ABSTRACT
Different strategies were followed to control the spread of the COVID-19 disease worldwide. Jordan declared a military-enforced curfew for three months, which successfully controlled the disease spreading. However, the curfew impacted several aspects of students' lives and personalities. This study discusses the impact of the COVID-19 curfew restrictions on university students' mental health, as this area was not fully discussed in previous studies. An online survey was distributed to cover the psychological symptoms and coping strategies of university students. Most of them experienced short temper, anxiety, and sleep problems. Female students expressed more psychological symptoms than males, they managed their stress by sleeping, studying, and worshiping. Whereas male students were working, exercising, and playing video games. A distinct interest was noticed among students of different ages. Young students (18-25 years) expressed unhappiness and distress-like symptoms; they advocated sleeping and playing video games. While elder students (>26 years) had anxiety, sleep problems, and short tempers, they managed their symptoms by studying, exercising, and worshiping. The curfew restrictions have negatively impacted the mental health of female and younger students more than other categories. These research outcomes will help decision-makers to implement healthy coping strategies to be followed during unusual conditions. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-01833-1.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease that affects the respiratory system. In addition to the severe effects of the disease on health, the pandemic caused a negative impact on basic needs and services, employment, education, and economy worldwide. In Jordan, the whole country locked down, and quarantine was enforced by the military forces, which successfully controlled the spread of the disease. This research aims to study the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated quarantine on university students' beliefs about online learning practice in Jordan. An online descriptive survey involved questions that covered students' demographic information, student's basic and advanced knowledge about COVID-19, students' online learning experience during the quarantine, and finally students' views on the enforced quarantine practice in Jordan. Results showed that students have a good knowledge (>50%) about the COVID-19 basic information and a moderate knowledge (<50%) regarding COVID-19 advanced information. In general, students were pessimistic about the future of COVID-19 both locally and worldwide. Although some students acknowledged that they learned new skills in the fields of electronics, informatics, and computer software during the pandemic, most of them were unsatisfied about the quality and quantity of the given material, online exams, and the evaluation processes. Unfortunately, most of the students faced internet technical problems or challenges to electronic accessibility. The majority of the participants (>90%) supported the military-enforced quarantine implemented in the country despite the hard time the students had during the quarantine. We conclude that university students were able to protect themselves from COVID-19 through their good knowledge about the infectious disease and their commitment to follow the rules imposed by the Government of Jordan. Nevertheless, the challenges caused by the pandemic and its associated quarantine, combined with the sudden unprecedented online experience, negatively impacted students' thoughts and beliefs about the online learning experience during the quarantine. Further studies need to be performed in this context. We hope our results will help decision-makers better understand the students' attitudes and motivation toward online learning and how this will affect their future plans and decisions.