How Adaptable are National College of Ireland Students to Remote Learning?

As Covid-19 forced 3rd level education to close, it left institutions with the challenge of adapting to remote learning. As time progressed, uncertainty arose about when normality would return. To ensure the optimal outcome of learning for students, the study focuses on four main areas of remote learning. These areas are technological infrastructure, user-readiness, assessment and mental health. By assessing these four main topics, the researcher aims to identify how adaptable the National College of Ireland students are to remote learning. This information aims to identify recommendations on students support from government assistance, mental health and shared equity in the decision making of their assessment. From the findings on literature and students feedback through a quantitative research study, it can also be identified the flexibility of students in the future to possibly transition to a blended learning approach.

The findings from the study outline that students are satisfied with the assessment options but feel more could be done to ensure a better outcome for themselves. Although students managed their stressed accordingly, students feel more could be done to ensure their mental health is not being affected by academic distress. Student also find that their user-readiness is sufficient, although more personal training on hardware and software could be done to close the gap on potential errors within their field. The final topic of technological infrastructure finds that more could be done from the colleges end to ensure there is a sufficient learning outcome for students.