Student Responses to Changes in Introductory Physics Learning Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

As a result of the spread of COVID-19 during spring 2020, many colleges and universities across the U.S., and beyond, were compelled to move entirely to remote, online instruction, or shut down. Due to the rapidity of this transition, instructors had to significantly—if not completely—change their instructional style on very short notice. Our purpose with this paper is to report on student experiences and reactions to the switch to emergency remote learning at two large land-grant, research-intensive universities. We aimed to explore how students have received and dealt with the shift to remote learning that began in March 2020, specifically in introductory physics and astronomy courses. By providing timely student feedback, we hope to help instructors tune their efforts to build a more effective remote learning environment.