The Body's Experience of Online Versus Face-to-Face Learning

New findings in the world of learning and teaching futures

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Due to the strong interconnection between stress and emotions and the well-described effects of emotions on cognition and learning, academic emotions have been of substantial interest within the field of educational psychology.

The literature suggests that positive academic emotions are associated with high academic achievement, whereas deactivating negative academic emotions generally predict low academic achievement. One important category of academic emotions is epistemic emotions - emotions that are triggered by cognitive problems or obstacles. Examples of these emotions include surprise at a new task and curiosity and confusion about a challenge or obstacle. Epistemic emotions are especially important in learning with new, non-routine tasks. Research suggests that while many students believe that learning should fixed, simple, certain and quick, and may misinterpret extra effort as poorer learning, errors are the gateway to neuroplasticity, and that that’s why it is important for students to sit with the frustration of learning for a while.

One question that has received considerable attention over the last three years is whether there are any differences in how the body experiences online learning compared to face-to-face learning? Two recent studies from a research team at Ruhr University’s Faculty of Medicine provide some fascinating insights.

In 2022, the team published results of study that investigated whether stress occurs to the same extent in online learning as during in-person classes. They measured various physiological parameters, including heart rate variability and salivary cortisol concentrations in students who attended an anatomy course either online or in a physical classroom.

Although the courses were equally intellectually demanding, the online group showed a significantly lower physiological state of excitation. In other words, students were more relaxed when they attended the class online. Given the documented interdependence of physiological arousal, emotions and academic achievement, this begs the questions as to whether differences in the types of online learning environments can generate differences in psychobiological responses.

The same research team has just published a study in the journal Annals of Anatomy, suggesting that the extent to which learning is active can influence the physiological state of arousal. The researchers developed three different learning environments for the course: face-to-face teaching, passive online teaching and active online teaching. During the course, the researchers measured the students' heart rate variability as an indicator of the activation of the autonomic nervous system, as well as the concentration of certain enzymes and hormones in their saliva.

Compared to passive online teaching, students in active online learning environment showed increased concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva - a sign of greater physiological arousal. In addition, decreased heart rate variability and concentrations of a particular enzyme in saliva, indicating that the body was entering a state of higher readiness to perform, was shown during active online teaching. Importantly, the values for the active online learning environment were comparable to those for the face-to-face learning environment.

These two studies highlight that it may be the extent to which students are actively engaged, rather than simply whether they are learning online or in a physical classroom, that makes the difference to the body's experience of learning. While in the first study online learning was found to result in a lower physiological state of excitation, in the second study incorporating active learning elements into an online learning environment achieved a similar physiological arousal as in a face-to-face learning environment.