Graduate students significantly more concerned than undergraduates about returning to campus in the era of COVID-19
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Abstract
Introduction
As students return to colleges and universities in the fall of 2020, it is important to understand their perception of risk and their desire for in person versus online learning, which may differ between undergraduate and graduate students.
Methods
We anonymously surveyed 212 undergraduate and 134 graduate students in the College of Public Health, and 94 graduate students in the College of Education in late June, 2020. We asked them Likert style questions regarding their comfort returning to campus and their preferred learning strategies once back. We compared “Strongly agree/Agree” with “Neutral/Disagree/Strongly disagree” using a chi-square test.
Results
Graduate students were significantly less likely to look forward to being on campus (38.3% doctoral vs 40.6% master’s vs 77.7% undergraduate, p < 0.001), more likely to perceive themselves as high risk (43.3% doctoral vs 40.0% masters vs 17.5% undergraduate, p < 0.001), and were more likely to prefer all classwork online (66.7% doctoral vs 44.6% master’s vs 20.8% undergraduate, p < 0.001). Graduate students were also less likely to prefer to be in the classroom as much as possible in the fall (59.2% doctoral vs 67.7% master’s vs 74.5% undergraduate, p < 0.001). Most were not concerned about their ability to conduct research. Students generally supported wearing of facemasks indoors.
Conclusions
There are important differences in perception of risk and desire for online versus in-person learning between undergraduate and graduate students. Faculty and administrators must acknowledge and address these differences as they prepare for return to campus in the fall.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.15.20154682: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources After surveing students in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the survey was slightly adapted by leadership of the College of Public Health (the question “I am comfortable with a requirement that students and faculty wear masks in indoor spaces and during classes” was changed to “Strongly encouraging student to wear face masks while indoors or during face-to-face lectures is a good idea”, and the question “I prefer not to wear face masks while indoors or during … SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.15.20154682: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources After surveing students in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the survey was slightly adapted by leadership of the College of Public Health (the question “I am comfortable with a requirement that students and faculty wear masks in indoor spaces and during classes” was changed to “Strongly encouraging student to wear face masks while indoors or during face-to-face lectures is a good idea”, and the question “I prefer not to wear face masks while indoors or during face-to-face lectures” was added). Biostatisticssuggested: (BWH Biostatistics Center, RRID:SCR_009680)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No funding statement was detected.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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