The Effect of Social Anxiety and Approachability on Motivation in Online Classrooms
Marie Bright, Sarah Dietz, Kira Flinn,
& Tenyia Smith
a Research Methods Project supervised by Dr. Hilary Stebbins
(Spring 2021)
Stebbins_Bright_postercheck out these “elevator” talks from some members of the group
How do your hypotheses fit together? Was social anxiety a variable in both of your conditions?
And thank you for the new vocabulary word . . . flocculate!!
Really good topic to pick for your research. It is very relevant to our current situation in life. I think it is awesome that you ended up finding significant results. I also think it would be neat to look at how successful the participants were in the class with the different types of teaching styles for future research.
Kiara,
Thank you for your comment! I think if we were to conducted a study similar to this again, it would be beneficial to see the grades of the students that had approachable and unapproachable professors!
Good topic! Why do you think causes anxiety between students when they have a professor that can be approached?
Dr. Steckler,
Thank you for your comment! We predicted that by having a professor low in approachability, this would lead someone who was high in social anxiety to have low motivation to learn. Thus, we predicted that both high social anxiety and low professor approachability were predictors for low motivation.
In response to your second question, social anxiety was a variable in both conditions of reading a scenario that described a professor high in approachability and a professor low in approachability. We had social anxiety be tested by having participants take a twelve-point social anxiety scale that determined whether they were high in social anxiety or low in social anxiety. After completing this twelve-point social anxiety scale, the participants would then read counterbalanced scenarios that described an approachable and an unapproachable professor. Participants would then answers questions that regarded their motivation.
I hope that this response answered your questions! Thank you for your interest and questions!
This is a great and relevant topic for our current situation! Were the participants required to take a questionnaire to evaluate their social anxiety or were they asked if they experienced high or low social anxiety? Those are great constructs to look at together and how they may impact motivation in a course. I think its amazing you were able to find a significant result from doing this completely online! It would be really interesting to see how this study would play out in an in-person class or a hybrid class. Great job!
Hi Jasselyn,
Thank you for your comment! To answer your question – The participants were asked to complete a 12-point scale that measured their social anxiety. And from their score on the scale, it was determined if they have low or high anxiety. I would have loved to do this study in a fully in-person class.
This is an interesting study on a topic that is important to college students. From your results it looks as though the course motivation is the same as long as the approachable professor scenario is presented first. Is that correct? It would have been helpful to see some examples of what the scenarios were like.
Hi Dr. Mackintosh!
Thank you for your comment! That is correct! As long as the approachable scenario is presented first, the motivation for the course will stay the same if the student has low social anxiety.
Marie, Sarah, Kira, and Tenyia – great work here! Your methodology and study design was sound and this topic is so relevant! I think this topic is important to research for the promotion of student learning and comfort. In terms of social anxiety in the class room, it would be interesting to introduce another variable such as presence of motivation vs actual participation. I would imagine that a participant who rated themselves high in social anxiety may still have high motivation for the course, but their engagement and participation is stunted by an unapproachable professor. Just a thought. Again, great job!
Hi Katie! Thank you for your comment! That is a great thought. We did not think about that because our participant pool came SONA and social media but if our study was in person, I think your suggestion is great one and should be implicated.
Good job guys! This was a really interesting study. I wonder how the results would differ is the study was done in person and the participants had to interact with the professors. Sometimes professors can be more approachable over email than they are in person.
Hi Emma,
Thank you for your comment! I do wonder if the results would have been different if the participants were in a classroom instead of online. It may have had the same effect, a different effect, or the interaction between both approachability and social anxiety could have been significant.
Great job! Do you think that being afraid of contributing to online classes can impact a students motivation?
Good job guys! This is a very good study and very relevant for college students today. It would be very interesting if you guys did this study again in a year but when we are in person and see how the results compare. I feel like it is hard to judge a professor or even a student over email communication. It is very interesting to think about though how much social anxiety can play a role in the perception of a professor or even the ability to talk to them and even vice versa how a professor’s attitude and general demeanor can bring out some social anxiety.
Hi! I completely agree that repeating this study when classes are back to normal would be extremely interesting as well as being able to do the study in which the participants would be able to attend actual lectures. I think it is interesting that you brought up a student with anxiety having to talk to the professor and how anxiety would effect this interaction no matter the attitude of the professor as having to talk face-to-face verses online would have a drastic effect on anxiety.
This is such an interesting study! One component of my teams’ study was investigating the relationship between students’ motivation to learn and its influence on their participation via camera usage in a virtual class, and an aspect we were curious about in regard to furthering our research was a student’s attitude toward the professor. We tried to create a neutral class scenario for our measurement of camera usage, so I wonder if our results would have differed if we had a class scenario with a professor of high approachability and a professor of low approachability. I am curious to learn a bit more about your two scenarios- how did you differentiate between a professor with high approachability versus low approachability? It could be neat if you decide to further your study to see the impact approachability has on students’ academic performance or achievement in a virtual setting. I love that your study is relevant to the current dependency on virtual learning. You all did a great job!
Hi Lexi! Thank you for your comment. The difference between the two scenarios were the characteristics of the two professors. The approachable professor was described by providing means of communication for the students to contact them outside of class, having the students introduce themselves after class for extra credit, an was very enthusiastic while teaching. While the unapproachable professor was late to class, showed no enthusiasm while teaching, only provided his email to the students, and left immediate after class. I happy that your enjoyed our study!
I think you all did a great job with this presentation! Do you think that being an introvert or extrovert would also be related to this study?
Great job with this presentation! I think that with online learning it is hard to have the motivation to do well when you do not see your teacher at all or at least not regularly. I personally have experienced this quite a bit this past year. I totally agree that an approachable and motivating teacher can affect how motivated and anxious a student is even if they are not usually extremely anxious or motivated.
Hi everyone! This study is really interesting and super relevant! I wonder how the results might change after most people begin to attend in-person classes again. Your research serves as a great benchmark to compare future research to.
I really liked the basis for this study! I liked the connection between social anxiety and teacher approachability. For future research I think that having individuals watch videos of an “approachable” versus a “non-approachable” teacher would be interesting for people who haven’t been in an online class which would make your sample population larger.