COVID-19 and the transition to higher education: Perspectives from educational and academic development

This study explores the measures taken by educational development units, as well as educational/academic developers and learning technologists in higher education, to assist teaching academics in supporting their students at the moment of transition from pre-university study into higher education. A survey was distributed to educational developers to determine what measures were undertaken to help students transition into a wholly online learning experience at university. The paper ultimately contends that educational development occupied a pivotal space for helping support students’ transitions into a fundamentally changed higher education landscape, and that it forced educational development units to think more holistically about the entire student experience in this context. It also contends that, while some of the changes have been long-lasting, further evaluation is needed of the impacts of some of the measures undertaken throughout the pandemic, as this was not carried out systematically or meaningfully at the time. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .