Social work students voices: lessons learned from the pandemic

The closure of universities and the transition to online education due to the COVID-19 crisis, led to a period of change in contexts characterized by face-to-face education (McFadden et al., 2020). In this pandemic period, the SW literature has addressed the use of digital technology during their stay at home (Papouli, Chatzifotiou & Tsairidis, 2020), the experiences of BSW and MSW students during the COVID-19 pandemic (Paceley et al., 2021), field instructors and students in order to analyze difficulties and innovations in internships (Csoba & Diebel, 2020), good practices developed by universities (Morley & Clarke, 2020) and the access conditions of students in (a emerging) online education, also comparing online with face-to-face teaching (Dinh & Nguyen, 2020). With this background, this study explores the perspectives of social work students of the bachelor's degree in Portugal on experiences in the online teaching-learning process, through the deepening of the following aspects: (i). access and conditions for online emergency education at home (e.g. specific space for study, access and quality of the internet); (ii). perspectives on the online teaching experience (positive and negative aspects, access to educational materials, motivation, interpersonal relationships, among others); (iii). pedagogical practices and activities (frequency, importance, and adaptation); (iv). Satisfaction with emergency online education in general, deepening several dimensions. Data collection was carried out with an online survey, with open and closed questions (according to the dimensions identified), and participants were recruited from social networks. The data obtained through the closed questions of the survey are subject of treatment and quantitative analysis, with descriptive statistics, with the SPSS software. Qualitative data analysis was conducted through content analysis. We conclude the presentation with the implications of the students' perspective to identify innovative practices and the possibility to rethink curricula and practices for the post-pandemic future and eventual moments of crisis.