Effects of an emergency transition to online learning in higher education in Mexico.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many changes to the world we live in. This can be seen in the current challenges faced in health, economics, socio-cultural context, and education. Sánchez Maríñez et al. (2020) addressed the impact of the current pandemic on educational systems across Latin America. The National Association of Universities and Higher Education (Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Instituciones de Educación Superior, ANUIES, 2020) declared that while facing the effects of this pandemic, universities in Mexico should focus their efforts on: a) maintaining educational services, b) ensuring the safety of members of society, and c) using educational infrastructure and research to combat the effects of the pandemic. This manuscript reports on the findings obtained from a qualitative exploratory study conducted in a public state university in Southeastern Mexico. The study aimed to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ learning while emergently transitioning from a mainly face-to-face instructional setting to an exclusive online learning environment mediated through technology, as a result of the pandemic.