The impact of COVID-19 induced emergency remote instruction on students’ academic performance at an HBCU

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic early in 2020 forced universities to shut down their campuses and transition to emergency remote instruction (ERI). Students had to quickly adapt to this new mode of instruction while dealing with all other distractions caused by the pandemic. This study integrates extensive data from students’ institutional records at a large Historically Black College and University (HBCU) institution with data from a students’ survey about the impact of COVID-19 on learning during the Spring 2020 semester to examine the impact of the transition to ERI on students’ performance and identify the main factors explaining variations in students’ performance. The main findings of our analysis are: (a) students’ university experience was positively correlated with performance (continuing students who spent at least one academic year at the university prior to the outbreak had better performance than freshman and new transfer students), (b) students’ perceived change in performance after the transition was positively associated with actual performance (students who perceived a decline in their performance after transition to ERI had significantly worse performance than other students), and (c) students’ prior online learning experiences and students’ emotional experiences with the COVID-19 disease were not significantly associated with performance. These results suggest that the approaches adopted by higher education institutions to support students during times of crisis should pay special attention to certain groups of students.