What Happened to Academic Achievement in Chemical Engineering?: A Study in the Days of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 forced higher education institutions to change the learning environment from face-to-face to computer-assisted to continue and ensure educational quality. Objective: This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of environmental change on the academic performance of chemical engineering students. Students of General Chemistry I and Engineering of Transport Phenomena participated and were recognized as apprentices and connoisseurs, respectively. Materials and methods: Two Likert-type instruments were designed and validated to evaluate the perception of academic and social variables at two moments, the beginning of isolation and the end of the semester;in addition, the grades of the first and sixth semester students who participated in the study, called apprentices and connoisseurs, respectively, were compared with the grades of students who took the subjects in other periods. Results and discussion: Experiencing a new learning context that strongly affected the social component decreased apprentices' performance, while connoisseurs improved their performance through school adaptation, a product of their experience and mental maturity. Communication and formative well-being were recognized as the variables that make face-to-face attendance more favorable for the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skills. The remote modality conditions the methodology affecting learning, and finally, the evaluation process does not change when the environment is modified, since, being an institutional requirement, it does not depend on the learning space. Conclusions: The learning environment affects the performance of students, negatively for learners and positively for connoisseurs, who by having university experience manifest a capacity for adaptation. On the other hand, face-to-face attendance favors well-being by improving assertive communication and the development of transversal competencies. © 2022, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. All rights reserved.