LEC052044 AMAAN RAZA RIZVI ESSAY ON THE EFFECT OF ONLINE CLASSES

Amaan Raza Rizvi

Professor Joseph Koyyipalli

Academic Writing

LECO52044

28 February, 2021.

Online classroom or academic pressure cooker- A Study on the detrimental effects of online teaching on students’ psychology.

Education begins at home, but should it necessarily be confined within the four walls of the safe haven indefinitely? The onset of pandemic has declared a new challenge for the millennial populace, mental and physical. Pedagogy has come in face with an unprecedented dilemma with the arrival of pandemic. The mandatory condition of social distancing has moved academic institutions to resort to online system of education. This was a novel and promising innovation in pedagogy, keeping the advantage of uninterrupted and rapid education at behest of students and teachers. The story however, didn’t roll out as anticipated, as the cases of adolescent anxiety have skyrocketed in the last few months (Wang et al., Cao et al.). The overall persona of a man is defined by his etiquette, manners, and behavior. Each one of these has his education implicit in them, and it is his life skills that speak of the quality of his education, domestic and formal. With interaction curbed among students in their formative years due to mandatory social distancing, the scope for personality development has gravely declined, tarnishing the noble purpose of education. This unfortunate scenario has culminated from all the physical, academic, domestic and financial strains exerted on the young minds. Online education might make a student literate, but it can never educate a child.

This article aims to examine the case of online-teaching from scientific and humanistic perspectives, as it shall enumerate the various dilemmas presented by this pedagogical innovation. Simultaneously, it shall endeavor to suggest certain probable logically-backed alternative so as to mitigate the pernicious effect of virtual education on the human mind.

Studies on the effect of COVID-19 and lockdowns on college students in China reported significant adverse effects on the students’ psychological well-being and high levels of anxiety.  Specific to this study, early literature has documented the negative influence of pandemics on students’ psychological well-being (Mosley pp. 765-767), which has led to acute depression and anxiety (Aktekin pp. 12-17). Cao et al. investigated the psychological impact on university students in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of 7143 students studied, 0.9% had severe anxiety, 2.7% had moderate anxiety, and 21.3% had mild anxiety. A study on 1210 students from 194 cities in China, found 53.8% of respondents having severe to moderate psychological impact, with female students being associated with greater psychological impacts (Wang et al.). As suggested in previous studies, it was also opined that heightened uncertainty and its bearings on students’ academic progress could influence students’ psychological well-being. The possible causes were attributed to long screen hours during online sessions, domestic and academic pressure to cope up with the erratic changes, high peer expectations, limited social life, and financial issues.

               The study of the effect of distance education on cognitive and personality development of students has received a significant importance among the researchers in the recent time. One such study aimed to understand the level of differentiation, integration and hierarchy of cognitive structures of full-time and distance education students and the identification of their intellectual and personality characteristics. Akhter noted for the first time in a comprehensive study of the psychological characteristics of university students enrolled in full-time and distance the following features of the intellectual and personality development: full-time students have the trend of advanced development in intellectual performance, efficiency, endurance, noise immunity, strong nervous system, students of both forms of education have a level, not lower than the average; fatigue hardly comes, the nature and the will of the entire sample of students considered being sufficiently firm and active, mostly realistic and balanced; achievement motivation of students among the sample dominated by the desire to avoid failure, the level of anxiety among full-time students is low, on the other hand, distance students shows the tendency to high; in terms of self-evaluation, majority of the students are not anxious and have an average level of aggressiveness and rigidity. The study also reveals the pace of learning by considering the uniqueness of cognitive differentiation, intellectual and personality development of students in the distance and full-time education: full-time students have higher rates of learning acquisition. Full-time students have shorter time differentiation of objects of all types than distance students, as for the group as a whole and when divided by the best and worst achievers (203-211).

Hara and Kling, in an ethnographic study of eight master’s degree students and one instructor, delved into the complexities of an online educational technology course. They found that the participants were highly distressed by communication issues; these included both breakdowns and having to keep up with frequent and lengthy e-mail discussions. Students were frustrated with ambiguous communications from the instructor, as well as with the anytime-anywhere asynchronous environment that often led to delays in communication and then to increased student dissatisfaction. Minakov yet in another study states:

… side effects of using information technology, which psychologists and therapists have to face nowadays. These include: techno-stress, computer phobia, addiction to computer games (individual, group, role-playing), Internet addiction, hacking, narrowing of the range of interests, autism, transformation of identity, lack of development of social intelligence, degradation of social component in communication, and others.

With these problems growing rampant among students, it is high time that the online system, if necessary to be continued, should work towards a better strategically planned curriculum and modus operandi. A study done with 441 students in 2004 at University of Wyoming identified a core group of items that related most strongly to effective online teaching. Students in this study provided a definition of effective online teaching. Seven items, in combination, contributed to the definition. These items were the following: adapting to student needs, providing meaningful examples, motivating students to do their best, facilitating the course effectively, delivering a valuable course, communicating effectively, and showing concern for student learning. In an online classroom, these characteristics may enhance connections between the instructor, the students, and the course content. By prioritizing these aspects, online teaching might become coherent to the traditional system of pedagogy.

Online classroom might have been an innovative idea so that the education is not compromised. To some extent, it was able to accomplish this noble intention, but, emphasis added only for a particular privileged section of society. One should keep it in mind that India is still a developing country where education is subsidized by governments for the worthy to receive proper education irrespective of his/her financial standing. To afford and access technology and good connection might not be possible for people in remote areas. Besides, indefinite termination of internet services triggered by political clashes like in Kashmir is a major issue for the residents of those regions. The exclusionary nature was obviously not considered, for times of crisis have always witnessed the privileged in a better and deciding position. The aftermath of this helpless measure was the disastrous impact on the psychology of the students, who are obviously on the lower rung of the academic hierarchy. Education should be executed keeping in mind the health of the students, for there is the actual true purpose of education. The health of body might find cure, but things etched to mind take longer time to heal. Education should be dispensed only in proper classroom so as to facilitate uninterrupted bilateral flow of information under a panoptic guidance. This will help students to be better educated scholars with a healthy mind.

Works cited-

Aktekin, M, et al. “Anxiety, Depression and Stressful Life Events Among Medical Students: A Prospective Study in Antalya, Turkey.” Med. Educ. 2001, pp. 12–17.

Md. Akther, Uddin “Psychological Impact of Distance Education Technologies in Students’ Personality Development.” International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology, vol. 2, no. 1, 2013, pp. 203-211.

Mosley, T.H. et al. “Stress, Coping, and Well-being Among Third-year Medical Students.” Acad. Med. 1994, pp. 765–767.

 Cao, W. et al. “The Psychological Impact of the COVID-19 Epidemic on College Students in China.” J. Psychiatry Res. 2020.

Wang, G. et al. “Mitigate the Effects of Home Confinement on Children During the COVID-19 Outbreak.” Lancet, 2020, pp. 945–947.