Student Research Report: How To Deal With the Classroom in a Pandemic
In Spring 2021, students in Dr. Emily Stark’s Research Methods and Design course completed multiple hands-on data collection projects. They were also assigned a blog paper where they discussed one of the topics they chose to research and explained their findings to a general audience. The goal of this was to give students an opportunity to explore a different form of writing from APA-style research papers. Some of these blog papers will be featured here throughout the summer to showcase the students’ findings. Please feel free to contact Dr. Stark through the contact form on this site for additional information about this course or the assignments used.
By Gloria Lee
How has your year been since last spring? We are now used to new ‘normal’ that changed our lifestyle totally including wearing a mask, social distancing, and living/ working virtually. College students also experienced huge changes in the middle of Spring semester 2020 to convert to online-based classes and become students far away from the campus physically. Students took online classes, studied online-based lectures and resources by themselves, and stayed home instead of going back to campus. These changes have led to psychological stresses on students. According to a survey of 14,174 college students, a significant number of students reported that they suffered from psychological impact due to the pandemic and a fear of disease including increased depression, stress, anxiety, or more (Aristovnik et al., 2020).
In this new normal, students faced a new type of classroom, virtual classes. How did we deal with the new classroom? Engagement plays an important role in academic success in the classroom. Also, the key point of communication that includes engagement is to feel less anxiety in a group or environment. You also have experiences that it is not easy to begin or make the conversation with strangers or new environments like the first day of class or job. In the new environment, people try to identify situations, relationships, atmosphere, or others, which is a threat or helpful to us for surviving in a new environment as the process of adaptation. That is why it is important to evoke a feeling of comfort for leading communication during classes. It is essential to consider how the difference is between virtual/online-based classes and in-person classes in students’ engagement. The advantage of online learning is that we can use the merit of technology that there is no restriction on the location and formation. Students can take classes in their room, bed, couch, or whenever they feel more comfortable. Moreover, the virtual and online learning environment can provide more beneficial resources and leads more sense of engagement to instructors and students using the various methods and entertainment with technology (Theodosiou & Corbin, 2020).
Through the experimental research that I designed and conducted for my research methods and design course, I observed 61 students participating in classes via Zoom as a virtual class and tracked reactions actively including asking questions, answering questions, or chatting rather than in-person classes. I found that students participated more and were more engaged in virtual classes. This could be that students who are familiar using the internet and online platforms feel less anxiety while online communicating. Also, online classes can give more options to students to express themselves; such as not only talking directly but also using the chat room and emojis and sharing visual materials. Moreover, the degree of engagement students feel is different depending on type of online learning method. Other research has found that students felt more connected and engaged when participating in live class such as Zoom than other types of online learning activities like recording lectures, group projects, or more (Theodosiou & Corbin, 2020). Many beneficial aspects of virtual/online-based learning might offer a comfortable environment to students.
Not all classes are the same. Students react and participate in classes differently depending on the environment and method, like virtual or in-person. Particularly, courses and instructors should put effort to help decrease the stress level and psychological impact of a sudden or unexpected change that can cause high anxiety levels. Educational institutions and instructors need to build classes and lectures and provide resources considering learning environment, situations, class delivery methods, and more for high-quality learning that improves students’ engagement.
References
Aristovnik, A., Keržič, D., Ravšelj, D., Tomaževič, N., & Umek, L. (2020). Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on life of higher education students: A global perspective. Sustainability 2020, 12, 8438. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202008.0246.v2
Theodosiou, N. A., & Corbin, J. D. (2020). Redesign your in‐person course for online: Creating connections and promoting engagement for better learning. Ecology and Evolution, 10(22), 12561-12572. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/10.1002/ece3.6844