Minoritized students’ experiences with pandemic-era remote learning inform ways of expanding access.

What is it about?

This study documented how minoritized undergraduate students navigated challenges related to access during their day-to-day experiences of pandemic-era remote learning and how, in community with others, they leveraged strengths to expand opportunities for access. Fifteen undergraduate seniors—the majority of whom identified as first generation to college, low-income, and/or students of color—participated in in-depth interviews during their first term of pandemic-era remote learning. The results illustrated how remote learning both limited and broadened four areas of access: learning space, learning materials, course participation, and social connections and community. We documented how flexible and collaborative practices with instructors, peers, and family provided a powerful approach to strengthening access to learning across all four areas.

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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The results provide critical insights, as shared by students themselves, on how institutions of higher education can reduce longstanding and new inequities and invest in strategies for expanding access. Such insights are timely for continued learning in remote instruction and for consideration of long-term practices as we shift back to forms of in-person learning.