Belonging in distance learning: The impact of interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic

[EN] The COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique situation in which higher education institutions, teachers, researchers, and students prove their ability to continue education online. In a longitudinal panel study at a German university, we investigated how freshmen and students in higher semesters...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Mainka, Agnes, Kötter, Jonas, Kukharenka, Natallia, Brinkmeier, Michael
Format: book part
Publication Date:2022
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repository:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/191565
Online Access:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/191565
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Distance learning
Sense of belonging
Social engagement
Academic engagement
COVID-19
Online
Description
Summary:[EN] The COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique situation in which higher education institutions, teachers, researchers, and students prove their ability to continue education online. In a longitudinal panel study at a German university, we investigated how freshmen and students in higher semesters (n = 72) cope with the online winter semester 2020/21. Commonly, a sense of belonging to a university is highly determined by academic and social engagement and positively impacts academic success and motivation. Due to the pandemic, the interaction between students, lecturers, and learning materials was limited to digital communication. The results reveal that interaction (student-to-content, student-to-staff, and student-to-student) hardly correlates with a sense of belonging, whereas correlations between interaction and academic success as well as motivation.