Análise dos efeitos da pandemia da COVID-19 no desempenho dos estudantes da Ciência da Computação na UFCG.

Abstract

Traditional face-to-face teaching quickly transitioned to remote learning during the global outbreak of the new coronavirus, the disease COVID-19. In the face of this emergency health, educational institutions had to adapt and provide means for their mission of training professionals could be accomplished. The students' evaluation showed challenges for the faculty, as they not only had to worry about adapting to new circumstances, but they were also concerned that students, without face-to-face supervision, could cheat on their exams. This transformation affected mainly students who sought practice-oriented professions such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Such professions require training rigorous and lab sessions, especially in Computer Science courses. Therefore, students' experiences and academic performance on this new platform learning needs to be evaluated. The main objective of this research is to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of Science students Computing at UFCG. To do so, we performed a contrast with quantitative data from 2015.1 to 2021.1. The analysis confirms that the academic performance of students in the course in Computer Science at UFCG was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our completion with application of 95% confidence intervals (CIs), grades increased 8.32% in relation to traditional face-to-face teaching. In detail, the average final grade of the students in the subjects analyzed was: 8.42, with a range of [8.33, 8.5] for less and for more. The grades in face-to-face teaching reached an average of 7.58, with a range of [7.47, 7.71] for less and for more. The suspicion for the improvement of student performance can possibly be explained by cheating on exams and/or subject projects, as indicated by several authors in the literature, there was glue activities during the pandemic.