. In times of extraordinary strain, such as the pandemic, resilience may be the key to handling stressors and minimising their impact [24]. However, not everyone possesses such resources, leading to individual differences [25,26]. For instance, more resilient students perceived less stress during COVID-19 [7]. Likewise, students’ resilience moderated pandemic-related stressful experiences and acute stress disorder [27]. Also in the general population, more resilient individuals experienced fewer worries, anxiety, or depressive symptoms [28].

When bouncing back from adversity, individuals mobilise personal and environmental resilience resources [29]. Several studies aim to categorise such resources, such as Mansfield et al., [30] who classify four overarching categories: personal and contextual resources, strategies, and outcomes. Also regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, Chen and Bonanno [25] state that resilience depends on both individual and structural characteristics, including family and community surroundings. Nonetheless, such resilience and risk factors require further investigation. Research investigating well-being specifically for university students has already identified several protective factors: enhanced social support, shared emotions, time for family and hobbies, self-efficacy, and effective coping [27,31,32]. However, most research thus far does not focus on resilience as essential to support student well-being in times of crisis. Our study aims to further define and categorise factors that could promote students’ resilience.

Beyond its cross-sectional definition, the resilience concept implies that experiencing adversities may result in a process of positive adaption throughout time, the so-called resilience growth [19,33]. Within this process, more severe stressors might produce greater resilience than less intense stressors [34]. Therefore, people who have never experienced difficulties may be less likely to have already developed substantial resilience [19]. Students–who have less life experience than older people–may possess fewer personal resources [2,6,23]. For instance, Forycka et al. [15] found that more than two third of students reported low resilience throughout the pandemic. However, they might learn quickly how to cope with adversities and grow personally. Therefore, we take a longitudinal perspective on resilience development in students in the present study, as called for previously [25].

Learning environment and basic psychological needs

From a systemic perspective, based on social constructivism [35,36], people are influenced by the system surrounding them. The academic system, for instance, is shaped by interactions between stakeholders, including students, teachers, and support staff. These interconnected stakeholders collectively determine both teaching and learning [37], emphasising the LE’s nature as an interdependent system [38,39]. Consequently, the responsibility for students’ well-being cannot solely be ascribed to the students; rather, a lack of well-being is a warning signal of a malfunctioning system [40,41]. Therefore, the LE’s systemic factors are fundamental to investigating student well-being.

Within the LE, student well-being relies on the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs (BPN). These needs stem from the self-determination theory, identifying aspects that foster well-being [42] and have been associated with well-being also during the COVID-19 pandemic [43,44]. Educational structures can promote the BPN: autonomy, defined as a sense of freedom and control; competence, or self-efficacy and a capacity to thrive; and relatedness, defined as social support and sense of belonging [45,46]. Likewise, satisfying students’ BPN through student-teacher relationships can lead to enhanced well-being and academic learning. In particular, autonomy can be stimulated by providing the freedom to shape one’s studies. Competence relates to giving constructive feedback, and relatedness stems from investing in a respectful, appreciative relationship [47].

Because distance learning challenges social interactions, satisfying BPN in a disconnected environment can be undermined [47]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the LE had to be adjusted abruptly, resulting in hastily realised and often insufficiently elaborated remote teaching [48,49]. Such virtual or hybrid academic surroundings have likely affected students’ well-being negatively. For instance, pandemic-related stressors complicate satisfying students’ BPN [43,50]. More specifically, although distance learning may enhance students’ autonomy by offering independence [51], losing freedom and control due to external restrictions could relate to its deprivation. Likewise, missing feedback and educational opportunities might result in fewer experiences of competence. Lastly, social distancing may deprive students of feeling relatedness or community [43,50]. These aspects may add up to a lack of need satisfaction: Many students have experienced decreased motivation and engagement (corresponding to a lack of autonomy), unproductiveness, mental overload (corresponding to a lack of competence), as well as isolation (corresponding to a lack of relatedness) [18,52]. Students’ relationships with peers and teachers have especially suffered [53–55]. At the same time, interventions designed to foster BPN satisfaction during the pandemic promoted well-being [44,56]. Consequently, we propose that the pandemic has explicitly affected students’ BPN within the LE and, in turn, their well-being.

Research aims

Building on this framework, the present study focuses on three aspects: the pandemic’s effects on student well-being, relevant resilience factors, and the role of the LE in this regard. Accordingly, we formulate three research questions:

1. RQ.1 How do university students, teachers, and support staff perceive student well-being and pandemic-related stressors before and throughout the COVID-19 crisis?
2. RQ.2 According to university students, teachers, and support staff, which resilience factors support students’ well-being, how have they changed, and which factors offer the potential for resilience growth due to the COVID-19 crisis?
3. RQ.3 How do university students, teachers, and support staff perceive changes in the LE, relating to student well-being and their need satisfaction throughout the COVID-19 crisis?

Participants

Six interviewees participated in the study: two university students (one bachelor’s and one master’s student), two teachers, one study advisor, and one student psychologist. The participants were recruited personally and had already been in contact with the researchers because of their interest in student well-being. The students, both female, were 22 and 23 years old at t1; one was Dutch and the other an international student (within Europe). Both were in their final year at t1 and began new studies before t4 at new universities, one in the Netherlands and the other in her home country. The faculty members’ ages ranged between 36 and 57 at t1, 50% were women, and their work experience ranged from 5 to 23 years. Participants studied or worked for various faculties, including arts, behavioural and social, medical, and spatial sciences.

Interview and procedure

The ethics committee of the department of Teacher Education at the University of Groningen approved the initial study and the subsequent adjustments (i.e., shifting to a longitudinal study focusing on pandemic-related well-being; under TED-1920-S004). All six interviewees consented to participate in the study before the initial data collection. We administered a short questionnaire to collect socio-demographic information before the first interview.

The interviewer followed a semi-structured guide, similarly structured for all four times. The interview first focused on student well-being, then on the LE’s impact, and finally on resilience factors that positively influence student well-being (see Table 1 and S1 File for further detail; we do not provide the interviews, transcriptions, or diaries due to the sensitivity of these data). The participants were interviewed either in person (mainly at t1) or online (mainly at t2–t4). These interviews lasted 34 to 100 minutes and were audio or video-recorded, depending on the interview setting. All recordings were transcribed verbatim. During this procedure, all identifiable information was replaced with pseudonyms. The participants received a transcription summary, allowing them to report potential misunderstandings or withdraw their data from the study.

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Table 1. Summary of the interview scheme and additional measures across all four time points, including example questions.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292995.t001

Measures surrounding the interviews

During the first interview, participants categorised aspects promoting student well-being that they mentioned. The interviewer collected keywords on sticky notes to depict the potential resilience factors. Then participants arranged the sticky notes, added headlines, and created connections. The resulting categorisations served as a basis for subsequent interviews. At t2, for example, participants stated which factors had become more or less essential or changed in nature due to the pandemic. During the last interview, participants reported the factors’ potential for resilience growth.

The students kept a diary between t2 and t3 for event-based data collection, including one challenging situation per week. Being less intrusive and closer to relevant events, this method helps gather affective data between measurements [57]. The students sent the resulting input to the researchers as a basis for the third interview. However, only one student completed the diary; the other reported having been too stressed to find the time.

Five months after the final data collection, we conducted an online focus group with four participants (excluding one teacher and the student psychologist) to allow them to reflect on the results. Using Google Jamboard, the participants suggested practical implications based on the initial results pertaining to the LE’s potential for student well-being. Then they commented on the student-teacher relationship during the pandemic and suggested potential solutions for the growing distance.

Analysis

In the initial coding phase, we coded all data partly inductively and partly deductively using Atlas.ti©. For RQ.1, the pandemic-related stressors disruption of social life, uncertainty, financial insecurity, daily routines, and a general sense of loss served as deductive codes. For RQ.3, the deductive codes encompassed the BPN, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These codes were enriched with additional codes emerging from the data until saturation. For RQ.2, we approached the analysis differently: one researcher first used the categories that participants created during the first interview and clustered them according to their similarities, then matched all resilience factors mentioned during the categorisation task with the category clusters. Subsequently, three researchers grouped and relabelled these factors to represent overarching themes. As some themes resemble Mansfield et al.’s [30] categorisation of resilience factors, we adopted their terms for these cases.

Based on this first coding phase, we created a codebook for each research question. Three researchers discussed these codes in shared reflection sessions and created final overarching themes. This process reduced the number of codes to 8 to 15 codes for each research question. We adjusted the initial codebooks accordingly and used them as a basis for the second coding round. To ensure interrater reliability, two independent researchers executed this coding stage, one for the whole data set and the other for 8 of the 24 interviews. They discussed and resolved discrepancies, then addressed any open questions in an additional, shared reflection session with all researchers. This process produced the adjusted final codebook.

RQ.1 student well-being in times of crisis

RQ.2 resilience factors in times of crisis

The participants’ categorisations of resilience factors at t1 led to two main clusters, one within the individual and the other within academia (RQ.2, Fig 2; see S2 File for the raw categorisations). Interestingly, students reported relying more strongly on individual compared with academic resilience factors. Based on their categorisations, participants identified aspects regarding their top three resilience factors (at t1), the decreased or increased importance of those during the pandemic (t2), and their potential for resilience growth (t4; see Table 2) for a longitudinal comparison.

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Table 2. Classification of resilience factors: Top 3 resilience factors (t1); which ones have become more or less important or changed in nature due to the pandemic (t2); which ones entail the potential for resilience growth.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292995.t002

RQ.3 the role of the LE in times of crisis

Regarding the LE, we identified a network of clusters surrounding changes within the academic system and the consequences thereof. We identified adaptation at the university level and the learning environment organisation regarding changes within the academic system. Concerning consequences thereof, we differentiate between consequences for teaching–with an emphasis of relatedness and faculty–as well as for learning.

Student well-being in times of crisis

We found that pandemic-related stressors and the general sense of loss, as noted by Taylor [4] and Holmes et al. [5], influenced students’ well-being significantly, particularly by disrupting their social lives. Our results echo prior research stating that social and emotional loneliness strongly predict low pandemic-related well-being and impact students’ personal lives [58,59]. However, the loss of daily routines and the uncertainty affected students nearly as much, as noted by prior research as well [59]. Such uncertainties have already been indicated by other studies as well, highlighting the insecurity surrounding returning to on-site teaching and fulfilling their programme successfully [59]. Only financial insecurities were less relevant to the participants. Given that job and, hence, also financial security has been found to predict low well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic [58], our results may stem from the small and, hence, unrepresentative sample size. In total, all of these stressors have been associated with student well-being throughout the COVID-19 pandemic [60], so that our results add to the wealth of findings already present.

Regarding students’ sense of loss, the sub-codes provided interesting insights: the loss of experience was mentioned most frequently, but the loss of development and control also appeared relevant. Such losses echo prior research highlighting the uncertainty of making up for what was lost during these pandemic months and years [59]. Moreover, loss of control emerges as highly relevant for well-being research during COVID-19 as well when combined with uncertainty, also regarding coping and resilience [25,26,61]. Pandemic-related aspects such as uncertainty and loss of control resonate with aspects of traumatic experiences. Previous research similarly locates the COVID-19 pandemic within the context of traumatic psychological responses within and outside academia [25,27]. Identifying the COVID-19 pandemic as a potential collective traumatic experience highlights the role of resilience as a psychological counter-process that should be included in pandemic-related well-being research.

Resilience factors in times of crisis

Based on our findings, individual and academic resilience factors emerged. Individual resilience factors included personal and social resources, contextual factors, and general learning strategies; those on an academic level comprised the academic support system, educational tools, outcomes, relatedness with faculty members, and sense of belonging. Up until now, researchers have distinguished resilience factors in different ways; for instance, Ang et al. [23] differentiates internal–such as personal resources ‐ and external factors–such as social resources. Yet, taken together, all these resilience factors appeared essential to cope with pandemic-related challenges, as proposed by prior literature as well [23]. All participants rated personal resources consistently as very important. Yet they varied in their perceptions of which other resilience factors were most important: students mainly mentioned social resources concerning relationships outside the academic realm, but university staff considered relatedness with faculty members within academia as more relevant. At this point, we want to acknowledge that both codes overlap, as social resources outside academia may be fellow students that have become friends students meet up with outside university as well. However, we still consider it important to distinguish between the two aspects, as they developed differently throughout the pandemic. For instance, faculty members believed social resources outside academia to be increasingly relevant, whilst relatedness with faculty members lost significance. This perception resonates with previous research noting the crucial relevance of social resources, for both traumatic event recovery and non-pathological academic well-being [23,62]. Likewise, the student-faculty relationship has been found to promote student well-being already before the pandemic [63] and deserves attention despite the consistent impairments throughout the pandemic. As more resilient students reported better attitudes towards online and hybrid education, investing in these resilience factors appears essential, particularly in times of remote teaching [15].

Beyond that, the participants rated these factors regarding their potential for post-traumatic or resilience growth. They indicated particularly personal but also social resources have grown because of the pandemic. COVID-19-related research has already started investigating the effects surrounding post-traumatic growth in the aftermath of the pandemic [61]. For instance, Vazquez and colleagues [64] found post-traumatic growth associated with beliefs about a good world, openness to the future, and identification with humanity. At the same time, not being able to cope with uncertainty, a pandemic-related stressor that we found in our results as well, led to post-traumatic stress instead. Moreover, Baños and colleagues [65] reported positive functioning decreased throughout the pandemic, whereas at the same time, emotional distress, but also personal strength increased. Taken together, such findings hint towards the great potential for post-traumatic growth due to having experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in terms of personal and social resources.

The role of the LE in times of crisis

Lastly, we focused on the link between the LE and students’ need satisfaction. Of these, competence appeared to have been affected the least. For autonomy, the pattern that emerged distinguishes experiences within and outside academia. Outside academia, external restrictions imposed by pandemic-related measures impaired students’ feelings of autonomy. Within academia, their autonomy increased due to flexibility and independence through remote educational settings. The focus group echoed this duality when a teacher expressed the difficulties of finding a good balance between giving students more autonomy or more structure when teaching online.

Relatedness emerged as especially crucial for students’ well-being in pandemic times. Given the social restriction measures, a compromised sense of relatedness and connection should be expected; the findings pertaining to growing distances confirm this hypothesis and indicate that relatedness has become increasingly disrupted. Students felt disconnected and unrelated to their remote educational system, which may lead to lower adaptability towards changes within their LE [43]. Disconnection among students and with teachers in online teaching settings has been addressed by prior research, both during and before the pandemic [51,59]. On the one hand, student-teacher relationships appear to have become deeper through empathy and flexibility to ease the students’ situation [59]. On the other hand, studies have shown that students in online teaching programs tend to disengage from peers and actively withdraw from online social activities [66]. Such behaviour may amplify social disconnections within the academic system even further. Our data indicated that participants connected this lack of relatedness with feelings of detachedness and academic demands. These findings echo other studies highlighting the relationship between lacking relatedness and unfavourable learning outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic [67]. The participants in the focus group, furthermore, noted differences in relatedness depending on whether students started before or during online teaching: maintaining a sense of connectedness in an online environment appears less of a concern than establishing it in the first place. Prior research has investigated this phenomenon as well, distinguishing between deeper connections with good friends and increased disconnection from fellow students [59].

Ultimately, we found both negative and positive consequences for online learning, revealing the complex aftermath of the pandemic that academia must take into account. Despite positive aspects, previous research has demonstrated that students generally prefer offline to online education [54] and that studying online is unfavourable for their resilience development [68]. Other researchers investigating academic well-being throughout COVID-19 have found this duality as well [59,69]. According to these findings, advantages encompass shorter travel time, easier access to education and the possibility to study according to one’s personal learning habits. At the same time, disadvantages span depersonalisation, screen fatigue, and technical difficulties [59,69,70]. Therefore, universities must attempt to balance the positive and negative consequences that online teaching entails.

Limitations

Although the findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the interaction between students’ well-being and the LE, certain limitations remain. These mainly regard the rather small sample. Interviewing only two students may have excluded essential aspects, such as a precarious financial situation. Also in general, a sample size of only six participants has most likely restricted the representability of this study, as it encompasses too few individual experiences. A sample size of 15 to 20 interviewees would be preferable for qualitative research, though prior research also indicates that 12 participants can suffice and achieve saturation when using thematic coding, and as few as 6 participants may already cover essential elements [71]. For our study, the six interviewees participated four times throughout the study, adding up to 24 interviews in total. Consequently, the present findings may be grounded in sufficient data to ensure basic saturation regardless. Moreover, the qualitative nature of the study in itself may have been an additional limitation. Whereas the level of detail of individual experiences belongs to the strengths of qualitative research, it automatically comes with a lack of generalisability to a greater population.

Another limitation involves the interviewees’ willingness to participate. The interviewees expressed interest in the topic prior to the study and enough enthusiasm to participate for nearly 12 months. This recruitment method creates a potential bias through, by focusing on people who are specifically aware of and prone to engage with well-being; we might have excluded the perspectives of students and faculty members unaware of these topics. Finally, interviewees reported that participating in the interview study had promoted their well-being. Therefore, the research itself may have affected them, and the results may be more favourable than they would have been otherwise.

Implications and further research

The present findings support the importance of the BPN for academic well-being research, highlighting the link between the self-determination theory and the academic system. We recommend that research on this topic continues, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Furthermore, the current study raises a variety of potential implications for how the LE could enhance student well-being during distance learning. Particularly during the focus group, the participants reflected on what our preliminary results could mean for an educational “new normal”. They emphasised best practices that they had already experienced during remote teaching, such as using annotations combined with asynchronous recordings, so teachers and students become pen-pals. Furthermore, engaging in written instead of verbal conversation led to more openness involving sensitive issues so that quiet students participated more. Therefore, such educational practices may be beneficial.

Satisfying students’ BPN appeared particularly relevant for educational practice. Investing in need satisfaction is crucial for developing students’ resilience in online LEs [72,73], as evidenced by interventions to promote students’ BPN in prior research [74]. Moreover, the participants suggested additional educational tools to satisfy various BPN simultaneously. One example constitutes small group work, as emphasised by other researchers as well [59]. Letting students choose their groups themselves may stimulate their feeling of autonomy and relatedness, as such a process gives them the feeling of control while allowing a safe shared space within these groups.

Participants also suggested ideas to promote students’ sense of autonomy specifically. The LE could be designed to counteract students’ uncertainty and loss of control. For instance, being transparent in academic decisions and curricula changes may prevent students from feeling helpless or uncertain. Furthermore, participants proposed more flexibility for deadlines, online exams, and the freedom to choose an examination mode themselves, at least for more experienced students. Giving students a participatory voice in shaping their LE may enhance their feeling of control [46]. However, giving them flexibility may be counterproductive if the external structure is lacking. Therefore, teachers should juggle providing structure while simultaneously emphasising students’ autonomy.

Investing in both student–teacher and student-student relationships may be valuable for students’ sense of relatedness. Research has already called for a reconceptualization of the relatedness concept for higher education in post-pandemic times [75]. Providing time to connect might constitute a first step towards a more connected academic system. Actively investing in relationships is critical though, when conventional means to establish and maintain relationships (e.g., meeting in the hallway) are lacking. Instead, teachers might ask students how they are doing in one-to-one or group settings. Furthermore, new opportunities to connect could arise from small-scale teaching and steady study or mentor groups. Staying together in one fixed study group throughout the class trajectory could contribute to a sense of relatedness. In addition, students reported that they were more engaged and felt more connected to others when seeing them on video. Considering that turning one’s video off has become somewhat standard, reversing this practice would be a quick and easy way to improve students’ relatedness. Teachers sharing informal information about themselves also may result in the sense of cohesion and encourage students to open up, too. Beyond that, student and study organisations could serve as intermediaries to re-engage students with their study surroundings.

The feeling of decreased relatedness between teachers and students is particularly concerning. This phenomenon can arise from non-transparent communication on both sides: Students may not be aware of the teachers’ efforts in online teaching, and teachers may have lost sense of their students’ well-being. Teachers experienced remote education in the pandemic negatively as well [59,76,77], and communicating such struggles to students may create a sense of common humanity. The feeling of being in it together and acknowledging one another’s problems could then contribute to a greater feeling of relatedness. Therefore, openness and appreciation on both sides could be a first step toward a more related academic environment.