Personal Motivation and Learning Self-Management in Students as Result of the Transition to Online Courses during COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic has changed the normal course of activities around the World. The measures implemented to slow down the spread of the disease and its impact on the health system have also suggested a change in population dynamics. In the educational aspect, the paradigm of the traditional education had to change completely to a remote environment, representing a challenge for students, teachers, and education institutions. In this work we report the students’ response to the actions taken by the faculty of the Chemistry Sciences School of Universidad La Salle México to face online courses ensuring student accompaniment. After the term, a qualitative and quantitative study was performed to the school population using an electronic survey to address the response of students to the applied strategy. Data was analyzed using SPSS® software. 266 responses were obtained, which represents a response rate of 44%. 75.6% of the alumni reported having a good or excellent disposition regarding virtual sessions. Likewise, 48.9% reported adapting appropriately to the remote working modality. Also, 83.5% of students recognize the labor of the teachers by acknowledging that their effort and dedication was excellent or good. Students showed development of soft skills such as self-time and learning management; written, oral and technological communication. These results suggest the advantages perceived by students during the transition to virtual modality, mostly oriented to self-management of their learning and that could conform the basis for the development of new strategies that can be useful not only for a contingency situation, but also in the structuration and innovation of science programs.