ABSTRACT
This paper explores differences in 437 learners' "foreign language classroom anxiety" (FLCA) in in-person and online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes before the outbreak of the pandemic and during the first lockdown in spring 2020. Statistical analyses of data gathered with a web survey revealed a slight, yet significant drop in learners' overall FLCA in "emergency remote teaching." In order to obtain a more granular view, item-level analyses revealed that learners in online classes were significantly less worried about being outperformed by peers, suffered less from physical symptoms of anxiety when called on in class, and were less anxious when they were in fact well-prepared. Feeling embarrassed to volunteer answers was significantly higher in online classes. Interviews with 21 participants revealed that the interviewees mentioned anxiety-provoking aspects of the class considerably more frequently online than in in-person classes. However, the sources of anxiety in online classes differed from the ones in classes taught on-site. Thus, it seems that the newness of the setting foregrounded anxiety-provoking aspects specific to emergency remote teaching, making others fade into the background at the beginning of the pandemic.
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In today's educational world, it is crucial for language teachers to continuously evolve in order to best serve language learners. Further study on the best practices and challenges in the language classroom is crucial to ensure instructors continue to grow as educators. The "Handbook of Research on Language Teacher Identity" addresses new developments in the field of language education affected by evolving learning environments and the shift from traditional teaching and assessment practices to the digital-age teaching, learning, and assessment. Ideal for industry professionals, administrators, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students, this book aims to raise awareness regarding reflective practice and continuous professional development of educators, collaborative teaching and learning, innovative ways to foster critical (digital) literacy, student-centered instruction and assessment, development of authentic teaching materials and engaging classroom activities, teaching and assessment tools and strategies, cultivation of digital citizenship, and inclusive learning environments.
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The shelter-in-place orders across the U.S. in response to the COVID-19 pandemic forced many relationships once sustained by in-person interaction into remote states through computer-mediated communication (CMC). Work, school, holidays, social engagements, and everyday conversations formerly experienced through rich and contextual in-person interactions instead have taken place on messaging, voice, and video chatting platforms that diminish or altogether lack many social cues and other qualities critical to social interaction. The difficulties feeling connected to one another observed during this period have stressed the need for novel forms of communication that enable deeper interactions. Social biosensing, the interpersonal sharing of physiological information, has shown promise facilitating social connection at a distance. In the present research we document the experiences of nine pairs of friends (N = 18) who navigated living through a shelter-in-place order, reporting on their experiences sharing their electrodermal activity (EDA) in response to short videos. Participants described the artificial and unnatural nature of communicating using typical forms of CMC and a range of interpretations of EDA as both emotional response and as representative of personal characteristics. We implemented a phased approach to study the temporal nature of forming an understanding of unfamiliar yet intimate data like EDA. Our results indicate typologies of meaning-making processes: "stablers", "broadeners", and "puzzlers". We also interpreted our findings through the lens of intersubjectivity, analyzing how analogical apperception and dialogical interaction both play a role in participants' meaning-making about their own and their partner's biosensory information. We conclude with implications from this work pertinent to intersubjectivity theorists, social biosensing researchers, and CMC system designers and developers.
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The use of computer-mediated communication including emails has become pervasive in academic contexts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. What seems to be significant but simply overlooked by students is meeting politeness netiquettes while sending emails. To this end, the current study investigated the extent to which non-native English speaking university students adjust the level of politeness in their response emails written in English to that of the emails received from an American professor. To collect data, four versions of an academic email message with different levels of politeness were prepared in advance. The emails either included or excluded verbal and structural politeness markers and asked for the participants' demographic information and their reason for participation in the study. Then, 73 university students enrolled in a general English course were selected and divided randomly into four groups each of which received one version of the email message from the professor. The results of the data analysis on the participants' response emails, based on accommodation theory (Giles 1973) as a theoretical framework, revealed that they did not accommodate either verbal or structural politeness cues in emails. Besides, the participants' knowledge of the politeness etiquettes in the academic email genre seemed inadequate. Finally, the article provides some pedagogical implications for course designers, materials developers, and instructors to devise some plans to raise students' awareness of email politeness etiquettes and for students to be aware of the significance of meeting politeness principles in their academic emails.
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Adolescents' interactions with friends were severely disrupted during stay-at-home orders associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The current study (N = 144, 49% female, 80% European American) considered adolescents' perceptions of this disruption and the implications of the disruption for their emotional adjustment. Adolescents reported that not seeing friends was the most distressing consequence of the pandemic. Compared to before the pandemic, adolescents reported a large decrease in in-person interactions with friends, which was related to loneliness. There was a small increase in online interactions, which could counteract the effects of fewer in-person interactions, but only if the interactions felt socially connected. Online interactions lacking social connection were related to greater loneliness and depressive symptoms.
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Female spiritual influencers on Instagram engage with conspiracy content and appeal to the issue of control over female bodies to bridge the gap between mainstream and fringe online spaces. I use the concept of "third space" to analyse the dynamics of Instagram communities around spiritual influencers and highlight how these communities operate as spaces for political discussion while simultaneously appearing apolitical from the outside. Analysing data from participant observation and interviews with six female Czech spiritual influencers, I place their online communication and presentation within the context of the conspirituality movement (Ward, Voas, 2011). Furthermore, I present ethnographic evidence on how the influencers moved from spiritual to conspiritual content within their everyday online performances.
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When The Learning Center, a consumer health library at a cancer center, closed its doors in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was not a robust system of virtual outreach in place. Staff decided to implement a chat/SMS service as one way to reach patrons during the library's 16-month shutdown, but usage numbers were low. A variety of factors can affect use and complicate success, and quantitative measures may not be the sole factor in evaluating a new service and whether it should continue. This article will talk about service implementation, challenges and context, patron and staff satisfaction, and lessons learned from the process.
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Theoretical and empirical work on digital media use and social connectedness has often considered face-to-face communication to be an available option. But how do various digital media uses relate to social connectedness when face-to-face communication is not, or much less, possible? Drawing on survey data from 2925 US adults during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that different digital communication methods display different relationships with social connectedness under stay-at-home circumstances with limited in-person interactions outside the home. Overall, digital communication relates to lower social connectedness. In line with notions from social presence theory, especially digital media lower in social presence (e.g. email, social media, and online games, and to some extent text messaging) relate negatively to social connectedness, while this is not the case for higher social presence media (e.g. voice and video calls). Our study has implications for theorizing about digital media use and social connectedness in times when face-to-face communication is less available. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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The article reflects on the issue of online communication in Israeli schools during the pandemic. In this piece authors reflect upon the swift integration of online communication technologies in schools in Israel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the years, educational authorities in Israel expressed concern over children's use of online media and were reluctant to admit online communication, and especially social media, into schools. A Director General's Circular published by the Ministry of Education in 2011, which is still officially binding, constructs the blurred boundaries between teachers, students and parents in online communication as a challenge to school hierarchies. It thus recommends that teachers use caution when publishing on social media, and instructs them to refrain from interacting with students and parents online, particularly in group contexts. This suspicion toward and abstinence from mediated communication may be seen to underlie the failure of a national online learning drill, which the Ministry of Education conducted in the first days of March 2020. Despite this failure, two weeks later the severity of the pandemic led the Ministry to shut down schools and authorize a general transition to online learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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A web-based, cross-sectional survey was developed by the research team guided by BELS literature. The instrument was administered in fall 2020 at a mid-size, land-grant institution located in the US Midwest. All undergraduate students were invited to participate via a university email list, resulting in 1,243 participants (8.3% response rate). Half of the a priori course structure variables loaded on the first factor as they related to aspects of course design offering students control over their learning environment. HyFlex learning environments offer flexibility for students to attend class, and when deliberately planned in the course pedagogy, can engage students simultaneously across platforms. When studied under pandemic conditions, subtle nuances exist between HyFlex and BELS contexts. Although findings may be unique to COVID-19, the specific constructs of student engagement in HyFlex may also be attributed to a dual-instruction space. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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The intersection between criminal justice and technology is fairly understudied, despite increasing technological advancements in the world and within the criminal justice system. A rather recent addition to the technological landscape of prison is the adoption of tablets used by imprisoned people for communication and connection with loved ones and other activities, which is particularly important given the context of COVID-19, a virus which caused a global pandemic from 2020-2022. While the use of tablets by imprisoned people appears to be a new trend, the use of tablets in prison both prior to and during the pandemic has remained an untested phenomenon, not yet evaluated by social scientists. The dissertation sought to address this gap in literature by interviewing fifteen people formerly incarcerated in the Ohio State Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) and surveying a difficult to reach population, people currently incarcerated in ODRC (n=78), concerning their communication with loved ones using tablets and its meaning on their life and re-entry into society. The results of this study indicate that tablets are socially-situated in nature, and therefore the meaning of tablets depends upon the use of tablets by imprisoned people which is mediated by several factors concerning imprisoned people's individual and environmental contexts. The quantitative study indicates that imprisoned people's use and experience of tablets prior to and during COVID-19 is mediated by their demographic characteristics such as their age, parental status, marital status, and years served in prison, according to the quantitative study. The qualitative study indicates that several factors concerning imprisoned people's life inside of prison (e.g., technical glitches and correctional officers' attitudes) and outside of prison (e.g., their support system and financial standing) mediate their use of tablets in prison, and ultimately undermine the meaning of tablets for imprisoned people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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This study investigates the experiential components of armchair travelling and their effect on the armchair travelers' responses, which include perceived authenticity, destination image, and behavioral intention, by using a mixed-method approach. A total of 414 survey responses collected through an online research panel were analyzed by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The analysis reveals that a sense of telepresence and copresence are the major factors, which generate authenticity and a positive destination image. Perceived ease of use influences building a favorable destination image, whereas self-other online interactions significantly create a sense of authenticity with the armchair travel experience. The content analysis for the qualitative data collected using an open-ended question shows that the armchair travelers gain vicarious travel experiences and resolve mental stress through armchair travelling. Based on the results, this study provides meaningful theoretical and practical implications to the armchair tourism literature and industry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
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The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent social distancing guidelines has had a great impact on society. Emerging adults (ages 18-29) specifically are struggling as their need for social connection is critical to their mental health. However, the lack of nonverbal cues in electronically mediated communication (EMC) makes maintaining relationships online more difficult. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, our online communication has been advancing, so that some nonverbal cues, such as gestures and facial expressions, can be replicated in text conversations through emojis. Specifically, this study examined the role of emojis in providing emotional cues to reduce ambiguity, enhance positive affect, decrease negative affect, and increase feelings of social connectedness. Four separate ANCOVAs were conducted in order to explore the differences between emojis conditions (positive, negative, neutral, and no emojis) on the outcome variables while including current levels of psychological distress as a covariate. For each of the four models, there was at least one emoji condition that was statistically different than the others, suggesting that the inclusion of emojis had a significant impact on perceived ambiguity, changes in positive and negative affect, and feelings of connectedness. Additional pairwise t-tests demonstrated that the ambiguous text message was the clearest when it was accompanied by a positive emoji, when compared to both the negative and neutral emoji condition. The statements with a positive emoji, instead of no emoji, contributed to less of a decrease in positive affect. Additionally, the addition of each emoji had a unique impact on negative affect. Furthermore, positive emojis, when added to an ambiguous text message, contributed the most to feelings of connectedness when compared to the negative emoji, the neutral emoji, and no emoji conditions. Limitations and future directions are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically altered formal classrooms and traditional learning environments with many educational institutions forced to teach online. Communicative L2 classes are impacted as in-person, face-to-face interactions are key to developing communicative competence. This qualitative research study investigates if L2 communicative competence can be demonstrated via online synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) platforms as an alternative to formal classrooms. Previous research on SCMC has focused on its implementation in a blended learning environment to support formal classrooms. The study analyzes seven recorded group interactions of 22 Japanese university students in a communication class for a presentation and discussion project done completely online while being physically isolated. The study observes whether L2 communicative competence can be demonstrated via expression, integration, and negotiation of meaning. Additionally, technological competence via procedural and technological negotiation is examined. The study shows that with careful planning, structured scaffolding from the instructor and technological familiarity and acceptance from the students, L2 communicative competence via SCMC platforms can be demonstrated, to varying degrees, when formal classrooms are not available. Formal classrooms may never be completely replaced but the development of SCMC platforms shows technological possibilities in future L2 learning environments. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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Keynote Address: Canadian Society for Traditional Music/ Society for Ethnomusicology 2020 Virtual Annual Meeting 24 October 2020 I am speaking to you from my home in Toronto, Canada.1 I wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates and where my house is located. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous Peoples from across Turtle Island and I am grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. (https://indigenous.utoronto.ca/about/ land-acknowledgement/) Thank you to the president and board, and leadership and memberships of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music (CSTM) and the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), for the opportunity to give this keynote lecture. The first thing I'll say is that though I'm the one monologuing right now, what's coming is the product of many dialogues - some imaginary dialogues with authors I've been reading, and many more actual phone conversations, emails, text messages, and other forms of communication with fellow scholars, parents, and people, only some of whom are named in this slide [see endnote.]2 Keynote talks are intensely focused on one person, but I am thinking of this event more as me holding the mic in a long conversation and telling you about what I've been thinking, who I've been speaking with, and what I've been reading. According to Jobson, "As a discourse of moral perfectibility founded in histories of settler colonialism and chattel slavery, liberal humanism and its anthropological register of ethnographic sentimentalism proved insufficient to confront the existential threats of climate catastrophe and authoritarian retrenchment" (2019: 259).
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Introduction: Telehealth has been used previously in wellness, physical activity, and patient care in clinical populations. Renewed efforts by healthcare policy professionals promote telehealth to deliver services to patients during the covid-19 pandemic. Previous research has focused on the perceptions of medical providers, adult patients, and the parents and adult caregivers of children, with limited research on the use of telemedicine in young children in early intervention programs. This study aimed to collect and evaluate Connecticut Birth-to-Three providers' perceptions of using telehealth to deliver therapeutic services to children ages zero to three years. Methods: This research was a cross-sectional exploratory study utilizing an anonymous online survey. An email containing the survey link was sent to Connecticut Birth-to-Three program directors for distribution to social workers, occupational, physical, behavioral, developmental, and speech therapists employed by each agency. Results: All category service providers in this study indicated they would likely use telehealth to deliver therapeutic support services to patients. Providers with high IT familiarity levels were most likely to use telehealth. Providers with high levels of education were least likely to use telehealth. Discussion: Responses show telehealth is feasible for delivering therapeutic support services to young patients. Concerns that should be considered in future research include long-term telehealth usage, policy regulations, insurance coverage, and billing regulations. Conclusion: Telehealth is suitable for delivering therapeutic services to patients in the Connecticut Birth-to-Three program, increasing provider access to patients in covid-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This paper aims to examine how a social entrepreneurial organisation in Sweden collectively learned to adapt itself to the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: Using an abductive approach, this study conducted single case fieldwork on a social entrepreneurial organisation called SFE. The following research questions were asked: What are the changes in collective learning conditions that SFE has to face during the pandemic? What are the outcomes of collective learning during the pandemic in SFE? Findings: This study results indicate that collective learning conditions were changed by restructuring the organisation's design and teamwork during the pandemic, which facilitated sharing of knowledge and experiences. This collective learning helped the organisation develop new virtual projects during the pandemic. Another result of this collective learning was the members' new shared understanding of the organisation's vision. Research limitations/implications: This study hopes to broaden the understanding of the relationship between collective learning in organisations and organisational adaptation in times of crisis. Practical implications: This study can help leaders of social entrepreneurial organisations understand what changes are necessary to create a team that collectively learns. Originality/value: The data had the advantage of being gathered as a real-time process, and the researcher witnessed how the organisation achieved adaptation as it happened and not just through its members' reflection of it as a past phenomenon.
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Though information technology has been edging its way into English education for years, students and teachers were thrown into new digital dilemmas in 2020 when the onset of COVID-19 normalized digital learning. The emergence of TikTok as a primary communication tool, especially for high school youth, quickly became worrisome. Not only was the app used for entertainment and surrogate social interaction, but it also became a platform for public health mis- and disinformation concerning COVID-19. English teachers have much to learn from the precarious endeavor of using social media to address urgent literacy issues, including public health literacy. What can or should English educators do about the amplification of dangerous content on TikTok? What are the risks, challenges, and affordances of supervised engagement? The pandemic amplified global precarity, highlighting disproportionate vulnerabilities based on age, race, gender, and other intersectional factors. Humans' interdependence underscores the need to examine unequal conditions in the English classroom.
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COVID-19 and the resulting stay-at-home orders issued to reduce the spread of the virus created a novel social situation in which people could not spend in-person time with their family and friends. Thus, emerging technologies like video calling and other forms of mediated communication like voice calling and text messaging became important resources for people to stay in touch. The purpose of this study was threefold. First, we wanted to test whether people would use more mediated communication (video calls, voice calls, text messaging) to stay in touch during the stay-at-home order. Second, we wanted to see if increased mediated communication would be positively associated with well-being. Finally, we explored whether mediated communication was related to age. To answer these questions, we surveyed 2092 participants who answered questions online about how their use of video calls, voice calls, and text messaging and their well-being had changed since the stay-at-home order. Our results show that people increased their use of mediated communication, particularly video calling;and increases in mediated communication with close others, particularly friends, was related to higher levels of well-being. Finally, we found that age was related only to the use of video calling;younger people tended to use more video calling. These findings support the compensatory theory of technology use, that people use technologically mediated communication to maintain contact with their close friends and family when in-person contact is not possible, and that this form of contact, when in-person interaction is unavailable, is associated with positive outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
A COYID-19-járvány okozta változások megerosítették a CMC kommunikáció részesedését a kommunikáció egészében. Egy éve mindannyian a képernyok elott ülünk, és mindeközben felmerülnek a következo kérdések: Vajon hogyan valósítjuk meg, és hogyan dolgozzuk fel a társas viszonyokat? Hogyan dolgozzuk fel magát a társas kontextust? Egy év bezártság után hogyan muködtetjük a kommunikációs sémákat? Mekkora társas hálózatokat tartunk fenn, és milyen csatornákon keresztül? A tanulmány egy három részbol álló vizsgálat elso, kérdoívre alapuló részében ezeket a kérdéseket járja körül. A kutatás lengyel és magyar anyanyelvu adatközlok körében, két korcsoportban (18-30 évesek és 30-50 évesek) végzett kvalitatív vizsgálaton alapul. Az eredmények azt mutatják, hogy a CMC-csatorna kiválasztása kapcsolatban áll a társas viszony jellegével - baráti, ismerosi körben a chatüzenetek a legnépszerubbek, az online videóbeszélgetés viszont erosen formális helyzetekhez kapcsolódik. A vizsgálat eredményei tehát azt jelzik, hogy a társas kapcsolatok jellege hatással van a CMC-csatornák kiválasztására. A kommunikáció során használt különbözo grafikai jelek alkalmazása is a társas kontextustól függ, azaz a CMC-ben bizonyos mértékben a társas kontextus feldolgozását jelölhetik.Alternate abstract:The changes caused by the COVID-19 epidemic reinforced the share of CMC in communication. We have all been sitting here in front of the screen for a year, but how can we develop and process social relations? How do we process the social context? How do we operate communication schemes after a year of closure? How big social networks do we maintain, and through what channels? The first part of the three-part study, based on a questionnaire, addresses the mentioned questions. The study is based on a qualitative study conducted between Polish and Hungarian native speakers in two age groups (18-30 years old and 30-50 years old). The results of the research show that the selection of the CMC channel is related to the nature of the social relationship - among friends, acquaintances the exchange of chat messages was the most popular, while the online video chat is strongly associated with formal situations. The results of the research show that the nature of the social relationship has a crucial impact on selecting CMC channel. The use of different graphical symbols used in communication depends on the social contexts, as they indicate how we process a certain social contexts in the CMC.