Abstract

Starting with the year 2020 the novel coronavirus spread worldwide within a few months. The first coronavirus cases had tested positive in Austria at the end of February and the Austrian government took drastic measures to contain the pandemic starting mid-March onwards. These measures included a shutdown of all Austrian universities over the whole summer semester 2020. Within a few days, every on-site activity at the universities was suspended and had to be substituted by virtual activities and distance learning. This was a completely novel situation for the students and for the course instructors.

The suspension of on-site activities was lifted again with the start of the winter semester 2020 but due to the increase of coronavirus cases on-site activities were suspended again in November 2020 and also for the whole summer semester 2021. So, the summer semester was the second semester which was hold completely virtual. The winter semester 2021 and summer semester 2022 allowed for on-site activities at the universities with a few limitations like a mask mandate.

In this work, three cohorts of computer science students taking an introductory course into statistics are investigated. The first cohort of students was confronted in the summer semester 2020 with a total new situation (no on-site activities, only distance learning). The second cohort of students, who took the course in the summer semester 2021, had already experience with distance learning and the third cohort, who took the course in the summer semester 2022, was able to attend the course on-site.