Academic emotions – ONL-Learning.

Tranquility!

Frustrations (internal) in relation to barriers (external) among students in online courses might be e.g. technology or poor usability (in relation to the course design). Issues with “internet-access”, or the equipment, or the layout (“messy to find the course-information”).  See research described by Becker, Newton and Sawang (2013) or Keengwe and Kidd (2010). It might moreover be feelings of social not belonging, or lack in communication, between the students in the same course, or in relation to the teacher. Fear for interaction, or fear for failure, moreover described by researchers, that points out the value of academic emotions, and the teachers responsibility to be “cognitive, social and existential present” in the digital-space, as well as in the campus classroom (Hrastinski, 2013; 2016). At the course-start, the teacher should make time to inform about the course-instructions to the student. So the student feel safe, with what to do.
My experience (as a health science researcher) is from a life-world perspective (see eg. Husserl, 1962; Dahlberg & Dahlberg, 2008). Learning new things might be described as an interpersonal processes, as well as we find ourselves “existentially linked as social beings”. We also need support – or sometimes opponents – to deepen our understanding, to see new perspectives: “contextual, emotional, existential, and functional”, in learning situations. By this, I mean that we as people strive for meaning, and understanding based on our life situation. It means, that facts that we have “interpreted”, to a new meaning and understanding, are based on our subjective life-world. This means different things, for different people, different needs in relation to the learning-situation.
A sense of belonging and a feeling of generosity and sharing, is also described by eg. Hrastinski and Cleveland-Innes (2016). This of need for making sense in the online-working-group. Creativity and sharing, is essential elements in the course design!

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