Online learning is still challenging for students – they need our support

Much has been written about “emergency remote teaching” or “panic-gogy”. Some of this commentary has been highly critical of online learning, suggesting it is entirely inferior to on-campus learning.

However, the situation that emerged during the pandemic cannot be taken as an indication of what high-quality online learning looks like. Some aspects of high-quality learning in physical classrooms carry over to other modes, but others require redesign and a fundamental rethink.

• Why online learning must remain part of the education toolkit
• Collection: Higher education goes hybrid
• What ‘norms’ support successful learning design collaborations?

Now, as many higher education institutions around the world prepare for a new semester, trimester or academic year, uncertainty about face-to-face classes continues with the latest wave of Covid-19 infections. Online learning is again set to feature heavily in the delivery of higher education for the second half of this year and beyond. 

Why online learning is difficult for students

Within this complexity, online learning remains challenging for students for five core reasons.

1. Online learning can be isolating

The feeling of isolation when learning online is not helped by webinar technologies (such as Zoom) because we all still find multimedia interaction in real time in different places weird. The Australian national Student Experience Survey data on sense of belonging have taken a dive in the past two years because interaction online is foreign to students and teachers compared with entire lives spent interacting face to face with others.

2. Flexibility puts pressure on students

Increased flexibility puts more of an onus on students to judge their own progress and make good choices. Inherent in the flexibility afforded by online learning is more choice about the time and space dimensions of study. Not everyone has the capacity to make good judgements about their learning and act wisely on those judgements. These capacities rely on what is termed “self-regulated learning”, which is an area of research that we are heavily engaged in.

3. Students don’t always know where to get help in online environments

Because interaction is difficult online and many students struggle with self-regulated learning, help-seeking can be a problem. This issue manifests in two ways: students don’t recognise when they need help, and they either don’t know where to get help or feel uncomfortable about accessing virtual help.

4. Learners process material differently online

Students working remotely learn differently from those in physical environments. This has been called the “screen inferiority effect”. There is uncertainty about how much difference there is between acquiring information online as opposed to in physical environments, but there is enough research to suggest that there can be a cost to online learning with regard to the effectiveness of the time spent.

5. It’s easy to get diverted from study online

Given all the distractions that are only one click away, students are easily diverted from online study. Those distractions are designed to grab attention and maintain engagement. Distractions include everything from streaming services and social media to online games. These distractions then lead to time off the task of learning or to multitasking. Both have been found to be severely detrimental to progress.

Core fundamentals of learning

The core fundamentals of learning underpin learning across modes. Paraphrasing (and with apologies to) Richard E. Clark, the nutritional value of a truckload of vegetables doesn’t change because you transfer it to a train. Engagement, interaction, interest, motivation, time on task and attention are critical elements regardless of the mode of delivery.

Quality online learning does not involve simply copying the approach to teaching in a physical environment and doing more or less the same thing online. Different strategies and tactics are required for good online learning. These are arguments that have been made numerous times in the past two years.

Flip side of flexibility

Online learning has undoubtedly created many opportunities for students in equity groups to engage with higher education when they otherwise might not have been able to. Online learning, particularly the use of webinar technologies, has allowed higher education institutions to operate during the Covid-19 pandemic. The increased flexibility afforded by digital networked technologies has given students choice in when, where and how they study. These are all good things.

However, the advantages provided by online learning are not a panacea that will lead to cheaper, easier and quicker higher education. Technology companies would have us believe that their tool or platform will “fix” online learning, revolutionising education.

History has shown that no technology or platform is the silver bullet for technology-enhanced or online learning. Decades of research demonstrate that online learning can be challenging for students for many reasons.

This large body of research also suggests that developing high-quality online learning involves three key factors:

• the fundamentals of high-quality learning such as engagement and interaction
• deliberate design of high-quality learning specifically for digital learning environments
• explicit support for students to give them the skills to learn effectively online, which include being able to make good judgements about progress and know how to take appropriate action on those judgements.

Online learning might be foreign or difficult for students. However, if it is well designed and evidence informed and incorporates ways of deliberately helping students to learn how to learn in these new environments, online learning can and does provide opportunities that a traditional approach locked to specific times and places does not.

Jason M. Lodge is associate professor in the School of Education and academic lead – student learning in the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation at the University of Queensland.

Paula de Barba is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne.

Jaclyn Broadbent is associate head of school (teaching and learning) in the School of Psychology and an associate professor in the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning Environments (CRADLE) at Deakin University.