A RECOMMENDATORY REPORT

ON
THE EFFECT OF LOCKDOWN
ON COLLEGE STUDENTS

By

Aditya Venkata Sai Tatiraju-2020A3PS1227P

Anumegha De-2020A3PS1221P
Ashwin Kothari-2020A3PS1216P
Nihar Ahire-2020A3PS1234P
Varsha Nair-2020A3PS1222P

for Dr C.Vijayakumar,Instructor
of BITS F112 Technical Report Writing,
BITS Pilani

BIRLA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE, PILANI

February 3rd, 2021

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 Acknowledgements
The team members take this opportunity to sincerely thank the
director of BITS Pilani, Dr Sudhir Kumar Barai, for giving us
an opportunity to work on this report.We would like to
acknowledge with appreciation Dr. Pushp Lata, Instructor in
Charge of BITS F112 course who gave proper guidance in
drafting the report.

The team members further extend their gratitude towards their

Instructor for the course,Dr. C Vijayakumar for the
knowledge, skills and guidance he has provided in classes
which has helped the team members immensely in designing
this report.

The team members would also like to thank their family

members for their unwavering support during the course of
making this report.

The team members especially thank all 187 participants who

filled out the questionnaire on the topic.

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 Declaration

We pledge that we have not plagiarized word to word from any

research article or source on the internet. We have cited all the
sources we have referred from.

Any similarity to any website or research paper other than the

cited ones is merely coincidental. We have done this project
maintaining high ethical and moral standards and have not
directly copied from any source on the internet. We have also not
copied from any of our batchmates reports.

Signatures of team members

Aditya Venkata Sai Tatiraju Anumegha De

Ashwin Kothari Nihar Ahire

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Varsha Nair

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 Contents

1.0) List of illustrations…………………………………………6

2.0) Abstract………………………….…………………………9
3.0) Introduction…………………………….…………………10
4.0) Effect of lockdown on college students
4.1) Respondent personal data..………………………….14
4.2) Preference between online and offline classes..…….15
4.3) Effects of lockdown on physical health……..………17
4.4) Examination and evaluation methods
in online mode………………………………………19
5.0) Conclusion………………………………………………..22
6.0) Recommendations………………………………………...23
7.0) Appendix………………………………………………….25
8.0) Bibliography………………………………………………28

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 List of illustrations

Figure 4.2-level of difference felt between online and offline

classes

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Fig-4.3-pie chart of those who felt lockdown impacted physical
health.

Fig 4.4-extent of effect of lockdown on physical health of students

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 Reasons for changes in assessment in online mode
160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0
Difficult questions People cheating Time constraints Strict evaluation

Fig-4.6-bar graph showing the reasons related to the change in

assessment

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 Abstract

The lockdown in 2020 had a major impact on nearly all

segments of society, college students being one of them.
The entire education system morphed from an offline,
interaction-based system to an online one, and there were
many non-academic impacts as well on college students.

This report examines the effects and attempts to make

suggestions regarding how students can deal with the
effect of the lockdown through means of a questionnaire
to collect responses from college students in India. This
report would also include data from secondary sources
from other reports and internet sources which are
mentioned in the bibliography.

Through the data collected in the questionnaire,

The report will make suggestions regarding how college
students can tackle the obstacles presented by the
lockdown both academically and outside academics as
well.

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 Introduction

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first identified in

Wuhan, China in December 2019 as pneumonia whose
source was unknown . After extensive research, COVID-19
became known as novel coronavirus, which is a severe acute
respiratory syndrome scientifically known as coronavirus−2
(SARS–CoV−2) . (Zhu N, 2020) .COVID-19 outbreak
spread rapidly on a global scale, thus, the World Health
Organization (WHO) officially declared it as pandemic on
March 12, 2020.

The lockdown in 2020 was the shutdown of business, travel,

and restricted human movement in general which took place
in a majority of countries as a response to the spread of the
Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdown imposed by
governments severely hit all aspects of human life as
businesses, aviation and even educational institutions were
not immune to the effects of the lockdown.

Educational institutions globally have either temporarily

closed or implemented localized closures affecting about 1.7
billion of students. (Education, 2020) Many colleges around
the world either postponed or cancelled all on campus
activities to minimize high human density gatherings and
hence decrease the transmission of coronavirus.

The main entity comprising of educational institutes are the

students whose lifestyles are severely affected by the
lockdown. The life of college students have also been
affected by the lockdown, from writing entrance exams in
late September to attending college classes and having
evaluatives online. Outside of academics, students face
several issues as well such as lack of human interaction,
motivation and physical activity.The report deals with the

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effect of lockdown on college students as requested by
Instructor for BITS F112 Technical Report Writing course
in BITS Pilani, Dr. C Vijayakumar.

The data presented in report is collected both via primary

and secondary means. Primary data has been collected
by conducting a survey via a questionnaire (refer the
appendix). The secondary data have been collected via
internet, e-books and online reports.

The report analyses the major effects of the lockdown on

college students; on their mental health, physical health,
social life, academic life, and overall productivity, the data
for which would be primarily collected through a
questionnaire.

This report would further make recommendations on the

mitigating the effects of lockdown on students and provide a
conclusion as well.

However, this report has some limitations as well which

prevent it from being perfectly accurate. The sample space is
restricted to only college students in India, not of other
countries so the data does not offer complete or
comprehensive information required to draw more accurate
conclusions and make more general suggestions that may be
applicable for non-Indian institution students. Moreover,
75.9% of 187 respondents to the questionnaire are from first
year which is an overwhelming majority as compared to
other undergraduate years and there are also no responses
from higher degree students.

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 In addition to a less diverse sample space, the sample space
is also small (187) and not necessarily a representative
figure of the 1.7 billion higher education students present
globally.

Also, the data provided in the questionnaire by the students

may not be completely honest and in a small sample size,
could cause larger discrepancies in the report.

The significance of this report is that it analyses a key event

in history which had a significant impact on all aspects of
human life, especially college life. The report also provides
suggestions and recommendations on how to counter the
effect of lockdown on college students. Thus, this report is
of high importance in BITS Pilani as it not only analyses the
effects, but also makes suggestions to the authorities.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted on college students in

various streams. Students who were willing to participate and had
access to social media have taken part in the survey.
The questionnaire included questions about a wide range of
topics like mental health and physical health. The subjects
had to state what mode of education they prefer, any extra-
curricular activities they took part in, the impact the
lockdown had on evaluative components in their respective
colleges, and their recommendations, if any.
We have used Google Forms to conduct the survey. The
subjects received these through WhatsApp. A total of 187
subjects took part in the survey.

Simple illustrations like bar graphs and pie charts have been
used to analyse the collected data. These illustrations have
helped us examine the answers provided by the subjects. We

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have used Microsoft Excel to analyse the data and
subsequently design the illustrations. Some illustrations have
been obtained from Google Form itself, which provides a
detailed summary of the responses received.

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 Effect of lockdown on college students

Respondent personal data

It is important to know the demography of the respondents,

in this context, to which year they belong to in college.

There were 187 respondents to our questionnaire, 75.9%

(142) of whom were in 1st year,10.8% (20) in 2nd year,6%
(11) in 3rd year and 7.3% (14) in 4th year. No higher degree
students took part in this survey. No students outside India
took part in this survey.

No names, email addresses or institutions of the respondents

were taken keeping in mind the respondent’s privacy.

Respondent personal data

7%
6%
11%
1st year(75.9%)
2nd year(10.8%)
3rd year(6%)
76%
4th year(7.3%)

Figure 4.1-Respondent personal data pie chart

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 Preference between online and offline classes

There are differences between regular, on-campus offline

classes and the classes held during lockdown which a
student could experience such as quality of learning and
productivity. These differences could cause a bias in the
respondent's mind.

Of the 187 respondents, 90.9% (170) of them responded that

they prefer offline mode of teaching whereas 9.1% (17)
responded that they prefer online mode of teaching.

From the data collected, a high majority of respondents

preferred offline to online mode of teaching.

Fig 4.2-level of difference felt between online and offline classes

1-least different
10-most different

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From figure 4.2, 34.8% respondents feel that the studying
experience between online and offline would be extremely
different while 2.7% respondents feel that there is very little
difference between online and offline classes. A total of 83.2%
(the sum of those who voted 6-10) prefer that the studying
experience offline would have been more different from online
classes.

A large majority of respondents prefer offline classes to online

classes and also feel that studying offline would be very different
from studying online. This could be because students are already
accustomed to offline classes as offline classes had been the
norm. Also, the unfamiliarity of the online environment of
education makes studying offline a more viable option for
students. The lack of human interaction, headaches and lots of
screen time are also responsible for this data.

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 Effect of lockdown on physical health

From figure 4.3, 67.4% (126) respondents felt that the lockdown
period was had an impact on physical health while 32.6% (61)
felt that their physical health was unaffected.

Fig-4.3-pie chart of those who felt lockdown impacted physical

health.

Fig 4.4-extent of effect of lockdown on physical health of students

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0-not affected
10-most affected

From figure 4.4,of the 67.4% of respondents who felt that the
lockdown affected their physical activities, 41%(those who voted
from 5-10) felt that their physical health had been more affected
and the remaining 59% felt that their health had been less affected.

There is a slight favour among respondents that they feel their

physical fitness is relatively unaffected.

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 Examination and evaluation methods in online mode

With the transition from offline to online mode in colleges,

examinations, tests and methods of setting evaluation standards
changed as well in college.

Examinations and evaluation are a critical part of college and

hence it is necessary to evaluate the respondents attitude about the
same.

Response to whether examinations and

evaluation methods are affected by online
mode of conduction

9%

Yes

91% No

Fig-4.5-Pie chart of respondents opinions on examination and

evaluation methods.

From figure 4.5, a very large fraction of respondents of 91.4%

(171) feel that the methods have changed between online and
offline mode whereas only a minute set of respondents of 8.6% (16)
feel that the methods have not been affected by the lockdown.

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This shows that students generally believe that the assessment
methods have been affected by this lockdown as compared to
regular,offline classes.

There are various factors such as variation in exam difficulty,

technical difficulties encountered such as low battery, poor internet
connectivity,degree of strictness with which exams are conducted
and the ease of cheating in the exams.

Reasons for changes in assessment in online mode

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

0
Difficult questions People cheating Time constraints Strict evaluation

Fig-4.6-bar graph showing the reasons related to the change in

assessment

Of the respondents who responded yes to if there is a change in

examination and evaluation methods, 171, a bar graph of their
responses is shown in figure 3.6 which shows the reason(s) marked
by them for feeling a change between online and offline mode.

46.7% of 171 respondents (81) feel that the questions difficulty has
increased more in online than in offline.

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With nearly half of the respondents who felt there was a change in
assessment patterns, question difficulty truly seems to have
increased in the papers that college institutions are preparing.

84% of 171 respondents (143) feel that illegitimate means of

attempting the exam such as cheating occurs in online mode. With
the lack of significant proctoring and the presence of internet
connectivity on devices it is likely that students could engage in
cheating, thereby commiting academic fraud and falsifying grades.
This is a major change in the online mode of conducting exams,
which can account for a high majority of 84% of students feeling
that cheating occurs more frequently online.

59.2% of 171 (101) respondents feel that there is far too much time
constraint in assessments in the online mode. External factors such
as internet connectivity and longer than usual question papers,
along with scanning and sending answer sheets in a short duration
in the online mode could account for why slightly more than half
the students feel that time is limited.

42.1% of 171(72) respondents feel that evaluation of answers in

assessments has become stricter as compared to offline mode. This
could be because in online mode the papers are designed differently
and students would not be used to this anomaly of type of
assessment.

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 Conclusion

A major segment of college students prefer offline mode of

learning over the online mode. The general consensus is that
learning online is taxing and causes physical problems and
emotional turmoil. The learning experience with online classes is
different from that of the offline classes. This is evident from the
data represented in Figure 4.2.

The lockdown has taken a toll on the physical health of the

students. About two-thirds of the total respondants feel that their
health has been adversely affected. The remaining respondants’
health has remained unaffected through this pandemic. Figure 4.3
provides evidence for the same.

The examination and evaluation patterns across all the educational

institutions has drastically changed as a result of the pandemic. A
majority of respondants have made this quite evident through their
responses in the survey (Figure 4.5). The importance of grades in
a student’s life makes analysis of this aspect imperative.

The factors mentioned in Figure 4.6 define this change. Roughly

half of the total respondants found a significant change in the types
of questions asked in the exams. A majority of respondants feel that
students resort in malpractices during the exam. Students have also
been facing severe time constraints and there is always the looming
danger of an internet connectivity issue. The paper assesment
pattern seems to have changed during this shift to the offline mode.

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 Recommendations:
1)Preparation methods for online assessments: As seen from
the list of data illustrations, 46.7% of 171 respondents (81) feel
that the questions difficulty has increased more in online than in
offline. Practice tests and worksheets inclusive of questions with
different difficulty level will help the students gain more
experience before an online exam. The change in the education
impacts everyone and these factors need to be implemented to
ensure the smooth functioning of examinations for both students
and teachers.

2)Regulation of dishonest practices in online assessments:84%

of 171 respondents (143) feel that illegitimate means of
attempting the exam such as cheating occurs in online mode..
Students need to nudge themselves towards integrity. The exams
could be conducted in a SEB (Safe examination browser) to
control cheating. Stricter punishments should be given to
students, if caught cheating which discourages other students to
cheat. Lengthier papers should not be the only approach by
teachers to prevent cheating as it has a negative impact on the
honest students and can also demotivate them.

3)Engagement in physical activities: Some of the respondents

also feel that the amount of physical activities is not the same
compared to their activities in the collage campus. The students
could try to learn new skill sets during the lockdown which could
compensate for the loss of physical activities. A student who
plays football may not have a field to play in, but could try other
sports like badminton or cricket. Lack of physical activities could
also disturb the physical health of students. Hence the students
must set some time apart to take up any form of physical
activities.
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4)Reduction of mental stress:The lockdown also impacts the
mental health of students. The students could take up extra
activities and new skills like art or music to get a diversion from
academics. The students could play video games or watch movies
to relax after classes to reduce stress. The students could seek
help of parents or counsellors if necessary.

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 Appendix :Questionnaire

Q1)

Q2)

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Q3)

Q4)

Q5)

Q6)

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Q7)

Q8)

Q9)

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 References

Education, U. (2020). From Disruption to Recovery.

Zhu N, Z. D. (2020). A novel coronavirus from patients with
pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med.

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