How online university affects the wellbeing of student?
Tertiary education is experiencing unprecedented numbers in online delivery. I seek to discover the personal ramifications of students’ wellbeing, both positive and negative. It is through the aspect of wellbeing I wish to bring understanding to the question:
Why would/wouldn’t we go back to face to face lectures and tutorials?”
Wellbeing is important to explore because it underpins productive members of society. Wellbeing is comprised of physical and mental health and has a wide range of variables (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention, 2018) but how will this delicate balance fair during the current pandemic causing students to work from home?
I looked into was some aspects of wellbeing with my first lot of research to establish sound understanding. “Psychological stresses and impaired sleep,” a review by Torbjorn Akerstedt is an article from a Scandinavian journal work that demonstrates the cyclical relationship between impaired sleep and stress (Akerstedt, 2006, pg 497).
The topic of stress and disturbed sleep, Akerstedt looked into aspects such as:
- Adjustment insomnia and the effects of acute stress
- Burnout, which occurs after being exposed to longterm stress (Akerstedt, 2006, pg 494)
Whilst I was learning the implications of stress on sleep and vise versa, I pondered connections to the exposure of blue wavelengths from screens that will inevitably increase when university goes online. Instead of talking to tutors in person and watching lectures at uni, everything is now done through our screens.
Professionals such as Dr. James Stringham investigated the physical effect of screen time. Stringham is a research scientist who’s expertise lies in vision performance. He conducted testing on the correlation between screen time, vision and sleep. In his experiment he wanted to try to improve:
- Fatigue
- Sleep quality
- Headache frequency
- And visual performance
According to Stringham, all of these occur when screen time is increased. His study concludes that nutrition-based therapy could minimise the negative outcomes screen time has. (Stringham, 2017, pg, 7). This is important to keep in mind because nutrition contributes to wellbeing as aforementioned by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Akerstedt’s article states that lack of sleep can induce stress. I plan to explore this avenue in greater detail as it pertains to universities going online full time.
I have started my primary research with some twitter polls to learn about my cohorts bias (image 1), predictions (image 2) and changes so far (image 3). My primary research will have to be retested after semester has commenced and students have experienced having their courses delivered online full time.
I began to explore cognitive and social wellbeing through the study “Are we there yet: Comparing remote learning technologies in the university classroom” published by the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers. It compares remote learning tools with face to face attendance and telepresence robots.
Face to face learning was seen to be more expressive and students who participated through the distance learning technologies found more distraction but also more flexibility and ease to review content. Some of the suggestions were to condense and rehearse the material.(Cha, Fitter, Mataric, Raghunath, Sanchez, Takayama, 2020).
I am conscious of my own bias as I am currently experiencing this transition to an online university for the semester. To remain impartial and transparent during my research I will not count my own experience but rather the experience of the BCM212 cohort. I plan to explore online university from multiple perspectives before concluding my comparison. My topic of research is relevant in the current context and the available information will only increase, I believe this will also make it easier to survey and interview a substantial number of my peers.
References
Åkerstedt, T., 2006. Psychosocial stress and impaired sleep. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 32(6), pp.493-501 http://apps.webofknowledge.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/CitedFullRecord.do?product=WOS&colName=WOS&SID=E3gUPd4iyXkA6ZXeBzz&search_mode=CitedFullRecord&isickref=WOS:000243336100008
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020, Wellbeing Concepts 2019, viewed 22 March 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/
Fitter, NT, Raghunath, N, Cha, E, Sanchez, CA, Takayama, L & Mataric, MJ 2020, ‘Are We There Yet? Comparing Remote Learning Technologies in the University Classroom’, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Robotics and Automation Letters, IEEE, IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 2706–2713, viewed 28 March 2020, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edseee&AN=edseee.8978487&site=eds-live
Stringham, JM, Stringham, NT & O’Brien, KJ n.d, ‘Macular Carotenoid Supplementation Improves Visual Performance, Sleep Quality, and Adverse Physical Symptoms in Those with High Screen Time Exposure’, FOODS, vol. 6, no. 7, viewed 21 March 2020, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edswsc&AN=000407336200002&site=eds-live
LAURA 