Understanding How Social Anxiety Affects Participation in Online Tutorials

Anyone who has taught via online platforms will be aware that some students find it hard to engage with this medium of learning. Many students sign up to such sessions but do not join on the day, whilst others do not sign up at all. Some do join the session but find it difficult to participate due to the nature of the online platform or the way the sessions are structured. Still others may participate but might be anxious that their participation is being evaluated negatively by the tutor or their peers. Due to the nature of online tutorials, unless students reveal these anxieties to their tutor the tutor is unlikely to be aware of the negative emotions being experienced and therefore cannot address them. A student experiencing anxiety is therefore at risk of avoiding online tutorials, which can affect their learning. Negative emotions might hamper a student’s learning to the extent that they stop studying and therefore do not achieve their academic goals. 

This project aims to find out more about the triggers for anxiety in relation to online tutorials through a questionnaire sent to Level 1 students in the School of Social Sciences and Global Studies near the beginning of their module. It will then hold one-to-one interviews with a small number of students to explore in more detail the anxiety they might experience as well as strategies that could be employed by the University to help reduce this anxiety. 

Once the project is completed, the module team aims to disseminate the findings to interested groups within the University, so that they can consider adjusting their practices in order to better support students who experience anxiety when participating in online tutorials.