Evaluating Student Learning Gain: A Study to Consider How Teaching Online During the Covid-19 Pandemic Affected Student Learning

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting enforced national lockdowns, universities have had to replace in-person teaching with online alternatives. With the ongoing marketization of Higher Education, it is important to understand how this change in delivery may have impacted upon student learning. To assess student learning, this paper used a model for evaluating learning gain, which considered student learning in the form of explicit knowledge gained (distance travelled), which relates to codifiable models and theories, and tacit understanding (journey travelled), which relates to practical skills and know-how. Self-reflective surveys were used to collect learning gain data from final year students studying an organisational leadership module as part of an undergraduate business studies degree course at a UK university. The research collected data in 2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic) for a cohort of students, and again in 2021 (during the Covid-19 pandemic) for the subsequent cohort of students. Through an analysis of both sets of data, a comparison has been possible between how students perceived their learning to have changed due to the alternative online educational delivery method being offered. Whereas a decrease in reported learning was expected from the online teaching, this was not always the case, and predominantly females appear to have particularly valued the educational experience offered by the online learning delivery.