On the Influence of the University Tenure on the Digital Pandemic Stress in Higher Education Faculty.

This paper conducts quantitative research on the levels of stress generated in Latin American professors due to the abrupt digitalization of higher education resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the differences in this digital stress between professors from private and public universities are analyzed. For this purpose, a validated questionnaire has been used and passed to a sample of 750 professors from 20 different Latin American countries, whose responses have been statistically analyzed. As results, it has been obtained that there are no significant differences between the average levels of digital stress of professors of private and public universities due to the pandemic. However, the way in which this digital stress has affected Latin American professors according to gender and age is different depending on the university tenure. As a consequence, some implications and recommendations derived from the results are presented.

Influence of Country Digitization Level on Digital Pandemic Stress.

A quick and effective solution to address the immediate change in teaching methods after the COVID-19 pandemic was digital learning environments (DLEs). The way in which this process of change towards DLEs was tackled was different around the world, depending on multiple factors, including the level of digitization, technology, and innovation. This paper conducts quantitative research on the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the adaptation of university professors to DLEs. In order to achieve this objective, a sample of 723 university professors from 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean was taken. The participants' self-perception of the stress generated and their levels of digital competence during the COVID-19 pandemic were studied according to the Global Innovation Index (GII) of their country of origin. The results show that professors have an intermediate-high self-perception of both their digital competence and their ability to adapt to DLEs. It is also shown that neither the professors' level of digital competence nor the GII of the country of origin fully explain the level of pandemic stress regarding the use of DLEs. This fact suggests that there must be other influential factors to consider, thus opening new lines of future research.

Variables Influencing Professors' Adaptation to Digital Learning Environments during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This paper conducts quantitative research on the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the adaptation to digital learning environments (DLE) of a group of 908 university professors. We compared the perceptions of participants who were digital natives (born before 1980) with those of digital immigrants (born after 1980). For this purpose, a validated survey was used and the obtained responses statistically analyzed. The results show a negative correlation between pandemic stress and the digital competence of professors and their adaptation skills to digital environments, which although weak for both of the two groups compared are stronger for digital immigrants. Both self-confidence and digital competence show a positive influence on the perception of adaptation of skills to DLE, and this is weaker in digital natives. Gaps were identified by gender and area of knowledge of the participants; consequently, the need to carry out training actions for university faculty on skills linked to their digital competence in teaching is clear.

Educational trends post COVID-19 in engineering: Virtual laboratories.

The rapid advance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in recent times and the current pandemic caused by COVID-19 have profoundly transformed society and the economy in most of the world. The education sector has benefited from this ICT-driven revolution, which has provided and expanded multiple new tools and teaching methods that did not exist just a few decades ago. In light of this technological change, virtual laboratories (VLs) based on the use of virtual reality (VR) have emerged, which are increasingly used to facilitate the teaching-learning process in a wide range of training activities, both academic and professional types. The set of advantages offered by this type of VL, the main of which are listed in this article, has made its use increasingly common as support for engineering classes at universities. This paper presents a study involving 420 engineering students from Spanish and Portuguese universities and associated analyses on the assessment of different parameters in various VLs designed by the authors. The results obtained indicate that, in general, VR-based VLs are widely accepted and demanded by students, who likewise consider real laboratories (RLs) necessary in face-to-face teaching. In the current post-COVID-19 educational scenario, VLs and RLs will coexist within the new hybrid models that combine face-to-face and online teaching and learning.