An Evaluative Study of College Students with Respect to Exploring The Consequences of Covid-19 on Social, Psychological and Educational Aspects Due to Closure of Offline Classes

Abstract

This research is an evaluative study that explores the social, psychological and educational consequences of the physical closure of colleges, leading to discontinuation of offline/face to face classes upon students’ lives. It is based on data gathered from a volunteer sample of 22 second and third year students from various departments of a woman’s college, ranging across science, commerce and humanities streams. These participants had switched over from a face- to- face mode of studies to online education suddenly in March 2020, when college campuses closed physically. The participants had experienced online education for more than 10 months when the data was collected from them in January-February 2021. The data was gathered through a question-based telephonic interview. The study was data-driven. The findings indicated that a vast majority of participants sorely missed a closer student-teacher relationship, the college premises as a site of social interaction and a concentration of teaching-learning in actual classrooms. The overall experience was reported as that of social isolation, psychological turmoil and learning losses due to the physical closure of the college. The physical closure of the college was like a spanner in the wheel for each participant in some way or the other.