Needs and expectations of university students: Learning from the impact of Covid-19 upon 9 Spanish universities

Abel García-González
Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Inmaculada Aznar-Diaz
University of Granada, Spain
María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya
Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
José María Romero-Rodríguez
University of Granada, Spain

This research studied the needs of university students receiving distance and hybrid education during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study's main objective was to analyse the university students' expectations and needs in the Andalusia (Spain) region during the Covid-19 health emergency, to provide guidelines for post-Covid online and hybrid educational continuity. A qualitative interpretative study was carried out on the survey responses of 641 undergraduate and postgraduate students in nine Andalusian universities. Six themes related to the students' needs and expectations came from the findings. The needs and expectations of students during a health emergency like the Covid-19 pandemic depend on university management developing and implementing a clear plan of action, continually communicating with students, training teachers in the virtual and hybrid modalities, and building and maintaining empathetic relationships in the university community.
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Authors: Abel García-González (corresponding author) is candidate of the PhD program in Educational Innovation in the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico. His research interests include the development of social entrepreneurship education, experiential learning for social change and educational innovation. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3885-9772 Email: abelgar.g@gmail.com Inmaculada Aznar-Diaz is currently a Lecturer Professor with the Didactics and School Organisation Department, University of Granada, Spain. She works in the line of school organisation, digital competence in education, training for employment, and active learning methodologies. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0018-1150 Email: iaznar@ugr.es María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya works at the School of Humanities and Education of the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico. Her research interests include teaching strategies, technology resources for education, training of educational researchers and open education movement. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1274-706X Email: solramirez@tec.mx José María Romero-Rodríguez is a research profesor at Educational Sciences, University of Granada, Spain. He deals with the issues of mobile learning, educational innovation, and Internet addiction. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9284-8919 Email: romejo@ugr.es Please cite as: García-González, A., Aznar-Diaz, I., Ramírez-Montoya, M. S. & Romero-Rodríguez, J. M. (2022). Needs and expectations of university students: Learning from the impact of Covid-19 upon 9 Spanish universities. Issues in Educational Research, 32(1), 126-148. http://www.iier.org.au/iier32/garcia-gonzalez.pdf