New Perspectives in Science Education

The return to in-person work in educational institutions and in particular in universities has highlighted the impact of the pandemic on many aspects of the students' profile. The changes observed are very diverse and involve aspects related to behavior, social skills, learning skills, the use of technology, among others. This has motivated the development of research that seeks to identify and quantify the impact of the pandemic on students. However, the results are very variable, since they depend on the geographical, social, and educational contexts where the research has been carried out [1], [2]. The review of pedagogical strategies to work with students who begin their training at the university implies knowing their main characteristics and, in that sense, two variables that are fundamental in the academic performance of students are academic motivation and metacognitive skills. In this sense, the purpose of this work was to compare the profile of two groups of students in terms of these two variables. For this, the Modified Achievement Motivation Scale (EAML-M) [3] and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) [4] were applied. Both groups included students who were beginning their studies in Science and Engineering careers at a Peruvian university. One of the groups included students from a semester prior to the pandemic, and the second group included students who began their studies in the return semester after the pandemic. The results showed significant differences in favor of pre-pandemic students in metacognitive skills that are related to the regulation of cognition, that is, with the activities that help control the learning process. These results constitute a contribution to the planning of pedagogical strategies with students who are beginning their university studies.