Neuropsychological Impact of Online Learning

As conversations continue on effective methods to create and provide inclusive, accessible teaching and learning environments online (a/synchronous), this week I would like to share recent research by Voloshyna et al. (2022), entitled “Moderating the Neuropsychological Impact of Online Learning on Psychology Students.”

The research questions addressed how students perceive their e-learning experiences; and how the practices in breathing exercises, meditation, or yoga moderate the impact of online learning on students’ attentional capacities, memory processes, and cognition abilities. It seems that the approach could be used in many learning contexts, online and in-person.

The descriptive mix-method study relied on a baseline study, experiment, and reporting. The experiment utilized neuropsychology tests adopted from the NeurOn platform [construct/content validity and the inter-rater reliability followed Rodrigues et al. (2017) approach]. The authors found that the students’ perceptions of e-learning and their emotional reaction were found not to be appreciative. The practices in breathing exercises, meditation, or yoga proved to be able to moderate the impact of online learning on students’ attentional capacities, memory processes, and cognition abilities. The students confirmed that activities reduced stress and burnout caused by e-learning and improved their academic performance. The treatment also helped students keep emotional balance, concentrate on their studies easier, remember more information, and meet deadlines in completing assignments.

The authors state that the “most compelling explanation for the findings could be that the students were under academic pressure which are associated with unreasonably excessive cognitive overload, limited flexibility, and emotional problems and fears. Finally, they conclude that “the novelty of the study lies in the approach to monitoring students’ biology of the learning and brain capacity using the online tools which allow making the study process more student responsive.”

References

Voloshyna, V., Stepanenko, I., Zinchenko, A., Andriiashyna, N. & Hohol, O. (2022). Moderating the neuropsychological impact of online learning on psychology students . European Journal of Educational Research, 11(2), 681 - 695. ISSN: 2165-8714