Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Life of Higher Education Students: Global Survey Dataset from the First Wave

The Covid-19 pandemic has completely reshaped the lives of people around the world, including the lives of higher education students. Beyond serious health consequences for a proportion of those directly affected by the virus, the pandemic holds important implications for the life and work of higher education students, considerably affecting their physical and mental well-being. To capture how students perceived the first wave of the pandemic’s impact, one of the most comprehensive and large-scale online surveys across the world was conducted. Carried out between 5 May 2020 and 15 June 2020, the survey came at a time when most countries were experiencing the arduous lockdown restrictions. The online questionnaire was prepared in seven different languages (English, Italian, North Macedonian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish) and covered various aspects of higher education students’ life, including socio-demographic and academic characteristics, academic life, infrastructure and skills for studying from home, social life, emotional life and life circumstances. Using the convenience sampling method, the online questionnaire was distributed to higher education students (aged 18 and over) and enrolled in a higher education institution. The final dataset consisted of 31,212 responses from 133 countries and 6 continents. The data may prove useful for researchers studying the pandemic’s impacts on various aspects of student life. Policymakers can utilize the data to determine the best solutions as they formulate policy recommendations and strategies to support students during this and any future pandemic.

COVID-19疫情彻底重塑了全球人民的生活，其中高等教育学生的生活亦然。除了一部分直接受病毒影响的个体所面临的严重健康后果外，该疫情对高等教育学生的生活与工作产生了深远的影响，显著影响了他们的身心健康。为捕捉学生对于疫情第一波冲击的认知，全球范围内开展了一次最为全面和大规模的在线调查。该调查于2020年5月5日至6月15日进行，正值多数国家正经历艰难的封锁限制时期。在线问卷准备了七种不同的语言版本（英语、意大利语、北马其顿语、葡萄牙语、罗马尼亚语、西班牙语、土耳其语），涵盖了高等教育学生生活的多个方面，包括社会人口统计和学术特征、学术生活、居家学习的基础设施与技能、社交生活、情感生活及生活状况。采用便利抽样法，在线问卷被发放给高等教育学生（年龄18岁及以上，并就读于高等教育机构）。最终数据集由来自133个国家及6个大陆的31,212份回应组成。这些数据对于研究疫情对学生生活各方面的影响可能具有重要意义。政策制定者可以利用这些数据，在制定政策建议和策略时，确定支持学生在此次及未来任何疫情中的最佳解决方案。