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

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。大学正在努力增加对这类平台的使用。支持这一点的两个关键假设是：1)学生和教职员工适应数字环境；2)学生欣赏这种提供全天候教育的教育类型的灵活性。这些假设是未经检验的。增加数字教育可能非但不是有益的，反而是有害的。例如，有新的证据表明，教职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)。增加对虚拟学习环境的依赖可能会增加学生的孤独感，而全天候服务可能会让学生觉得他们应该工作更长的时间，从而增加他们的压力。这两种影响都可能对心理健康造成损害。这些影响也可能出现在教职员工身上。学生和教职员工的心理健康困难正在增加。学生的心理健康已被确定为关键利益相关者的重要关切。最近的一项大规模国际研究发现，31%的学生在过去一年中至少筛查出一种常见的心理健康疾病(奥尔巴赫等人，2018年)。学生服务提供者报告称，对咨询服务的需求大幅增加(Williams等人，2015年)。经常有学生报告孤独(Richardson Etal.，2015，Byrom，2014)和感到学业压力大(Piper and Byrom，2017；Thorley，2017)。尽管研究较少，但有证据表明，教职员工的心理健康问题越来越多，许多人有职业倦怠的风险(Watts and Robertson，2010)。最近的一项调查发现，43%的教职员工至少表现出轻度精神障碍的症状；这几乎是普通人群的两倍(Gorczynski等人，2017年)。

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).