Dr. Kuiyuan Li

Due to COVID-19, all courses at a regional comprehensive university in the southeastern United States transitioned online and were delivered remotely in the latter half of the spring semester of 2020. In this study, students’ performance data from four graduate programs in social sciences and two graduate mathematics programs for the spring semesters of 2019, 2020, and 2021 were collected and analyzed. Different e-learning methods were used across the different fields represented in these graduate programs. This study shows that graduate students performed well and synchronous hybrid courses reduced or negated the negative impacts of the pandemic COVID-19 on student learning. The percentage of students receiving a “B-” or better did not change significantly over time (p = 0.796 for social sciences and p = 0.315 for mathematics), total enrollment increased over time (p < 0.001 for both social sciences and mathematics), and graduation rates remained constant for social sciences (p = 0.346) while there was a bolus of graduating students in spring 2020 for mathematics (p < 0.001). Based on this study, recommendations were made for teaching and learning in future graduate level courses.