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

评估高等教育中虚拟学习环境对学生和教职员工心理健康的影响

• 批准号: 2317404
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: King's College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2317404
• 关键词: Assessing; impact; Virtual; Learning; Environments

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).

数字技术作为教学和学习工具的使用在高等教育中迅速发展，所有大学都使用称为虚拟学习环境的在线平台。在线平台通常提供资源、阅读清单、活动、聊天论坛和讲座录音。大学正在努力增加这类平台的使用。有两个关键的假设支撑着这一点：1)学生和员工在数字环境中感到舒适；2)学生欣赏这种教育的灵活性，因为它提供了全天候的教育服务。这些假设未经检验。数字教育的增加可能不是有益的，而是有害的。例如，有新出现的证据表明，员工和学生的数字技能水平都低于最初认为的水平，这可能意味着他们在数字环境中工作的舒适度被高估了（例如Beetham和White， 2013）。对虚拟学习环境的日益依赖可能会导致学生之间的孤独感加剧，24/7全天候服务可能会让学生觉得他们应该工作更长时间，从而增加他们的压力。这两种影响都可能损害心理健康。这些影响也可能出现在学术人员身上。学生和教职员的心理健康问题正在增加。学生心理健康已被确定为主要利益相关者关注的一个重大问题。最近的一项大规模国际研究发现，在过去的一年中，31%的学生在至少一种常见精神健康障碍方面的筛查呈阳性（Auerbach等人，2018）。学生服务提供者报告说，对咨询服务的需求大幅增加（Williams et al., 2015）。经常有来自学生的孤独报告（理查森等）。（Piper and Byrom, 2017; Thorley, 2017），并且在学业上感到压力（Piper and Byrom, 2017; Thorley, 2017）。尽管研究较少，但有证据表明，学术人员的心理健康问题越来越多，据报道，许多人有倦怠的风险（Watts和Robertson，2010）。最近的一项调查发现，43%的学术人员表现出至少轻度精神障碍的症状；这几乎是普通人群的两倍（Gorczynski et al., 2017）。