Comparing online and on-campus students’ perceptions of the digitalization of higher education institutions

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are facing significant progress in their digitalization. Covid-19 is an external affordance in which digitalization helps to secure social distance. Internal affordances are requirements to enhance the students’ learning experience. We analyze students’ attitudes toward the digitalization of their HEI based on empirical data from two groups of students within the same study program during the pandemic. The first group started on-campus before the pandemic and was forced into online teaching. The second group started online. Our results show that students, to a high degree, perceive harm in their learning success. At the same time, they have trust in the HEI’s data handling. Generally, the group, which started online, shows a slightly higher negative perception. The differences between the two groups show a low to a medium degree. Our work contributes to clarifying the impact of having to start studies online, which seems to be minor.