Dear UIS Colleagues,

Our research team (consisting of Emily Boles (COLRS), Kara McElwrath (ITS), and Jennifer Martin (School of Education)) recently received IRB approval to conduct a study at UIS about student and professor experiences pre- and post-COVID. 

The instructor survey opens today, September 9. Please complete the survey by September 23. The survey should take approximately 10 minutes and you need only answer the questions you choose.

Here is our research focus:

When the COVID-19 pandemic exploded across the globe in the spring of 2020 and continued into 2021, colleges and university campuses closed and face-to-face classes were moved online and instructors and students struggled with learning at a distance. Perhaps most significantly, they struggled to regain the instructor/student connections that support learning. We have anecdotally experienced unprecedented student struggles with academics post-COVID. We hope to gauge professor and student experiences with said struggles.

Our goals:

• To gain a better understanding of student struggles with academic performance post-COVID.
• To gain a better understanding of new challenges for professors regarding student success post-COVID.
• To gain success strategies for professors and students to address said challenges.

We have two short surveys: one for professors and one for students.

Our hope is to present findings as well as strategy workshops to the UIS community after our data analysis phase.

We hope that you will support our research by taking our short survey and passing on the student survey to your students. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Jennifer L. Martin, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Associate Professor
School of Education
University of Illinois Springfield
BRK 313
217-206-7007
jmart315@uis.edu