Assessing the Impact of the Pandemic

The pressures of delivering an excellent educational experience for students at tertiary level and conducting world-class research are hard enough in normal times. Amid a global pandemic that caused two lockdowns, forcing staff and students to stay at home for extended periods, how did university staff cope? A survey of Western Sydney University staff in 2020 sought to find out.

The results of the survey, based on 142 questions about all aspects of academic life, paint a detailed picture of how more than 2,300 Western academic and professional staff (a response rate of 86%) adjusted their work practices to the conditions imposed by the pandemic. “The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affected research and teaching at very short notice,” notes Kevin Dunn, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at Western.

Almost overnight in March 2020, lockdown forced classes to go online. “Our staff were required at very short notice to pivot to online delivery of their teaching to provide continuity of learning for our students,” says Simon Bedford, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning Futures). “They made a rapid transition at some cost in terms of their time, their research and other commitments.”

The research team assembled for this project were experts in work and education, and in innovative teaching and learning. One of the major findings of the survey was the divergent views on the success of online teaching, with 56% of teaching staff saying that this mode of delivery had worked well for them. This proportion was higher for staff with dependent children, perhaps because it allowed more flexibility for them to care for their children. However, only 44% of staff thought that online teaching had worked well for their students.

Bedford notes that the pandemic fast-tracked a pre-existing trend towards adopting online education. “There is no doubt that the pandemic has caused the education sector to make a technological leap forward in terms of online education,” he says. “We had been progressing steadily in terms of building digital staff capability and capacity in online teaching and student learning, but this was a rapid acceleration in our ability to do that.”

Not surprisingly, laboratory work was greatly disrupted by the lockdowns, with almost 75% of lab researchers acknowledging that the impact had been negative or very negative. Those in the STEM disciplines and health were most affected since these areas are most reliant on experiments involving physical equipment, Dunn says. The survey results highlight the need to make it easier to conduct experiments remotely, where possible. “We need to build our labs and laboratory information systems better so that we can provide for remote user access,” says Dunn. “That will future-proof our facilities against other disruptions, and plus we will be able to open them up to wider use.”

But research benefited in other ways. For example, 61% of researchers agreed or strongly agreed that videotelephony reduced barriers to attending meetings and conferences. “Staff recognised the benefits that videotelephony afforded to maintain things like meetings with research collaborators, and people became quite adept at online conferencing,” comments Dunn. However, this is tempered by the fact that 74% of study participants reported negative or very negative impacts of COVID-19 on conference and seminar presentations. This might indicate that despite their convenience, something is lost when conferences are held online, such as informal networking opportunities and conversations over coffee. “The world needs to continue to think about how we do conferences,” says Dunn. “This is a live debate at the moment.”

Possibly the most critical aspect surveyed was how the pandemic lockdown of 2020 affected staff wellbeing. Overall, the results were good, with 91% agreeing they felt safe conducting their role and 73% reporting they had coped well with disruptions caused by the pandemic. About half of staff agreed that their wellbeing had improved while working remotely. But Danielle Tracey, a professor in the School of Education notes that the results varied according to the life situation of staff. “It was intense for staff members who had young children and were homeschooling them at the same time as they were trying to do their jobs,” she says. “It is likely that those staff continued to struggle in the longer 2021 lockdown.” In total, 75% of those surveyed agreed they were able to meet family responsibilities while working.

University management scored well for its handling of the crisis. “Central to addressing the situation was a cross University team working with collegiality and agility, while providing analyses and integrated solutions during the dynamic public health crisis” says Jo-Anne Chuck, associate professor and Head of Teaching and Curriculum. Communication was rated highly, with 95% of staff agreeing that it was clear and timely and 85.4% agreeing that executive management had made effective decisions in their response to COVID-19. But it wasn’t easy to manage. “On some days, I had more than a dozen back-to-back Zoom meetings, and I remember having blurred vision by the end of some days,” recalls Dunn “It was emotionally and physically taxing, but a lot was achieved.”

The report’s conclusion notes that the pandemic dramatically transformed how staff worked, and while participants’ responses about their work and life were largely positive, there was considerable variation across demographic characteristics, namely gender, and academic versus professional roles regarding the impacts of these changes. The report authors recommend conducting further research to gauge staff perception regarding the adoption of innovative practices such as remote teaching and videotelephony for research.

Dunn notes that there have already been changes to working conditions at the university. “Academic staff have even more flexibility than they used to have in terms of working from home. But that flexibility is much more profound for our professional and administrative staff than used to be the case,” he says. “I think that’s a very positive thing and it has allowed the University to take a leap of faith in terms of trust of its staff.” “It also resulted in reflection of the daily commute on work-life balance but also on environmental sustainability," said Chuck.

The survey results won’t be solely used for informing Western’s staffing policy; 62% of respondents gave permission for their responses to be used for research purposes. “Because we knew we would collect a substantial amount of data that would have global importance, we obtained ethics clearance to use the survey data for research purposes,” explains Dunn. “And we’re making the data available for our researchers to use.”