SECONDARY E-LEARNING STUDENTS’ TRANSITION TO UNIVERSITY AND COVID-19 EMERGENCY REMOTE LEARNING

Abstract

Approximately 300,000 Canadian students are currently engaged in K-12 distance learning (Archibald et al., 2019). Despite the growth in secondary e-learning, there is limited research on how students with secondary e-learning experience are transitioning into traditional postsecondary university programs. This research is an exploratory study on how Ontarian students with secondary e-learning backgrounds transitioned into their first year of postsecondary education and Emergency Remote Learning (ERL) and how their secondary e-learning experiences impacted these transitions. Using Giorgi’s (2009) Descriptive Phenomenological Method, this study revealed that the structure of the transitional experiences of first-year university students with secondary e-learning backgrounds had four constituents: readiness, barriers, supports and strategies, and development and adaption. In order to overcome transitional barriers, students had to adjust by developing new attitudes, behaviours, and strategies. Students described how their secondary e-learning experiences helped them develop the new skills and attitudes that they needed to adapt to the changes in their new learning environments. This study showed that secondary e-learning positively impacted students’ transition to university and ERL.