Resilience Under Pressure The Bioscience Student Journey from Lockdown to Recovery

When Learning Collided with a Global Crisis

In higher education, bioscience degrees rely on lab benches, field trips, and teamwork. Overnight in March 2020, those anchors disappeared. Classes moved online, social ties thinned, and the usually hands-on path to graduation became a patchwork of video calls and take-home tasks. The research paper Learn!Bio—A time-limited cross-sectional study on biosciences students’ pathway to resilience during and post the Covid-19 pandemic at a UK university from 2020–2023 and insights into future teaching approaches asks a simple but urgent question: how did students manage psychologically when the ground shifted beneath them—and what should universities do next?

Spanning academic years 2019/20 to 2022/23, this time-limited cross-sectional, mixed-method study gathered voices from 317 undergraduate bioscience students at a northwest English university. The researchers tracked how students’ mental wellbeing dipped, how their resilience formed, and which forms of teaching actually helped. The picture is complex and human: students reported very poor wellbeing, especially by spring 2021, yet they also described gaining new technical, social, and professional skills that will matter long after graduation.

Why this matters now: even after campus reopened, students faced a new challenge—rising living costs—and a new expectation—that universities keep the best of online tools alongside in-person teaching. This study reveals that distress and growth can coexist. It shows that resilience is a process, shaped by support, structure, and opportunity. And it offers practical guidance for designing courses that protect wellbeing while building competence in an uncertain world.

What Students Said When Learning Went Online And Then Back Again

First, the hard truth: students’ mental health took a hit. Many rated their wellbeing as poor or very poor at the peak of restrictions in spring 2021. Think of the cumulative strain—studying in cramped bedrooms, worrying about family health, losing part-time work, and missing the casual conversations that normally keep classes feeling alive. This wasn’t temporary annoyance; it was sustained stress that affected sleep, concentration, and motivation.

At the same time, students adapted. They improved their digital competence—navigating virtual lab simulations, video-conferencing etiquette, and shared documents. They also sharpened self-management: planning independent study, pacing long days, and collaborating remotely. One student described getting “better at asking concise questions in chat,” which is exactly the kind of professional communication that transfers to real-world teams.

By the post-pandemic period, a clear preference emerged for a blended learning model—keeping recorded lectures, online discussion boards, and digital submission options, alongside face-to-face labs and seminars. Cost-of-living pressures made this even more urgent. Commuter students and those with jobs valued the flexibility to access materials asynchronously, saving on transport and making work-study balance more doable. In short, students could feel bad and still grow; they could struggle privately while building public-facing skills that employers prize.

Resilience Is Not the Opposite of Distress

The study’s most important psychological insight is that resilience and poor mental health can coexist. This aligns with the “two-continua” view in mental health: symptoms of distress and positive functioning are related but not identical. A student may report low mood and anxiety while also increasing their sense of competence and mastering new tools. This does not trivialize suffering—it clarifies that growth can happen during hardship, not only after it.

The pattern echoes classic stress-and-coping models. Under intense pressure, people often shift from avoidance to problem-focused coping when given workable tools: clear schedules, accessible resources, and supportive communication. Here, the tools were practical—recorded content, predictable online workflows, and opportunities to ask questions without social pressure. These conditions help satisfy the psychological needs described by Self-Determination Theory: autonomy (control over when and how to learn), competence (seeing progress), and relatedness (feeling part of a group). When these needs were met—even partially—students reported better engagement despite low mood.

Past research on disasters and learning loss often focuses on deficits. This study adds nuance. Students in biosciences, whose degrees depend on physical practice, found ways to build “nearby” skills—data analysis, science communication, remote teamwork—that complement hands-on training. That doesn’t erase the lab experience they missed; it reframes their journey as a reallocation of growth. Crucially, cost-of-living concerns changed the equation post-pandemic. Flexibility became more than a convenience; it was a protective factor that reduced financial strain and cognitive load, freeing up attention for learning.

There are caveats. The design is cross-sectional, so we can’t prove cause and effect. Self-reports can under- or over-estimate wellbeing. Still, the consistency of patterns across 2019/20–2022/23 strengthens the main message: students want and benefit from choice-rich teaching that blends structure with flexibility, and this model may buffer stress while supporting skill development.

Turning Lessons into Better Teaching and Support

For educators: keep the blended core. Pair in-person labs and small-group seminars with recorded lectures, searchable transcripts, and clear weekly checklists. For example, run a live lab briefing on campus, but keep a 10-minute recap video and a template lab notebook online. This gives students autonomy while preserving essential hands-on practice.

For universities: design cost-sensitive pathways. Offer remote-access options for non-lab components, extend library hours for commuters, and create micro-bursaries for travel-intensive weeks. Treat flexibility as wellbeing support, not a luxury. A predictable hybrid timetable also helps students coordinate part-time work without sacrificing attendance.

For student support teams: normalize “both-and” messages—students can be struggling and still be strong. Train staff to spot signs of overload in online spaces (e.g., camera-off silence plus missed deadlines) and to offer low-barrier supports: brief check-ins, peer mentoring, and quick links to counseling. Encourage peer belonging by creating small, stable groups that persist across modules, with simple rituals like rotating roles and short, structured check-ins.

For students: practice deliberate digital habits. Use the chat to ask targeted questions, schedule deep-work blocks for recorded content, and meet peers for 20-minute “virtual lab huddles” to plan tasks before in-person sessions. Keep a skills log that translates course tasks into CV language—“facilitated remote data-sharing,” “coordinated asynchronous contributions”—to recognize growth even during tough weeks.

For employers and placement partners: value the pandemic-era skill set. Students have trained in online collaboration, self-direction, and rapid adaptation. Build internships that combine remote and onsite tasks, and mentor students in professional boundaries online—how to give feedback in writing, manage time zones, and signal progress.

What We Should Carry Forward

The central takeaway from the Learn!Bio—A time-limited cross-sectional study on biosciences students’ pathway to resilience during and post the Covid-19 pandemic at a UK university from 2020–2023 and insights into future teaching approaches is simple and hopeful: resilience is built, not found, and the way we teach can either speed it up or slow it down. Students reported deep dips in wellbeing, especially in spring 2021, yet they also grew in technical, social, and professional ways that matter for their futures. They now expect—and benefit from—teaching that blends face-to-face contact with flexible digital options, especially as living costs rise.

The next crisis may not look like Covid-19, but the blueprint is here: protect hands-on learning where it counts, keep digital tools that empower autonomy, and treat flexibility as a foundation for mental health. The open question for all of us—educators, students, and leaders—is this: what else can we redesign now so that the next disruption feels less like a cliff and more like a ramp?

Data in this article is provided by PLOS.

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