Increase in Anxiety among Learners and Educators

Lastly the pandemic greatly disrupted the normal formal causing great anxiety due to the many existing uncertainties and unknown future. According to a given study, it found out that the prevalence of moderate-severe anxiety in students increased from 18.1% before the pandemic to 25.3% four months after the pandemic began (Andreu et al., 2023). One of the reasons that caused the increase in distress among learners was the shift to online learning. The sudden shift to online learning caused learners to stay home and reduce normal social interactions. The reduction in the normal physical manner brought about loneliness and mental distress among the different students, and this heightened the level of anxiety. Also, the uncertainty surrounding the duration and severity of the pandemic created a great sense of distress among learners and teachers. Students and staff needed a clearer understanding of what would happen in the future, causing great instability.Moreover, the shift in assessment methods and evaluation procedures was another cause of distress (Andreu et al., 2023). Students were initially used to the normal sit-in cats and physical exams, but during the pandemic, it came to a stop. New testing methods, such as online tests and exams, became the new mode; COVID-19 brought about great changes in the learning structure, which caused the learners and teachers a lot of distress.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant changes in the entire education sector. The normal structure of physical learning in institutions came to a halt to reduce the spread of respiratory disease. One significant change the pandemic brought to the sector is the closure of learning institutions. After the learning institutions were forced to close, there was an urgent need to continue with the curriculum; therefore, there was an increase in remote learning using digital resources to facilitate e-learning. Educators and facilitators had to familiarize themselves with modern technology; therefore, the pandemic increased the teachers’ adaptability and professional development. However, students and the staff were forced to these significant changes within a short period, which caused a heightened level of distress among learners and teachers.

References

Andreu, J. M. P., Salas-Sánchez, J., Cordón, J. T., Álvarez-Kurogi, L., González-García, H., & López, R. T. (2023). Social anxiety and academic performance during COVID-19 in schoolchildren. PLOS ONE, 18(1), e0280194. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280194