Browsing by Subject "opiskeluinto"

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on higher education students’ life and studying. Due to the pandemic students had to move into distance learning and this might have had a significant impact on students’ psychological basic needs and study engagement. The aim of this study is to examine differences between students’ gender, age and the stage of studies in psychological basic needs and study engagement. This study also examines the impact of psychological basic needs on study engagement. Earlier research indicates that gender, age, and the period of studies have an impact on psychological basic needs and study engagement and psychological basic needs are positively connected to study engagement. Data of this study has been collected in the autumn of 2020 and it is a part of the research carried out by Educational Sciences’ of University of Helsinki’s research unit. The data was collected anonymously from students from various faculties using an online form. The data included 1476 participants of which 1202 were women (81,4%) and 236 were men (16,0%). Age of the participants varied between 18 and 44. In this study the study engagement was measured by the version of school engagement scale originally developed by Salmela-Aro and Upadyaya (2012) and the psychological basic needs were measured in the framework of the self-determination theory. Gender, age and period of studies were used as background variables. The results of this study indicated that over 25 years old students showed higher study engagement, autonomy and competence than under 25 years old students during distance learning. Men showed a little more autonomy than women and first year students showed more both study engagement and all psychological basic needs than students in the later stage of studies. The results also indicated that psychological basic needs positively predict study engagement. The results of this study help to understand the importance of impact of psychological basic needs on study engagement. In the future it would be useful to think how the student’s psychological basic needs could be supported and maintained during distance learning.