Impact and success factors of online education methods at university level in times of COVID-19: a case study of Paraguay

ABSTRACT

The drastic changes that COVID-19 has brought along include the necessity to introduce new forms of online university education. This article compares the impact of the change from face-to-face to online classes on student performance and satisfaction and identifies key success factors for effective online teaching. The study is based on the comparison of 34 face-to-face and online courses in 2019 and 2020 among 416 students of the 1e to 4e-year from the degree programs of the Faculty of Business Sciences of the German Paraguayan University in Paraguay. The study provides a methodology to identify and measure the success factors for an effective change to online education and provides practical lessons learned on the effective integration of digital tools in the teaching and learning process, relevant for other universities in developing and developed countries alike.