The Student Council’s sixth survey was sent out on February 7th to all students at the University of Iceland. 843 students had taken the survey when it ended on February 14th. 15,258 students are registered at the University. Questions were asked about personal background, well-being and teaching conditions, both in Icelandic and English, but there were 27 questions.

As with previous surveys, the aim was to examine the effect of the pandemic on the well-being and academic progress of students at the University of Iceland. In this way, it is possible to get a better view of the situation and better outline ways for improvement.

The results show that the effects due to COVID continue to be difficult for students, but this is mainly due to the lack of connection with fellow students, increased online learning and the stress that comes with it. The majority of students prefer to be able to attend the school’s premises and it is clear that limited social life has affected their mental health. The students’ experience has thus changed from feeling insecure due to COVID to worrying about not having good control over their studies and how those circumstances affect mental health.

Important points to be deduced from the results:

• 56% say online learning has worked very well or rather well.
• Of those who are in online learning, 34.74% think that it is very successful to use  telecommunication programs and 42.82% way it has gone rather well.
• Of those in online earning, 18.41% think that teachers’ teaching methods are very good and 44.51% think they are rather good.
• 75.96% of students from the School of Social Sciences strongly agree that resit and makeup exams, due to the final exams in the fall semester, should take place in January.
• 25.39% believe that it has been very difficult to get to know fellow students during the fall semester of 2021.
• 32.03% say that online learning has had a rather large effect on their well-being, on the scale: extremely to not at all.
• 53.85% mark their well-being 5 or higher on a scale of 0-10, the scale ranges from very poorly (0) to extremely well (10)
• 63.58% experience stress and/or strain that they believe has a very large or rather large effect on their studies.
• 61.4% said that online learning has had either a very negative effect or a negative effect on interest and ability to learn. 27.2% said it has had a positive effect.

 

The survey in its entirety can be found here.