Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Life of Higher Education Students: Global Survey Dataset from the First Wave

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has completely reshaped the lives of people around the world, including higher education students. Beyond serious health consequences for a proportion of those directly affected by the virus, the pandemic holds important implications for the life and work of higher education students, considerably affecting their physical and mental well-being. To capture how students perceived the first wave of the pandemic's impact, one of the most comprehensive and large-scale online surveys across the world was conducted. Carried out between 5 May 2020 and 15 June 2020, the survey came at a time when most countries were experiencing the arduous lockdown restrictions. The online questionnaire was prepared in seven different languages (English, Italian, North Macedonian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish) and covered various aspects of higher education students’ life, including socio-demographic and academic characteristics, academic life, infrastructure and skills for studying from home, social life, emotional life and life circumstances. Using the convenience sampling method, the online questionnaire was distributed to higher education students aged 18 and over and enrolled in a higher education institution. The final dataset consisted of 31,212 responses from 133 countries and 6 continents. The relationships between selected socio-demographic characteristics and elements of student life were tested by using a chi-squared test. The data may prove useful for researchers studying the pandemic's impacts on various aspects of student life. Policymakers can utilize the data to determine the best solutions as they formulate policy recommendations and strategies to support students during this and any future pandemic.