About the Author: Madeline Nichols is a doctoral student in the College of Public Health and Human Studies at Oregon State University. Studying in the Human Development and Family Studies program, her research broadly focuses on how older adults and adults in midlife understand, process, and regulate their emotions, and how those emotional competencies intersect with sociocultural factors, such as race or gender.
Distance Learning is Hard – Here’s How to Make it Easier for Students
COVID-19 has been rough for everyone across a number of important life domains – whether we think of our social relationships, work, or education, the pandemic has caused us to adapt to accommodate change within these key aspects of our lives (Settersten et al., 2020). Though we’ve all experienced changes, the need for education and learning has been ongoing, and has been one of the adaptations at the forefront of debate with the shift to online learning.
With 1.3 billion students affected by school closures worldwide (UNESCO, 2020a), many experienced detriments to their psychological wellbeing in the form of increased stress and mental health concerns (UNESCO, 2020b). What can we, as educators, do to support the psychological wellbeing of our students with ongoing distance learning practices? Holzer and colleagues suggest that it might be as simple as providing individualized support and feedback, encouraging the use of daily routines to add structure to learning, and using synchronous sessions to reflect on learning and foster community.
What did they do?
Across two studies conducted in Austria and Finland, 7,724 students filled out a questionnaire assessing their competence, autonomy, social connectedness, goal setting and planning, positive emotions, and intrinsic learning motivation. These questionnaires were completed in Spring 2020 – Austrian students participated from April 7 to April 24, shortly after universities closed on March 16 and Finnish students participated from April 29 to June 2, as universities transitioned to distance learning on March 18.
What did they find?
Three of the completed assessments – competence, autonomy, and social connectedness – were deemed basic needs that should be connected to psychological wellbeing by increasing positive emotions and intrinsic learning motivation. Results indicated that both competence and social connectedness were positive predictors of positive emotions in Austria and Finland. Autonomy was a negative predictor of positive emotion for Austrian students, but a positive predictor of positive emotion for Finnish students. However, only competence had a moderate to large effect size in both samples, while autonomy and social connectedness only yielded small effects. Both competence and autonomy were shown to positively predict intrinsic learning motivation in Austria, and all three basic needs were predictors of intrinsic learning motivation in Finland. Finally, the findings regarding the effects of goal setting and planning on positive emotions and intrinsic motivation were mixed – goal setting and planning interacted with autonomy to promote positive emotion in Austria, while competence was key for this interaction in Finland.
What does this mean for us?
Though this study was completed at the beginning of the shift to distance learning, its findings are still relevant as we continue to navigate the rest of our time teaching online and in beginning to transition to in-person classes in the coming year. Promoting these basic needs in our classrooms can help support the psychological wellbeing of our students – and it only takes three easy steps. First, creating individualized learning opportunities, be that through the increased availability of instructors in office hours, or through more individualized feedback, can promote competence. Second, encouraging students to set goals for themselves and creating routines or plans for their learning equips students not only for distance learning, but also in creating good study habits in the long run. Finally, using synchronous sessions now, and promoting group work either online or in-person in the coming terms, can help increase social connectedness by fostering a learning community within the classroom, as well as providing space to reflect on successes and failures in the students’ learning efforts.
Though it may feel like the end is near, we still have a few weeks of distance learning and will have to adapt to in-person learning soon. Minimizing the negative effects on psychological wellbeing that these circumstances may have is crucial in promoting learning and fostering a positive environment for our students.
Figure 1. Structural equation model predicting positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation (Study 1: Model 11).
Note. This structural equation model predicts positive emotion and learning motivation from basic psychological needs, with moderating effects of self-regulated learning. Statistics are standardized regression coefficients. Dotted lines represent nonsignificant relations.
Figure 2. Structural equation model predicting positive emotion and intrinsic learning motivation (Study 2: Model 12).
Note. This structural equation model predicts positive emotion and learning motivation from basic psychological needs, with moderating effects of self-regulated learning. Statistics are standardized regression coefficients. Dotted lines represent nonsignificant relations.
References
Holzer, J., Lüftenegger, M., Korlat, S., Pelika, E., Salmela-Aro, K., Spiel, C., & Schober, B. (2021). Higher education in times of COVID-19: University students’ basic need satisfaction, self-regulated learning, and well-being. AERA Open, 7(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211003164
Settersten, R.A. Jr., Bernardi, L., Härkönen, J., Antonucci, T., Dykstra, P.A., Heckhausen, J., Kuh, D., Mayer, K.U., Moen, P., Mortimer, J.T., Mulder, C.H., Smeeding, T.M., van der Lippe, T., Hagestad, G.O., Kohli, M., Levy, R., Schoon, I., & Thomson, E. (2020). Understanding the effects of Covid-19 through a life course lens. Advances in Life Course Research, 45, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2020.100360
UNESCO. (2020a). COVID-19 impact on education. https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse
UNESCO. (2020b). Nurturing the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people during crises. UNESCO COVID- 19 Education Response. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000373271
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