COVID-19 impacts on PhD students at LTH

Abstract

COVID-19 was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and the first cases in Sweden were confirmed in February 2020. The spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus led to major changes in the society, the way we work, travel, interact with others, etc.

In this study the effects of this pandemic on the PhD work was assessed. The data collection was carried out by interviewing 13 selected PhD students to gather information on different aspects of their PhD work.

The findings were surprisingly positive. In general, there were no delays on the PhD work, no increased stress or decreased motivation. The amount of work remained more or less the same except for two students who had teaching where the workload increased significantly. The most affected part of the work was the experimental part, either by not being able to perform experiments or not being able to plan future experimental work. The students worked mainly from home but this was generally not imposed by the supervisors. Not all students had good working environment at home and the lack of social contact was mentioned to affect efficiency and motivation. The supervision was held mainly digitally but according to the students both the frequency and quality were kept mainly the same. The availability of the supervisors was also unaffected by the pandemic.