A multi-facet analysis of the effect of COVID-19 pandemic driven lockdown on research scholars’ efficiency and their mental health

Author(s) : Amjad Ali Arain , Abdul Malik Abbasi & Muhammad Zafar Iqbal

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic started as a health crisis but transformed into a humanitarian crisis within a few weeks. It affected all spheres of life including education and research. COVID-19 driven lockdowns, stay-at-home restriction, social and physical distancing, closure of educational and research facilities posed great challenges for academics students and researchers. This research had been designed to study the effect of COVID-19 pandemic-driven lockdown on research scholars’ efficiency and their mental health. To achieve the objectives of the study data was collected from researchers through Google form. Pearson's chi-square (χ²) test was used to test the hypothesis and the binary splitting technique is applied to make things simple. This study provided sufficient evidence to conclude that researchers faced a range of difficulties during the COVID-19 due to the lockdown. This unexpected situation led to the low efficiency of researchers and it ultimately negatively affected the mental health of both male and female researchers. The application of technology helped researchers to cope with COVID-19 driven challenges up to some extent.

Keywords: COVID-19, pandemics, researcher, efficiency, mental health, technology