Academic self-concept of 4th-year speech therapy students during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The evaluation of the academic self-concept (ASC) allows knowing the student's beliefs regarding the perceived performance and influences their abilities to achieve goals. The objective was to analyze the ASC of 4th-year students of the Escuela de Fonoaudiología (EsFo), Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.

The study was simple descriptive and cross-sectional. 4th-year EsFo students were evaluated during April 2021. The Academic Self-Concept Scale (ASCS), developed in Argentina, was applied. The ASCS assesses self-efficacy (SE) and academic performance (AP). Each dimension contains 7 items with five-point Likert response scales, from "strongly disagree" (SD) to "strongly agree" (SA), with direct scores 1 to 5 and reverse scores 5 to 1 (SA to SD, respectively). The SE and AP scales compute a maximum of 35 points and the ASCS, 70. The questionnaire was administered by Limesurvey, the participation was voluntary and anonymous.

71 students participated, of whom 94.37% were women. The age mode was 21 years (22.5%). The average response of SE was 4.30 (minimum 2.14, maximum 5 points) and AP was 3.81 (minimum 1.29, maximum 5 points). In both dimensions, the 25th, 55th, and 75th percentile groups, the response scores leaned towards maximum values ​​(4 and 5), showing a high perception of SE and AP. The average of all the answers of SE was 30.08 (SD ±3.33) and AP was 26.66 points (SD ±4.99). Regarding the ASCS, the average was 56.75 (SD ±7.42). The scores were homogeneous with a coefficient of variation <30%.

The interpretation of the results suggests that students perceive that they do not have learning difficulties (AP) and trust their abilities (SE). The evaluation of the ASC is relevant for the implementation of academic strategies. Future work will make it possible to compare these data with a post-pandemic cohort. In recent years, social and academic interactions have changed, so it is interesting to study whether there are changes in self-perception of their academic performance.