UC San Diego

This research will explore first-generation college students’ (FGCS) experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. FGCS come from a home where neither parent nor legal guardian has a college degree, yet, in contrast, continuing-generation students—who will be referred here as CGCS—are college students who have at least one parent or legal guardian who has earned a college degree (Mehta et al., 2011). FGCS students graduate—persist—at a substantially lower rate than CGCS (Chen & Carroll, 2005; Ishitani, 2003; Ishitani, 2006; Mehta et al., 2011; Warburton et al., 2001). Studies have shown that FGCS work longer hours and have more financial responsibilities (Inman & Mayes, 1999; Mehta et al., 2011; Nunez & Cuccaro-Almin, 1998), and for the most part, feel ill-equipped to enroll in college (Mehta, 2011; Rodriguez, 2003). Notably, FGCS are disadvantaged in several ways, according to pre-COVID-19 research as they are less likely to seek academic support from staff, for example, and they tend to underutilize other services (Beattie & Thiele, 2016; Hicks & Wood, 2016; Mates et al., 2021). Moreover, FGCS are also more likely to connect with relationships at home, and they tend to have fewer developed college networks, which is perhaps unsurprising (Mates et al., 2021; Stuart et al., 2011). Thus, when schools and institutions shifted to the online setting across the nation in March 2020 because of the pandemic, students from lower-income communities, including FGCS, may have found it especially difficult to participate in educational activities or complete their assignments because of inconsistent internet or a lack of access to equipment (Case et al., 2021). In response, many campuses provided computers—either laptops or Chromebooks—and many also addressed other concerns like internet—by distributing hotspots—or facilitating participation in Zoom classes—by making headsets and webcams available (Hart et al., 2021). In addition to institutional support, distance education teams prepared and delivered faculty professional development that focused on humanizing online instruction. Humanizing instruction acknowledges that participation and success are social structures influenced by students’ background and experiences within the instructional setting (Pacansky-Brock, 2019). A method of humanizing online instruction is integrating the Community of Inquiry Framework. This research study will utilize Garrison, Anderson, and Archer’s Community of Inquiry (CoI) Framework which has three interrelated essential components—teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence—with the purpose of promoting online communication in higher education (Garrison et al., 2000; Garrison et al., 2001). Through a sequential mixed-methods design, this study attempted to learn directly from FGCS if their perceptions of online instruction changed during the pandemic as it pertains to how online courses were designed and the relationships they developed with instructions and their peers. Keywords: First-Generation College Student, Online Instruction, Perception, Community of Inquiry, Interactions, Relationships, COVID-19.