Computer skills for e-learning activities of university students: A posetic approach

The motivation comes from an international research project promoted by the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), that conducted a large-scale survey on the COVID-19 effects on higher education students. The survey contains different ordinal variables and other categorical variables describing the academic environment. This data structure configures a partially ordered set (poset); therefore, the Fuzzy First Order Dominance (FFOD) method is particularly indicated to analyze it. By focussing on the Italian academic context, the FFOD is employed to explore the responses provided by a sample of students enrolled in degree or doctorate courses of Italian universities. During the lockdown, these students were asked to score their computer skills related to the e-learning activities. The considered ordered variables concern students’ expertise in both managing digital communication/information channels and using more specific platforms for online lectures and academic support to their studies. The ratings are analyzed with the FFOD method to accomplish a comparative evaluation of different study courses and assess possible relationships of the resulting orderings with other academic variables typically impacting on university performance.