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Emerging	Perspectives	
ep.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca	

	
	

Introduction:	Graduate	Students	Navigating	the	COVID-19	Pandemic	
 

Stephanie Hladik,1 Marcus Gottlieb,2 Lena Barrantes,3 Helen Pethrick1 
 

1 Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada 
2 University of British Columbia Okanagan, Canada 

3 Universidad Nacional, Sede Regional Brunca, Costa Rica 
  
         The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying restrictions and challenges impacted 
everyone differently. In addition to universal stressors like job security, childcare, and health 
worries, graduate students faced additional pandemic-related challenges related to our roles as 
student-researchers. The combination of these obstacles (e.g., a sudden shift to working from 
home, disconnecting from colleagues, limits on in-person data collection, reduced access to 
important research tools and spaces) led to notable disruptions in research for over 75% of 
Canadian graduate students (Suart et al., 2021; Toronto Science Policy Network, 2020). These 
circumstances can be devastating in graduate school, where conducting research and generating 
publications are often crucial to immediate and future success, such as financial security or 
obtaining a job after graduation. It is thus unsurprising that the vast majority of graduate students 
have experienced a decline in their mental health (Chirikov et al., 2020; Toronto Science Policy 
Network, 2020) and a growing number are experiencing financial instability (Zahneis, 2020), 
exacerbating their already precarious situations. However, in the face of what is clearly an 
incredibly challenging situation, graduate students have showcased their resourcefulness and 
resilience (Brammer et al., 2020). Students adapted to telecommunication to maintain their 
productivity, supported one another through engaging in virtual activities like online yoga, poetry 
and cooking, and strived to find the “silver linings” of the pandemic (Brammer et al., 2020; Cénat 
et al., 2020). Ultimately, research persisted.  
  We were privy to our fellow graduate students’ resilience. While challenges and struggles 
were common topics during Zoom calls or emails with colleagues, so too were innovative 
approaches to data collection and strategies for mental health and wellness. These experiences are 
what have given rise to this special issue. While many studies have acknowledged the challenges 
that graduate students have faced during this difficult time, fewer have showcased the innovations 
in research and practice that have helped graduate students to overcome these new barriers in their 
professional and personal lives. For that reason, we invited the authors featured in this special issue 
to not only share how their research was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to detail 
how they have adapted and thrived. In short, we wanted to highlight and celebrate the creativity 
and resiliency that we have witnessed from graduate students on a daily basis throughout the 
pandemic.  



Hladik, Gottlieb, Barrantes, & Pethrick – Emerging Perspectives (2021) ii 

This creativity and resiliency can take many forms, interconnected with the needs and goals 
of each individual graduate student. In terms of research, graduate students may have adapted 
research questions to the new pandemic context, brainstormed new ways to collect data when 
schools and workplaces were closed, or taken advantage of increasingly sophisticated online tools. 
Beyond research practices, adapting personal practices could also lead to graduate students seeking 
out new self-care methods and dealing with the realities of being a graduate student during the 
COVID-19 pandemic. New routines and habits for personal wellness and maintaining relationships 
with friends and colleagues were created. These adaptations and innovations were created in direct 
response to the pandemic, yet they may also be relevant long after the pandemic is over. This 
special issue, therefore, offers new suggestions and lessons for graduate students looking for ways 
to promote their own wellness in challenging circumstances, or wondering how to create blended 
online/in-person programs to reach participants in rural and/or international locations. The 
relevance and impact of the briefs included in this special issue extend beyond the pandemic and 
will have enduring lessons for graduate students.  

What is a Research or Practice Brief? 

In the Emerging Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Graduate Research in Education and 
Psychology (EPIGREP) journal, a research brief is an opportunity for authors to share an 
interesting aspect of a research project they have completed, or a brief summary of their 
completed/in-progress study, without reporting on the whole findings of the study. In this special 
issue, authors were invited to write a research brief detailing a summary of pandemic-related 
research, or a brief that focuses specifically on a particular aspect of their research that was 
impacted by the pandemic, such as data collection. A practice brief is an opportunity for authors 
to share an interesting aspect of teaching or psychology clinical practice that they have encountered 
in the field. For the purposes of this special issue, with its focus on graduate student adaptations 
and resiliency, practice briefs may also highlight personal practices of students as researchers 
during the pandemic. Additionally, we would like to note that in some of this issue’s briefs, 
research and practice are so closely intertwined that clear categorization as a research or practice 
brief is not feasible. The editors would like to acknowledge and celebrate these tensions as they 
emerge on our journeys as graduate students. 

Overview of the Papers 

 This special issue includes research and practice briefs that span across the disciplines of 
education and psychology. The authors draw from published literature as well as their own 
personal experiences to bring to light both the challenges and the innovations of graduate research 
during the pandemic. In each brief, the authors offer lessons learned and suggestions for graduate 
students and post-secondary institutions who may find themselves in similar situations or dealing 
with comparable challenges. 
  Jhonattan Bello, Cong Luo, Suyeon Cho, and Siyin Liang draw upon their own experiences 
in their brief, Living through Covid-19 Pandemic as International Students in Canada: 



Hladik, Gottlieb, Barrantes, & Pethrick – Emerging Perspectives (2021) iii 

Collaborative Autoethnography of Struggles and Resilience. They explore how their intersecting 
identities as international students affected their experience of the pandemic, how systemic barriers 
made it difficult to conduct research, and the ways in which systemic inequities became even more 
pronounced during the pandemic. They also suggest some strategies for building resiliency, 
including building relationships with mentors, colleagues, and friends. 
 Next, Michelle Bence Mathezer and Miriam Ramzy take us into the online kindergarten 
classroom in their brief titled Pivoting from In-class to Online Early Literacy Instruction and 
Contributing Critical Insights. Rather than cancelling their planned kindergarten literacy program 
when the pandemic made in-classroom research impossible, they shifted the program online. This 
required them to brainstorm new ways to support embodied cognition and engagement with 
physical materials, virtually. Despite limits of the online environment, the authors were successful 
in creating online engagement and opportunities for the students to engage with hands-on 
manipulatives though pre-packaged material kits. 
 Online program delivery took place not only in formal K-12 education settings, but also in 
informal learning contexts including summer programs, as Sukyoung Lee, Didem Erman and 
Tanvir Chowdhury Turin detail in their brief, Adapting to the New Normal During a Pandemic: 
Innovative Approaches in Virtual Teaching and Research for Youth Engagement. In order to 
engage immigrant and refugee youth in an online health education summer program, the authors 
designed innovative online activities including a virtual human library, simulations, and game-
based learning, which were supported by video conferencing and other virtual tools. These virtual 
activities allowed for deeper engagement and access for the program’s youth participants. 
 Helen Pethrick explores stories of university student resiliency during the pandemic in her 
brief titled Mirrored Resiliency: Exploring University Student Narratives of the COVID-19 
Pandemic. Reflecting before her first online participant interview, she wondered “What will this 
be like? And what could it have been?” As she continued to conduct her research, she found her 
own experiences and resiliency as a graduate student mirrored in the narratives of her participants. 
In this way, she argues for the power of narrative learning and mirrored resiliency to imagine new 
possibilities for well-being and hope, even in such challenging times. 
 The reality of collecting data during a pandemic is front and centre in Chelsea Reaume, 
Madeleine Alie, and Kristel Thomassin’s brief, Creative Approaches to Mixed-Methods Data 
Collection in the Context of COVID-19: Investigating Families, Emotions, and Collective Coping 
in a Prospective Sample. Interested in understanding how the pandemic affected families’ 
emotional socialization processes, these researchers reached out to participants from a previous 
study and adapted their assessment methods to include virtual surveys and video recordings from 
parents. They did so while maintaining an emphasis on participants’ security and privacy. The 
authors also noted possible inequitable impacts of recruitment during difficult times. 
 Lisa Taylor writes about the intertwinement of identity, pedagogy, and practice in her brief, 
Supporting Student Wellness to Enable Resiliency During the COVID-19 Pandemic. In order to 
balance her needs and responsibilities as a mother, instructor and doctoral student, she draws upon 
her understanding of wellness from her years of experience as a physical health and education 



Hladik, Gottlieb, Barrantes, & Pethrick – Emerging Perspectives (2021) iv 

teacher. Her strategies of listening to course content rather than reading it, dedicating specific time 
to physical activity, and spending time outdoors helped her to remain resilient and manage the 
stress created by the pandemic. 
 Finally, Rae Ann Van Beers discusses letting go of previous research plans and adapting 
to the “new normal” in her brief titled Pan(dem)ic at the (Middle School) Disco: Navigating Data 
Collection During Quarantine. Her plan to have middle school youth engage in duo-ethnographic 
explorations of fair trade within their schools was challenged when schools shut down and she lost 
contact with her original participants. However, strong connections with teachers and the clever 
use of online video tools allowed her to reunite with her students and accept her research for what 
it had become in the face of the pandemic.  

Conclusion 

There are several experiences, adaptations, and lessons learned highlighted in this special 
issue. This speaks to the wealth of experience and reflection drawn upon by each author. We hope 
that in sharing these briefs, graduate students may feel connected in their struggles, celebrate the 
work of their peers, and learn about creative solutions to problems they may be experiencing as 
the (post-)pandemic context evolves. The editorial team from this special issue would like to thank 
each of the authors for their incredible work on these briefs, as well as the reviewers who 
volunteered their time and expertise to develop the authors’ ideas. We hope you enjoy this special 
issue presented by EPIGREP. 

References 

Chirikov, I., Soria, K. M., Horgos, B., & Jones-White, D. (2020). Undergraduate and graduate 
students’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. UC Berkeley: Center for Studies 
in Higher Education. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/80k5d5hw 

Brammer, Mitzi S. (2020). Student resilience and COVID-19. Social Sciences & Humanities 
Open. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3637824 

Cénat, J. M., Noorishad, P. G., Blais-Rochette, C., McIntee, S. E., Mukunzi, J. N., Darius, W. P., 
Broussard, C., Morse, C., Ukwu, G., Auguste, E., & Menelas, K. (2020). Together for 
hope and resilience: A humanistic experience by the vulnerability, trauma, resilience and 
culture lab members during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 
25(8), 643–648. https://doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2020.1774704 

Ho, C. (2020). Pandemic harms Canadian grad students’ research and mental health. Nature 
Career News. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02441-y 

Suart, C., Nowlan Suart, T., Graham, K., & Truant, R. (2021). When the labs closed: graduate 
students’ and postdoctoral fellows’ experiences of disrupted research during the COVID-
19 pandemic. FACETS, 6(1), 966–997. http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/facets-2020-0077 

 
Toronto Science Policy Network. (2020). The early impacts of COVID-19 on graduate students 

across Canada. https://tspn.ca/covid19-report/ 



Hladik, Gottlieb, Barrantes, & Pethrick – Emerging Perspectives (2021) v 

Zahneis, M. (2020). For many graduate students, COVID-19 pandemic highlights inequities. The 
Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/for-many-graduate-
students-covid-19-pandemic-highlights-inequities/ 


