Undergraduate student experiences in remote lab courses during the COVID-19 pandemic

The 2020–2021 academic year was a unique time for many instructors who had to adapt their courses to be conducted remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was especially challenging for physics lab courses, which usually emphasize hands-on experiments. Although many courses have now returned to in-person teaching, the possibility remains of future disasters necessitating similar remote courses. It is important to understand how undergraduate students experienced remote physics lab courses during the pandemic, including what aspects of the courses contributed to positive student outcomes. To investigate this, we surveyed over 5000 students from 24 different institutions, asking how the students engaged with their physics lab courses during the 2020–2021 academic year. Here, we describe the frequency with which the students performed various class activities, aspects of the course environment, challenges the students faced, aspects of the courses the students found enjoyable, and some student outcomes. We further study the impact of the course activities and course environment on four of the outcomes (self-reported learning of lab skills, self-reported learning of concepts, course enjoyment, and development of a sense of community). We find that students who were provided clear expectations, had enough time for their coursework, frequently worked in groups, and frequently had access to guidance from their instructors were more likely to report positive outcomes. This work demonstrates the importance of certain aspects of lab courses for several desirable outcomes in remote lab courses during a pandemic, with findings that may transfer to in-person or remote lab courses in the future.

Figure 1

Percentages of students in FY and BFY courses who participated in their courses entirely remotely, entirely in person, in a hybrid format, or in some other manner (e.g., the modality changed partway through the term). These percentages are of the number of students who responded to this question ($N=5070$ for students in FY courses and $N=433$ for students in BFY courses).

Figure 2

Student experiences with conducting hands-on experiments themselves and watching others conduct experiments over video. (a) Percent of students in FY (plain, $N=4565$) and BFY (hatched, $N=250$) courses who never, rarely, sometimes, often, and always (progressively lighter shades of green) conducted hands-on experiments and watched others conduct experiments over video. (b) Percent of students in FY (plain, $N=1963$) and BFY (hatched, $N=185$) courses who used different kinds of equipment for hands-on experiments at home out of the students who completed hands-on experiments at home. (c) Percent of students in FY (plain, $N=3491$) and BFY (hatched, $N=157$) courses who engaged with videos in different ways out of the students who watched others conduct experiments over video with any frequency.

Figure 3

Percent of students in FY (plain, $N=4565$) and BFY (hatched, $N=250$) courses who never, rarely, sometimes, often, and always (progressively lighter shades of green) performed different activities in their lab course. These activities are ordered by the percent of FY students who responded never.

Figure 4

Student responses to questions about the course environment. Two Likert scale questions show the percent of students who ranked their agreement with the statements from strongly disagree (dark red) to strongly agree (dark blue). Three frequency scale questions show the percent of students who never, rarely, sometimes, often, and always (progressively lighter shades of green) had certain experiences in their course, ordered by the percent of FY students who responded never. The percentages shown are the percent of students in BFY (hatched, $N=250$) or FY (plain, $N=4565$) courses.

Figure 5

Percent of students in FY (plain, $N=4565$) and BFY (hatched, $N=250$) courses who strongly disagree (dark red) through strongly agree (dark blue) that they attained various course outcomes.

Figure 6

Aspects of the course (a) enjoyed and (b) found challenging by the students. Challenges include only those relevant for remote courses. Percentages are of students in FY (plain, $N=4565$) and BFY (hatched, $N=250$) courses and error bars show the 95% confidence intervals.

Figure 7

Logistic regression odds ratios for students who agreed or strongly agreed that they learned concepts in their course compared with all other students. Only variables with uncorrected $p$ values less than 0.05 are shown. Bold variables are those that are statistically significant after the Holm-Bonferroni correction. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals. The odds ratios are on a log scale to make the positive and negative effects be of approximately equal size.

Figure 8

Logistic regression odds ratios for students who agreed or strongly agreed that they learned lab skills in their course compared with all other students. Only variables with uncorrected $p$ values less than 0.05 are shown. Bold variables are those that are statistically significant after the Holm-Bonferroni correction. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals. The odds ratios are on a log scale to make the positive and negative effects be of approximately equal size.

Figure 9

Logistic regression odds ratios for students who agreed or strongly agreed that they enjoyed their course compared with all other students. Only variables with uncorrected $p$ values less than 0.05 are shown. Bold variables are those that are statistically significant after the Holm-Bonferroni correction. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals. The odds ratios are on a log scale to make the positive and negative effects be of approximately equal size.

Figure 10

Logistic regression odds ratios for students who agreed or strongly agreed that they developed a sense of community compared with all other students. Only variables with uncorrected $p$ values less than 0.05 are shown. Bold variables are those that are statistically significant after the Holm-Bonferroni correction. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals. The odds ratios are on a log scale to make the positive and negative effects be of approximately equal size.

Figure 11

Logistic regression odds ratios for students who disagreed or strongly disagreed that they (a) learned concepts, (b) learned lab skills, (c) enjoyed the course, and (d) developed a sense of community. Only variables with uncorrected $p$ values less than 0.5 are shown. Bold variables are those that are statistically significant after the Holm-Bonferroni correction. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals. Note that the odds ratios are on a log scale to make a decrease in the odds be of an approximately equal size to an increase.