Flexibility and Social Disconnectedness: Assessing University Students'Well-Being Using an Experience Sampling Chatbot and Surveys Over Two Years of COVID-19

COVID-19 caused an abrupt switch from face-to-face to online teaching. This led to unknown challenges and consequences for students and lecturers. In the first semester after its outbreak, we developed a messenger-based chatbot to perform an experience sampling study to evaluate students well-being and experiences (n = 31) with the radical changes in higher education. Finding a decrease in students perceived motivation but an increase in productivity, we conducted a follow-up survey to compare the development a year later (n = 41). Our results revealed two main student profiles, one feeling severely impacted by the persisting social distance in their study performance and the other appreciating the flexibility and expended free time due to the changes in the teaching formats. Based on our findings, we introduce implications for the overall design of higher education and show the benefits and challenges of combining chatbot-enabled experience sampling with traditional surveys.