Remote Learning: Students' Satisfaction and Perspectives in Higher Education

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought unexpected difficulties to higher education, which have been overcome by investing in training and reinforcing the use of digital tools. Considering the students' needs and interests in the pandemic context, the main objectives of this work were to: identify the perception of the use of digital tools by higher education students in the context of remote learning; evaluate the degree of satisfaction of higher education students with remote learning; analyze the perspectives of higher education students regarding the use of learning environments and tools in a post-pandemic scenario, and verify if there are significant differences regarding the students' curricular year and the variables associated to the use of digital tools and virtual learning environments. A study of an essentially quantitative nature has been developed using a sample of 677 students from a Portuguese public higher education institution. The results highlight that the digital tools that had greater awareness from the students were Zoom and VLE (virtual learning environment). The VLE tools that were used most frequently were Resources and Activities. Inferential statistics were used to make comparisons between the scores obtained for each variable in the groups related to each curricular year that students attended. In general, students' appreciation for emergency remote learning was considered positive. Regarding the prospects for using digital tools, it appears that they will continue to privilege the tools used during the pandemic, with an emphasis on the institution's VLE.