Distance education and learning processes. A survey at University of Catania during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The emergency situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic required all Italian universities to implement alternative teaching strategies to traditional face-to-face lessons. At the University of Catania, this situation prompted the start of distance learning paths in a synchronous mode at the very beginning of the emergency. At the same time, the lecturers were encouraged to video-record the lessons in order to make them available to students also in asynchronous mode. On the basis of this emergency situation, an investigation was immediately launched to identify the consequences of the new teaching methods on student learning processes; the research began in the first phase of the lockdown i…