PERCEPTION OF PERUVIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ABOUT VIRTUAL EDUCATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced higher education institutions to implement the virtual teaching-learning modality in order not to interrupt the educational service, comply with the provisions of social distancing and thus avoid increasing the rate of infections. However, this disruption brought with it some unforeseen problems and limitations during its implementation. Therefore, the objective of this research was to analyze the perception of university students in the Madre de Dios region about virtual education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The approach was quantitative, the design was non-experimental, and the type was cross-sectional descriptive. The sample was made up of 302 students to whom the PAVDO-C Questionnaire was applied, an instrument with adequate levels of validity based on content and reliability. According to the results, the perception of 41.4% of the students about the virtual education that was being imple-mented was partially favorable, 33.4% was favorable and 25.2% was unfavorable. Likewise, it was determined that some sociodemogra-phic and academic variables such as gender, university of origin, employment status, and area of residence were significantly associated with said perception. Finally, it was concluded that the students were characterized by having a partially favorable perception of virtual education, for which universities needed to continue developing the digital and didactic skills of teachers so that they can improve their virtual pedagogical practice and thus teaching. be more suitable.