Assessing the impact of Virtual Learning Environments in higher education on student and staff mental well-being

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The use of digital technologies as teaching and learning toolshas grown rapidly in Higher Education with all universitiesusing online platforms called Virtual Learning Environments.Online platforms typically provide resources, reading lists,activities, chat forums and lectures recordings. Universitiesare striving to increase use of such platforms. Two keyassumptions underpin this i) students and staff arecomfortable in digital environments, and ii) studentsappreciate the flexibility of this type of education which gives24/7 educational provision. These assumptions are untested.It is possible that rather than being beneficial, increaseddigital education is detrimental. For example, there isemerging evidence that both staff and students have lowerlevels of digital skills than original believed, which may meantheir comfort in working within digital environments has beenoverestimated (e.g. Beetham and White, 2013). Increasedreliance on Virtual Learning Environments may contribute toa greater loneliness among students and the 24/7 provisionmay leave students feeling that they should be workinglonger hours, adding pressure for them. Both effects couldbe damaging to mental health. These effects may also befound in academic staff.Student and staff mental health difficulties are increasing.Student mental health has been identified as a significantconcern amongst key stakeholders. A recent large scaleinternational study, identified that 31% of students screenedpositive for at least one common mental health disorder inthe past year (Auerbach et al., 2018). Student serviceproviders are reporting a substantive increase in demand forcounselling services (Williams et al., 2015). There arefrequent reports from students of loneliness (Richardson etal., 2015, Byrom, 2014) and feeling under pressure to do wellacademically (Piper and Byrom, 2017; Thorley, 2017).Although less researched, there is evidence of increasingmental health problems in academic staff, with manyreported as being at risk of burnout (Watts and Robertson,2010). A recent survey found that 43% of academic staffexhibited symptoms of at least a mild mental disorder; this isalmost twice the figure for the general population(Gorczynski et al., 2017).