Undergraduates' perceptions on emergency remote learning in ecology in the post‐pandemic era

The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly disrupted academic activities, particularly in disciplines with a strong empirical component among other reasons by limiting our mobility. It is thus essential to assess emergency remote teaching plans by surveying learners’ opinions and perceptions during these unusual circumstances. To achieve this aim, we conducted a survey during the spring semester of 2021 in an environmental science programme to ascertain learners’ perceptions on online and onsite learning activities in ecology-based modules. We were particularly interested not only in comparing the performance of these two types of activities but also in understanding the role played by learners’ perceptions about nature in shaping this pattern. Environmental science programmes are rather heterogeneous from a conceptual point of view and, thus, learners may also be more diverse than in traditional ecology programmes, which may affect their interest for ecology-based modules. We assessed connectedness to nature by computing the reduced version of the Nature Relatedness Scale. Here, we found that online activities systematically obtained significantly lower scores than onsite activities regardless of the wording employed, and that altruistic behaviours were prevalent among learners. Interestingly, scores for both onsite and online activities were strongly influenced by learners’ connectedness to nature, as learners with a stronger connection to nature gave higher scores to both types of activities. Our results suggest that an effort to improve the efficacy of remote learning activities should be the focus of research about teaching methodologies in predominantly empirical scientific disciplines.

Methods
Survey conducted among 49 undergraduate students between 19 and 23 years-old enrolled in the Environmental Science programme of the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) (Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, PR China) during the second semester of the Academic Year 2020-2021. The survey has three main thematic areas: perceptions on online vs. onsite teaching, the connection between concepts and practical activities of these two types of activities, and on altruistic data collection. We employed a five-level quantitative Likert scale to assess learners’ perceptions.

We enquired undergraduates about to what extent they enjoyed online vs onsite activities (Q01-Q02, Q09-Q14, and Q17-Q20) and, additionally, to what extent these activities seemed connected to concepts and theories (Q01-Q02 and Q11-Q14). Furthermore, we asked undergraduates on their perceptions on normative and non-normative activities, namely about altruistic and non-altruistic data collection (Q15-Q16). These questions were presented in pairs to elicit learners’ reflection and were shuffled to avoid stereotyped responses. Finally, we included the shortened version of the NRS questionnaire (NR-6), which consists of 6 questions, to assess how connectedness to nature interacted with perceptions on learning approaches and altruistic behaviours (Q03-Q08).

新冠疫情（COVID-19 pandemic）严重冲击了学术活动，尤其是对依赖强实证性的学科，其中一大诱因是出行限制。因此，在这一特殊背景下，通过调研学习者的看法与认知，评估应急远程教学方案至关重要。为达成这一目标，我们于2021年春季学期针对环境科学专业开展了一项调研，旨在了解学习者对生态学模块中线上与线下教学活动的认知。我们不仅关注对比这两类教学活动的效果，还希望探究学习者对自然的认知在塑造这一差异中所发挥的作用。环境科学专业从概念维度来看具有较强的异质性，因此学习者群体或许比传统生态学专业更加多元，这可能会影响他们对生态学模块的学习兴趣。我们通过计算简化版自然关联量表（Nature Relatedness Scale）来评估学习者与自然的关联程度。本次研究发现，无论采用何种表述方式，线上活动的得分均显著低于线下活动，且学习者群体中利他行为倾向普遍。值得注意的是，线下与线上活动的得分均受到学习者与自然关联程度的强烈影响：与自然关联度更高的学习者，对两类活动的评分均更高。我们的研究结果表明，提升远程教学活动的效能，应成为以实证为主的理科课程教学方法研究的重点方向。

研究方法
本次调研于2020-2021学年第二学期开展，调研对象为就读于中国江苏省苏州市西安交通大学利物浦大学（Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, XJTLU）环境科学专业的49名19至23岁本科生。调研涵盖三大核心主题：线上与线下教学的认知、两类活动的概念与实践关联，以及利他性数据收集。我们采用五级定量李克特量表（Likert scale）评估学习者的认知情况。
我们向本科生询问了他们对线上与线下活动的喜爱程度（Q01-Q02、Q09-Q14及Q17-Q20），此外还询问了这些活动与概念及理论的关联程度（Q01-Q02、Q11-Q14）。进一步地，我们调研了学习者对规范性与非规范性活动的认知，具体涉及利他性与非利他性数据收集相关问题（Q15-Q16）。为引导学习者进行反思，我们将这类问题以配对形式呈现，并对题目顺序进行了打乱以避免刻板应答。最后，我们纳入了简化版自然关联量表问卷（NR-6，共6个题目），以评估与自然的关联程度如何作用于学习者对学习方式及利他行为的认知（Q03-Q08）。