**4. Results**

#### **4.1 Data processing and analysis**

#### *4.1.1 Descriptive statistics*

The first part of the analysis then examines student achievement factors that make up each level of Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model. The factors that impact each level are explained and supported by frequencies and percentages.

Microsystem factors (N = 91) accounted for the most frequent response, while the second most frequent response was the macrosystem (N = 72). At third place, came the chronosystem (N = 25), the mesosystem (N = 14) in the fourth place, and the exosystem came last (N = 09).

**Table 2** displays a juxtaposing comparison of the descriptive statistics for the five numeric variables. This allows us to quickly make the following observations about the data: the maximum (83.76) observed here is used to identify a possible outlier or a data-entry error. On assessing the spread of our data by comparing the minimum (53.67) and maximum (83.76), it seems that the spread of the data between the two extremes is compact and is therefore suggestive of the fact that the students' achievement is affected by all the factors composing his/her bio-ecological environment typically the factors: microsystem and macrosystem. This means that the impact is an aggregate of both micro-related to the immediate environment and macro-related to external factors.

The mean as a standard measure of the center of the distribution of the data of this group of participants is (M = 62.761). It is clear from the results in **Table 3** that three factors are above the mean except for exosystem (M = 58.258) and chronosystem (M = 60.123) factors. This adds up to the result of the min and max as the microsystem and the macrosystem factors proved to be effective in determining the nature of the students' achievement during COVID-19 times.

As to the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on respondents, a battery of items measuring risk factors coronavirus is used (A survey adapted from [18]). Worth noting here is that the survey contains presumably two sections for the same objective, gauging students' feelings, and perceptions about the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, regarding the first section of the survey, quantitative segment, and eight survey items based on data gathered from close-ended questions that targeted eight different types of themes, worry, time demands, fear, irritation, sadness, preoccupation, guilt, and stress. These concepts are deemed suitable to provide some guidance on what impacts to measure for the impacts of COVID-19 on college students.


#### **Table 2.**

*Descriptive statistics of the participants COVID-19 psychological perceived impact survey items.*


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

#### **Table 3.**

*Overall descriptive statistics of the questions related to achievement factors as perceived by students.*

Concerning the qualitative segment of the survey, the researcher deemed it appropriate to triangulate results obtained from two diverse data collection instruments by utilizing an open-ended question section that would allow participants to disclose more on the perceived impacts of the phenomenon under study. Also, starting from the conviction that one tool, quantitative measure, is parsimonious in unveiling the broad array of impacts of COVID-19 on students' academic performance, a qualitative side is added to the survey. Two open questions were asked: "List at least three ways among the five presented, microsystem, exosystem, macrosystem, mesosystem, and chronosystem in which COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way you academically performed during the lockdown?"; "which factors, out of the three chosen, do you think affected most your academic achievement?". A word of caution here is that these factors of academic achievement were explained to the participants so that they could decide correctly which system is most affecting.

Qualitative data from the first question of the open-ended responses demonstrated therefore a broad array of impacts caused by COVID-19 lockdown on students' academic achievement. The most common impacts are a decrease in motivation, and even suicidal attempts, feeling of loneliness and isolation, depression, and difficulties to re-socialize with others among others. For example, one of the students commented, "I feel demotivated every day to the extent that I feel hopeless." Another one reacted to the question saying that "I sometimes [felt] depressed and entertained the idea of suicide which hopefully I was able to fight against". "I along with my brothers had the difficulty to get connected to people and even felt that we had become some sort of zombies". These feelings that range from a feeling of mere melancholy to challenges with thoughts of suicide are characteristic of the type of sufferings our respondents were clear about as reflections of parts of their lives during the lethal pandemic. However, a few positive responses were rejected. Some of the respondents reported having the opportunity to sharpen their computer skills; others focused on the idea that they discovered the particularities of online learning and it suited their study skills and even refined others. But the most striking answers were those which expressed liking the experience of being locked and staying away from other people described as intrusive beings.

The quantitative data related to the mean values of the psychological impact survey items are shown in **Table 4**. The seven risk factors used to test for COVID-19 psychological perceived impact were worry, time demand, fear, irritation, sadness, preoccupation, and stress. The first two ones, worry and time demand were measured on a strongly disagree to strongly agree scale and demonstrated the following means (M = 5.87and M = 5.67, respectively). The two mean values indicate that the respondents scored closely around the mean with substantial feelings of worry and time demand. As to the five remaining risk factors, which were gauged on a different scale, not at all to extremely, three of them: fear, sadness, and stress equal


#### **Table 4.**

*Descriptive statistics of the participants COVID-19 psychological perceived impact survey items.*

or surpass the main mean value indicating the serious suffering of the respondents with these risks. Furthermore, for the two others, irritation and preoccupation, it seems that they did not score higher than the general average, but the tendency is clearer as to the admittance of undertaking the experience of these risk factors by our respondents even though the impact was not as stronger as the three first ones.

#### *4.1.2 Inferential statistics*

The present study investigates the association between risk factors corona virusrelated and scholastic/academic achievement factors, a correlational analysis is adopted where each risk factor cluster is equated with a co-variable from the other cluster, academic achievement factors.

Since our correlation that the SPSS statistics generated is not Pearson's correlation, thus, there is no need that our data passes assumption #3 (no outliers) and assumption #4 (normality), it suffices it to satisfy assumption #2 (linear relationship). Therefore, the correlation which is appropriate here is the Spearman Rank Order Correlation coefficient. As could be deciphered from **Table 5**, there is a monotonic relationship between the two variables.

The results of the monotonicity between the two co-variables are presented in a matrix such that, as can be seen above (**Table 5**), the correlations are replicated. Moreover, the table presents Spearman's correlation, its significance value, and the sample size that the calculation was based on. In this example, we can see that Spearman's correlation coefficient, Rho, is 0.697 and this is statistically significant at (*p* = 0.000). That is, the association between the COVID-19 psychological perceived impact factors and academic achievement factors was strong. A positive correlation between them was statistically significant (*Rho* (209) = 0.697, *p* = 0.000). We are allowed therefore to safely conclude that from our two-tailed prediction of the studied relationship, the null hypothesis that there is no association between the two co-variables is rejected in favor of the alternative one which states that the students' perceived scholastic achievement is affected by COVID-19 pandemic conditions.

Consequently, the tendency of the respondents to disclose about the severity of the factors/systems of the bio-ecological environment, mainly microsystem and

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


#### **Table 5.**

*Correlations between COVID-19 psychological perceived impact factors and academic achievement factors.*

macrosystem, on their academic achievement during COVID-19 times is evocative of the fact that the impact is an accumulation of both micro-related to the immediate environment and macro-related to external factors. With regard to the COVID-19 psychological perceived impact factors, the qualitative and quantitative results have revealed that the respondents went through a tough experience with severe risk factors condemning their academic lives mainly but with different degrees of impact, worry, time demand, fear; irritation, sadness, preoccupation, and stress. It is noteworthy to mention here the impact of other factors as well, such as feelings that range from mere melancholy to challenges with thoughts of suicide, were discovered through open questions. We can conclude here also that the plethora of psychological risk factors categorically impact our respondents' psyches greatly. The previously alternative hypothesis that describes the association between the two co-variables is maintained against the null that states that there is no dependency link between them.

As to the correlation that used Spearman's rho as a popular method for correlating the unvalidated survey instruments or Likert-type survey responses, it was found that there is a strong positive and significant association (*Rho* (209) = 0.697, *p* = 0.000) between the COVID-19 psychological perceived impact risk factors and academic achievement factors. Explicitly, it seems that the aggregate construct of COVID-19 psychological perceived impact factors and the aggregate construct of academic achievement factors strongly correlate suggesting that the higher the impact of the coronavirus perceived impact on respondents' lives the stronger it is also on their academic achievement. The monotonic relationship is ascertained between the two co-variables allowing for the researcher to definitely decide on keeping the alternative hypothesis in favor of the null one.

#### **5. Discussion**

It is worth mentioning here that the findings of the study in relation to the first variable, the COVID-19 psychological perceived impact risk factors are corroborated by other studies mentioned in the literature. For instance, the study conducted by [6] confirms the idea that risk perceptions of Italian respondents concerning health during COVID-19 pandemic time have been recorded to revolve around almost all perceived risks encompassing negative affective states of fear, anger and sadness, anxiety, interpersonal, and psychological risks. Association among perceived stress, depression, and anxiety were found in a study conducted by [19]. Chen and Liu [20] add up to the previous results when they quantified the importance of related risk factors on the level of psychological distress and explored the threshold effect of each risk factor on the level of psychological distress. They found that health risk factors were the greatest contributors in predicting the level of psychological distress, with a relative importance of 42.32% among all influential factors.

With respect to academic achievement factors using Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model, the present study revealed a certain taxonomy of effect that situates the microsystem factors which specify the effect of the immediate environment on students' school life. Haleemunnissa et al. [21] substantiate this result when they found that confinement imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in, especially in conflict-ridden families, augmented symptoms of depression and anxiety. The second in rank was the macrosystem factor that is perceived by our respondents to affect greatly their achievement. The respondents perceive the larger socio-cultural and economic environment to be second in effect as the economic crisis created by the pandemic had its psychological impact and created unease for the respondents. The system ranked third was the chronosystem which is the timeline of change concerning the occurrence of these systems. That is to say the salience of the element of time and history influences and interplay with the individual's life course, the academic achievement in our case particularly [22]. This rank given to the chronosystem is justified on the ground that the family was an immediate context element that impacted much of our respondents' scholastic achievement given the confinement and the break from the other people around. Additionally, it seems that our respondents felt second impacts from factors away from home and that do not need necessarily physical contact, the macro, and the chronosystems. Thus, the transition or change over time in the life situation of the participants indicated by the aggregate effect of both macrosystem and chronosystem is manifested in chronosystem. The mesosystem, where the microsystem elements influence the individual without direct contact with him/her such as the parents' financial situation and workplace difficulties that were indicated by the participants as microsystems that had an impact on their academic achievement as claimed by [23]. As to the exosystem, it is a system that is more distal from the individual's development and this latter does not interact with the social settings. Our respondents ranked it last as they felt the effect distant from them probably considered high the effect that was micro or internal to them in comparison to that one that is external and the exosystem epitomizes this case as shown by [23]. However, and according to [14], significant research has included the proximal ecological levels of the microsystem and mesosystem partially in contrast to our study. Additionally, the effect of the remaining systems is not that effective, the reference here is to the macrosystem, the exosystem, and the chronosystem which our respondents ranked also as levels of less understanding.

### **6. Conclusion**

No doubt, COVID-19 pandemic confinement had its impact on every sphere of life and education was no exception [24]. A combination of a bio-ecological perspective focusing on academic achievement factors and COVID-19 psychological perceived impact factors perspective is deemed salient in investigating the association between the two variables. This is crucial to consider as besides the focus of the

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

respondents on the choice of two systems, the microsystem and the macrosystem, to be more influential on their achievement, they chose more frequent COVID-19 psychological perceived impact factors that echoed the literature. What is noteworthy here is the existence of a correlation between the two covariables/constructs proving therefore the monotonicity that proves the scenario in which the increased number of psychological risk factors impact the increased perception of academic achievement factors impact is. These results are evocative of the idea that the respondents were overwhelmed by the COVID-19 experience and this latter had them perceive negative effects on their academic achievement as their psychology has been adversely affected as well.

The study has some limitations. First, the research design was a single explanatory qualitative case study research design with an ex post facto perspective. Thus, the absence of variable control and manipulation might have been less rigorous and experimentation could be more scientifically laborious and is highly likely that it would produce more insightful results. Additionally, basing the study only on perceptions mares also the validity of the results, and an experimental design could make up for this inadequacy. Third, the sample is not representative of all Moroccans as it was difficult to get the sampling frame, and therefore it was impossible to opt for a probabilistic type of sampling procedure. Despite these limitations, however, the study revealed some of the psychological states of the Moroccan students during COVID-19 pandemic times and their perceptions on how influential it was on their academic achievement.
