Studying during a pandemic: Student perceptions of their future employment potential

Background/context. Two years after the onset of the COVID pandemic, the student experience at university has still not returned to a pre-pandemic state. Now heading into their third year, students that enrolled into a Bachelor of Science degree at the start of the 2020 academic year have spent more than half their university life studying from home, in isolation. For the most part, the inculcation of core technical skills associated with their discipline have been pushed online or reserved for optional, ad-hoc on-campus experiences in the hope to catch them up.
The initiative/practice. However, these students enrolled with a different expectation, which led us to ask the questions: (1) how did the transition to an entirely online model of teaching affect the student experience and (2) what was the students’ perception on their workplace readiness when entering their final year of study?
Methods of evaluative data collection and analysis. Voluntary and anonymous online surveys were distributed to students finishing their second year of study. Thematic analysis was conducted using emergent coding (Charmaz, 2008) with themes derived from the primary research questions.
Evidence of outcomes and effectiveness. A significant proportion (35%) of survey respondents reported a lack of motivation when asked about the prospect of further studies being online. A common theme amongst the survey respondents was for a return to on-campus education, noting that on-campus teaching would facilitate a greater sense of inclusivity in their learning that online learning does not support. Survey respondents reported being uncertain about whether key technical skills will be appropriately developed by the time they graduate and the implications that this has on their forthcoming employment potential.