**3. Method**

#### **3.1 Research design**

In the literature, the selection of a specific type of case study design is guided by the overall study purpose. Our case study, individual learners of the faculty of Languages, Lettres, and Arts, Ibn Tofail University, is to describe and explore [13, 14]. The research design, therefore, adopted is a single explanatory qualitative case study research design with an ex post facto taste to it as the researcher cannot control the independent variable and the influence of COVID-19 pandemic as it already occurred and is impossible to control. The subjects chosen are supposed to possess the characteristics needed for this piece of research, scholastic achievement perception [15]. The use of this type of case study is justified on the ground that the researcher is seeking to answer a question that requires explaining a presumed causal link between two variables, scholastic achievement and COVID-19 pandemic conditions in our case [16]. Moreover, the type of design adopted herein enables the researcher to closely examine the obtained data and explain deeply the complications of the case context.

#### **3.2 Participants**

A total of 297 students from the school of Languages, Lettres, and Arts, Ibn Tofail University provided their consent to participate in the study and answer the online survey deployed for this purpose. Two hundred and nine participants were able to completely fill in the survey with a response rate of 70.37%. Eighty-eight students did not complete enough items for analysis in the present study, resulting in a final sample of 209 participants.

Conclusions from the outputs of the quantitative survey guarantee most of the time the representativeness of the target group sample; however, in our case, a convenience sampling approach which is considered oftentimes the 'least rigorous technique' is adopted. Even though the researcher targets the most 'easily accessible' respondents, representativeness is guaranteed as the researcher tends to choose easily accessible participants who have experienced the complications of the COVID-19 confinement.

#### **3.3 Measures**

In the Autumn of 2021, 209 participants were recruited cross-sectionally from a representative and a targeted sample of 297 participants at Ibn Tofail State University. The obtained cross-sectional data were collected through a web-based questionnaire using representative and convenience sampling to invite students to participate. It was done when most students have become familiar with the coronavirus lockdown and security-related measures were in effect.

Students/participants were asked to respond to questions related to their education following March 2020 school closure. This included asking about which support services they had received (e.g., family counseling, individual counseling, group counseling), engagement with their teacher(s) (e.g., online, in-person, or a mix).

#### **3.4 Sample and sampling procedure**

The research design of the present study is a single explanatory qualitative case study research design and the population is all the students of the English studies department at the school of Languages, Lettres, and Arts, Ibn Tofail University. A purposive judgment sample is drawn from this population on the ground that the researcher judgmentally selects participants that conform to the criterion of experience with the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly psychological. After the temporary suspension of in-present studies and the shift to online mode starting from March 2020, almost all students were reached out using an online survey, Google Docs, to fill out.

As to recruitment procedure ethics, approval was obtained from a university deanship and facilitated by the fact that the researcher is an insider in the institution. Students from the English studies department were notified through the school Facebook page announcements via directs e-mails enclosing the study link or directing them to the link on the previously mentioned website page. Students started answering the survey, the first days they received it and those who were reluctant were reminded using a reminder email with the survey link. The data collection stage was along a period of approximately a month, from June to July 2021, and was closed on July 31st.

#### **3.5 Data analysis**

Students' achievement perception is the first co-variable that this study investigated. Therefore, to ascertain the underpinnings of the students' chronosystem nature that reflects academic achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model was adopted. It is a model that contains five layers: the macrosystem, the exosystem, the mesosystem, the chronosystem, and the microsystem. However, for reasons of time and space, the study shall concentrate only on the overall effect resulting in the aggregate effect of the while model. The four levels of this model range from the most personal related to the factors affecting the child in his immediate environment, to the extremist elements of the child's life experience [17].

The data collected from our respondents were fed into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 22). Measures were taken to ensure that the data gathered were entered correctly and that there are no missing data.

After having completed the preprocessing of the data obtained from the sample chosen, the data screening, checking data for errors, and fixing or removing these errors, took place and were fed into IBM SPSS software, version 22.0 for statistical analysis. A ten-question survey with two sections has been devised and measured on a Likert scale. In order to assure the reliability as well as the

*From Face-to-Face to Face-to-Screen: A Correlational Analysis of Psychological Impacts… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102547*

adequacy of the sample of the items/questions included in the questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha coefficient along with the Principal Component Analysis with equamax rotation (KMO and Bartlett's Test) were used. The Cronbach's alpha obtained is 0.83, which indicates a high level of internal consistency among the items for our scale with this specific sample. Additionally, the dimensionality of the scale was investigated through the KMO and Bartlett's test. From the results in **Table 1**, the test indicates the data for structure detection is suitable. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy statistic stands at 0.789 and Bartlett's test of sphericity value (x<sup>2</sup> = 1287.542; p ≤ 0.005) is significant indicating that factor analysis or principal component analysis is useful with the data of the sample chosen.

The microsystem is the first level in Bronfenbrenner's theory and contains subcategories such as family, school, peer group, neighborhood, and teachers which are elements in the immediate environment of the child. The individual in this system is influenced by and influences the surrounding. The interactions within microsystems are often very personal and impactful in the sense that if the individual finds a fostering, caring context he/she is positively affected, and if the opposite happens, a negative impact might occur.

As to the mesosystem, it is a system regarding the connections that exists between the components comprised in the microsystem. It is a system that governs the interactions between the immediate environments of the student and epitomizes the type of influences produced-mutual influences. Fundamentally, a mesosystem is a system of microsystems.

If the mesosystem incorporates and typifies the type of influence relationships that exist between the elements composing the microsystem, the exosystem in the ecological systems theory combines other formal and informal social structures that are liable to influence the students from outside his microsystem. Examples of exosystem components include the neighborhood, parent's workplaces, parent's friends, and the mass media. These are contexts where the student gets affected by any external factor, and in our case herein could be COVID-19 pandemic experience.

The macrosystem is the fourth component of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory that focuses on the larger cultural context. The cultural elements of the students as well as other cultures affect how the students/child perceives life. The socioeconomic status, wealth, poverty, region, languages, ideology, and ethnicity are broader factors that underlie the structural fabric of the established cultures the students live in.

Finally, the chronosystem is the fifth level of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. This system involves all of the patterns of environmental events and transitions throughout the child/student's life. These patterns include the normative life transitions such as school history as well others that occur in parallel and include examples like getting married at an early age or being in charge of a mature man/ woman mission like what happens in some African clans.


**Table 1.**

*KMO and Bartlett's test for the questionnaire.*
