Abstract
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was a pandemic identified in Wuhan, China in late 2019, which was a huge outbreak around the world including Sri Lanka. This work focuses on identifying the effect on education and mental health from the COVID-19 pandemic on physical science undergraduates of the Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Chi-Square and post hoc tests with Bonferroni adjustment were employed to identify associations among considered factors while k-means clustering was applied in the detection of distinct groups among undergraduates. Undergraduates’ preference was in-house lectures and practical sessions before the pandemic while Zoom lectures and screen-recordings were during the pandemic. The loss of jobs of family members was the major cause for the lower lecture attendance. Concerning mental healthiness, suicidal thoughts and home violence were prominent. Cluster analysis resulted in three and four clusters respectively when considering the impacts on education and mental health separately. It is noteworthy that undergraduates in Cluster 2 experienced major negative impacts on education while Cluster 1 experienced minor impacts. Identified Cluster 2 by considering the mental perception exhibits that most of the undergraduates’ pessimistic thoughts whereas the majority of the students were first-year and female. In conclusion, this study evidence that there is a huge impact on education and the mental perception of undergraduates due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings of this study can be utilized by higher authorities of education to lend a helping hand for undergraduates to minimize the effect of COVID-19 on education and mental health.