Aspectos psicoemocionais, cognição e compreensão leitora: investigando os impactos do ensino remoto emergencial em universitários

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered substantial changes in the educational landscape, resulting in the adoption of emergency remote teaching as a measure to address the need for social distancing. This public health crisis brought numerous impacts to the educational field, potentially influencing crucial cognitive skills such as memory and reading comprehension, which are fundamental to the learning process. Understanding the effects of emergency remote teaching on students’ motivation, academic engagement, and cognitive processes is essential for the development of more effective educational strategies. The main objective of this study was to identify the impacts of emergency remote teaching on cognitive and psycho-emotional processes and reading comprehension in university students. Initially, a systematic review was conducted according to the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses – PRISMA. Search strategies were applied in scientific databases such as Scielo, Lilacs, PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Google Scholar, and Web of Science, with filters defined for the period from 2020 to 2023, corresponding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, a field study was carried out using an observational, cross-sectional methodological approach. This phase included the assessment of working memory, self-perception of learning, attention, disposition, and methodological quality, in addition to the analysis of visual information processing and reading tasks. Data were organized and analyzed using R Studio software. Descriptive and exploratory analyses were conducted, and working memory scores were standardized using the Z-score. Multiple linear regression was applied with variable selection by the stepwise method, with statistical significance considered at p < 0.05. As for the results, the analysis of psycho-emotional aspects in emergency remote teaching revealed a scenario of intense mental health challenges for students and technological difficulties that negatively impacted motivation, engagement, and perceptions of teaching quality. Nevertheless, the strengthening of family bonds and the practice of self-care emerged as protective factors in certain contexts. The lack of adequate infrastructure and the overlap of responsibilities also harmed academic performance, reinforcing the need for methodological improvements. The field study was conducted with 100 students from the Federal University of Sergipe (average age of 21.6 years). Although most students had access to electronic devices and the internet for emergency remote teaching, perceptions of teaching quality were mostly negative, especially regarding demotivation toward the format of the classes. However, statistical analyses did not identify significant impacts of the self-perception of remote teaching on cognition (working memory) or on reading comprehension (infographic reading), indicating that the perception of remote teaching was not directly associated with performance on either the working memory or reading tests. The cognitive tests indicated average performance in the domains of working memory and infographic reading, with no significant differences related to variables such as physical activity, alcohol consumption, or psychological support, although alcohol consumption was associated with higher levels of stress. This indicates that even with such habits, the sample in this study showed a normal pattern of working memory. The linear regression analysis, in turn, showed a significant association between working memory scores and performance in infographic reading, revealing that greater working memory capacity favors the understanding of visual materials, highlighting the importance of cognitive functions in learning mediated by digital technologies. Strategies such as teacher training, the conscious use of visual resources, gradual content organization, and continuous emotional support are fundamental to making remote teaching more effective and humanized, preserving both academic performance and students’ emotional well-being.